Barcelona Metropolis

Jackie Stewart pulls up in front of the Tyrrell garage at the stadium, slows to a stop, and, without taking his hands off the steering wheel, briefly closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he finds himself in the paddock, where the damp ground glistens like glass. “Where is Uncle Ken?” Ken Tyrrell, the team owner, is always waiting for him in the pit, wearing his cap and holding a sheet with the lap times on a wooden stand.

“And Helen?” Helen times his laps too. She has long, straight hair that falls over her rosy lips and small nose. “What about François? And the mechanics?” François Cevert is his teammate. He’s younger than Jackie, who acts like an older brother to him. Gripping the edge of the cockpit with both hands, he stands up on the seat of the red Tyrrell. “A red Tyrrell? And with the number 8?” His own car was navy blue and bore the number 11. He struggles to remove his helmet, as if uncorking a bottle. Removing the cotton balaclava from his head, he looks at his helmet, which is white and does not have the Stewart tartan and the small Elf sticker on the front. Next to him is François’s car, yellow, also with the number 8. Further along, there’s another Tyrrell, green, with the number 17. He tucks the balaclava inside his helmet and unzips his race suit. He picks up the helmet by its strap like a basket, bends down to inspect the front wing, and notices that it’s made of plastic. In the paddock, there’s no Matra-Simca belonging to Beltoise. Nor is there Fittipaldi’s Lotus. And Jacky Ickx’s Ferrari, his rival who will also be racing in Montjuïc tomorrow, is absent too. Instead, there’s a white Chaparral, a yellow Sigma and an orange Wankel Mercedes – cars from different categories that have somehow ended up here.

Perhaps the paddock at the Montjuïc stadium serves as a valley of Jehoshaphat for racing drivers. Once, he and Helen counted how many friends and acquaintances they had seen die, and the total came to 57: teammates, competitors and people with whom they had shared a meal at some point. Maybe when drivers pass away, they end up in a circuit’s paddock on the day of a significant race. Yet he always boasts that he has never left a drop of blood inside a car. “Boast” isn’t quite the right word, though. You cannot boast about what has cost others their lives. With slender hands and a delicate touch on the steering wheel, he possesses the skill to slide the wheels and direct the nose toward the corner’s exit after the car leaps over a crest and lands on the track on all four wheels. He runs his hand over the Tyrrell’s worn tyre, feeling the circle with the number 8 and the Elf sticker featuring the two blue and pink parallelepipeds, which seem ready to peel off.

“You would go under the bridge and a change in gradient would make the car leap. Then came a very tricky left-hand turn. At this point, you would be in second gear. Next, third, then fourth, until you reached another left turn. You’d prepare for the right turn, applying a hard brake. Then you’d accelerate quite quickly to reach a left turn that led into the lower part of the circuit. Another left turn. You’d accelerate to shift into fourth gear, which you would hold through a gentle right turn. Fifth gear. You’d drop back to fourth, then third. Next came a fairly long straight, leading to the uphill section that took you to the end of the circuit. It was a series of very fast corners that you’d take in fourth gear. With only five gears available, you had to be very precise to avoid making mistakes as you sped along. You would stay in fourth gear, shifting to fifth on a long left turn, experiencing a strong lateral G-force. You’d reach the top of the circuit, and there you were at the finish line”.

This is where he appeared just a moment ago in the red Tyrrell, as if he had come from another time and perhaps another world.

At the steering wheel of the cars, the drivers of the Tyrrell, Chaparral, Sigma and Wankel Mercedes appear as ghosts. Their blue or orange race suits, devoid of any brand names or logos, their hands stiffened, clinging tightly together, as if in the final gasp of death. The yellow or red helmets, with the visors lowered, staring straight ahead at vanished tracks, very tricky corners, gentle turns, long straights and climbs leading to the finish. There is no movement of their bodies, no gestures of their hands. “Clay!” On a green Ferrari B3 bearing the number 11 sits Clay Regazzoni, dressed in a blue race suit and a yellow helmet, a departure from his usual helmet, which featured the colours of the Swiss flag and a small white cross on the red part in the middle. “Clay!” He has been dead for years, the victim of a motorway accident. He was in a wheelchair after losing his brakes during a race at Long Beach. It seemed as if he moved his head slightly, just as they say Ayrton Senna did when he was already dead or nearly dead after crashing at the Tamburello corner. A piece of paint is missing from the Ferrari’s silver front wing. “Patrick!” There is a red six-wheeled Tyrrell with the number 3. The Elf stickers and a small British flag adorn each side. Patrick Depailler has been dead for 40 years, having died at Hockenheim. In his blue race suit and yellow helmet, a departure from his usual blue, white and red colours, he stares blankly ahead, his hands gripping the wheel, the suit crinkling at the elbows. Stewart nudges his arm, but Depailler doesn’t move. He lifts the visor, and there is nothing inside the helmet.