Villeneuve Pironi (2022)

Torquil Jones and his archive research team are to be commended for sourcing some pretty amazing library footage as Gilles Villeneuve joined and dominated the Ferrari F1 team until the arrival of Frenchman Didier Pironi and then the wheels, quite literally, all came off. This is a story of a tragic rivalry that I suspect few will recall. It is a personal affair. Contributions from those close to both drivers - intimately and professionally - help us to realise just how cut-throat the business of Formula One was. I couldn't help feeling that I was being manoeuvred, though. Watch for yourself, but I definitely felt that the editorial was steering me more to one camp than the other - and I didn't particularly like that. What is clear, though, is that both men were extremely focussed, adrenalin junkies who took risk as little more than an occupational hazard, and that is well illustrated in this quickly paced documentary that immerses us in the competitiveness and dangers of a sport largely devoid of even the most basic of (modern) safety precautions. If you are at all interested in the history of the engineering, the politics and the personalities of this sport, then this is certainly worth a watch - and on a big screen if you can.