Weekend of a Champion

This is more of an excellent fan experience than an excellent documentary. It is extremely satisfying. It takes you back in time to 1971, Monaco F1 GP. Without narration, cameras (with seemingly unrestricted access) follow legendary J. Stewart during race weekend. As such, neophytes may find little guidance in understanding the structure of activities during a race weekend. So in the end I think it may be a movie for fans of the driver and fans of the sport. The footage is Stewart and Team Tyrrell-centric, so if you're hoping for lots of footage of other teams it is not going to be here. Everything was so different back then, and this is plainly shown. Monaco was way less developed, and the entire team experience was so much more primal. F1 fans will revel in the gut-level relationship between man and team, and man and machine. Following the "feature documentary footage", an intimate contemporary meeting between the director and Stewart is shown. Here, historical improvements in safety are highlighted. This review twists at one's sensibilities - it's suggested that left to itself, the industry might never have addressed the issues and made the simple improvements needed to save drivers' lives. My favorite throw away line (which may simply seem rude taken out context - I assure you it is not) "Racing drivers were amateur gynecologists but to have that specialist as the chief medical officer that was the bizarreness of the time..."