The Autódromo de Interlagos stretched out before Jack like a vision from another life—7.960 kilometers of flowing asphalt carved into the hills of São Paulo. The track was young, barely three years into its Formula 1 tenure, having hosted its first championship race in 1973. The circuit climbed and fell with the terrain, a technical challenge that demanded precision and courage in equal measure.
Jack stood at the pit wall in the early morning, watching mechanics prep the BT45. The carbon brake assemblies caught the Brazilian sunlight—matte black against the bright Martini livery. Months of work compressed into those components. Testing, failures, redesigns, four brutal days at Silverstone.
All of it came down to today.
Carlos Pace would drive this car at racing speed, push those brakes to their operational limits, and either prove Jack's engineering or expose its flaws in front of two hundred thousand Brazilians.
In some future he'd already lived, this circuit would carry Pace's name. Jack pushed the thought away. Today wasn't about the future. It was about getting through the present.
His most vivid memory of Interlagos wasn't from any championship he'd witnessed in his thirty-four years in Formula 1. It was 1991. March 24th. His first year out of university, standing in the Larrousse garage as a junior engineer, twenty-three years old and overwhelmed by the sheer scale of Formula 1.
Ayrton Senna had won that day—but won didn't capture it. Survived was closer.
Lap 60 of 71, Senna's McLaren losing gears one by one. Fourth gone. Third gone. Fifth gone. By lap 63, the gearbox was completely destroyed, leaving Senna with only sixth gear—the highest, longest ratio—to navigate eight laps of a circuit that demanded constant shifting.
Driving a Formula 1 car stuck in sixth gear was nearly impossible. In slow corners, the engine bogged down to absurdly low RPM, losing all momentum. In fast corners, he couldn't use the power band. No clutch, no downshifting, no engine braking. Just raw strength and precision to avoid stalling, which would have ended the race instantly.
Riccardo Patrese in the Williams closed the gap viciously—seconds per lap disappearing as Senna wrestled the crippled machine. Then rain started falling, making it exponentially harder.
Standing in the Larrousse garage, Jack had watched the timing screens with everyone else. The paddock had gone silent. Mechanics from competing teams stood shoulder to shoulder, watching a man fight physics itself.
Senna crossed the line 2.9 seconds ahead of Patrese.
The scream over team radio—joy and agony inseparable. Medical personnel lifted him from the cockpit because he couldn't move. His arms, neck, shoulders cramped into paralysis from the effort. The podium ceremony where he could barely lift the trophy.
The Brazilian crowd had roared. Two hundred thousand people screaming themselves hoarse for their hero who'd driven the impossible lap after impossible lap to win at home.
Twenty-three and awestruck, Jack had understood what motorsport really was—not just engineering and aerodynamics, but human will transcending mechanical limitation.
Standing here in 1976 with different eyes and different knowledge, he wondered if he'd ever witness anything that profound again.
Probably not. That kind of moment happened once in a lifetime.
He'd already lived his lifetime once. This was something else entirely.
The 1976 season opener felt heavy, weighted by an off-season that had completely reshuffled the grid's power dynamics. Jack felt that tension the moment he stepped into the paddock: new rivalries forming, old certainties crumbling, and the desperate scramble of teams trying to adapt to regulation changes no one had fully anticipated.
The biggest shock was still the subject of every hushed conversation in the pit lane. Emerson Fittipaldi, the two-time World Champion and McLaren's 1974 title winner, had simply walked away from a guaranteed championship car. He'd left to join his brother Wilson's small, family-owned Copersucar-Fittipaldi team. Patriotism and family loyalty, everyone insisted. Career suicide, most people thought.
Jack passed the Copersucar garage that morning. It occupied a cramped corner spot, visibly smaller and with older equipment than the established operations. Inside, Fittipaldi was nowhere near the pit wall; he was sleeves-rolled-up, bent over a wheel, working directly with the mechanics on suspension geometry. There was no team principal barrier, no engineering hierarchy—just a World Champion forced to get his hands dirty because his family operation couldn't afford the staff McLaren had taken for granted.
The sight was both inspiring and profoundly depressing. Fittipaldi's brilliance was undeniable, but even brilliance couldn't overcome a fundamental resource gap.
Further down the pit lane, McLaren's garage told a different story.
James Hunt—the replacement for Fittipaldi—stood outside the garage, surrounded by a tangle of photographers and three Brazilian models. He wore his racing suit unzipped to the waist, a cigarette in one hand, a champagne bottle in the other, grinning at the cameras while the women draped themselves over the McLaren M23.
"Hunt's making a statement," Charlie muttered, appearing beside Jack. "Fittipaldi left for family honor. Hunt's here to party and win races. The contrast couldn't be more obvious."
Jack watched Hunt laugh at something one of the models said, then turn and kiss another while cameras flashed. The photographers ate it up—the playboy racer, the hard-living counter to Lauda's calculating precision.
Two Ferrari mechanics walked past, speaking Italian-accented English.
"Look at this circus," one said, gesturing toward Hunt's photo session. "McLaren hired a comedian."
"He's fast," the other replied. "Took pole at Watkins Glen last year."
"Fast when he's sober. How often is that?"
"Often enough to worry Niki, apparently."
They disappeared toward their garage, unaware Jack was listening.
The Ferrari garage radiated confidence, bordering on arrogance.
Jack walked past during the lunch break, observing the mechanics at work on the 312T. Last year's championship-winning machine, still fiercely competitive even under the new regulations. Inside, Niki Lauda stood with Mauro Forghieri, Ferrari's technical director, their heads together, pointing to the rear wing while deep in a technical discussion.
The silence of their focus told the story. Ferrari had the best package on the grid. Lauda hadn't just won the 1975 championship; he'd done so with devastating consistency—five race victories anchored by a teammate, Clay Regazzoni, who was fast enough to support but never threaten. Their flat-twelve engine was a brutal combination of reliability and power, perfectly integrated into a functioning chassis.
Lauda glanced up as Jack walked past, their eyes meeting briefly. There was no recognition, of course—Jack was just another junior engineer from a midfield team. But that casual glance carried weight. Lauda assessed everything: he filed away threats and dismissed irrelevancies with the same mechanical precision he applied to racing.
Jack kept walking, feeling the heavy, suffocating weight of Ferrari's dominance. They were the benchmark, the team to beat. Everyone else was playing catch-up.
Including Brabham.
The cracks in the Brabham operation appeared immediately.
Friday morning practice started at ten. Within minutes, Carlos Pace was back in the pits after three installation laps, climbing out and shaking his head.
"Valve train noise," he told Gordon Murray. "Sounds like it's rattling itself apart."
Gordon's jaw went tight. "Pull the engine. Now."
The massive Alfa Romeo flat-twelve was yanked from the BT45. Mechanics swarmed the engine bay like surgeons around an opened patient. Jack watched from the edge of the garage, feeling useless. Brake systems were his domain; engine internals belonged to specialists who spoke only in tolerances and bearing clearances.
Two hours later, the diagnosis arrived: valve spring failure. A two-pound component had killed Pace's entire morning session.
"This is the Alfa," Gordon muttered to Bernie Ecclestone, who had materialized, radiating displeasure. "The power's there. The reliability is a joke. And the weight—Christ, Bernie, we're carrying forty-seven gallons of fuel just to make race distance. The Cosworth teams are running thirty-five."
Bernie's expression remained neutral, a mask. "We committed to Alfa. We honor commitments."
"Even when they're killing our season?"
"Especially then." Bernie turned and walked away. Conversation over.
Jack understood the subtext immediately. The Alfa deal was political, financial, strategic—a free engine supply bartered for development partnership and Italian prestige. Walking away meant burning bridges Brabham simply couldn't afford to burn. So they'd suffer through it.
Carlos Reutemann's car lasted just forty minutes before an oil pressure warning forced him onto the grass. Another Alfa issue, another session lost to reliability problems the Cosworth teams simply did not have.
By Friday afternoon, Brabham had logged thirty-two laps combined. McLaren had run eighty-seven. Ferrari, ninety-three.
The championship hadn't started, and they were already irretrievably behind.
That evening, Jack inspected the carbon brake assemblies on Pace's car. After a full day of practice—abbreviated though it was by Alfa failures—the discs showed minimal wear. The thermal management system had performed exactly as designed.
Tony's fabrication was holding. The four-point mounting hadn't developed stress cracks. The heat shields were doing their job.
For once, something on the BT45 was working perfectly.
Jack allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. Not triumph—the race was still ahead—but quiet professional pride. Months of work, failure, redesign, and testing had produced brake systems that actually functioned under racing conditions.
Bernie walked past, paused, glanced at the brakes.
"They holding up?"
"Perfectly."
Bernie nodded once—high praise by his standards—and continued toward his hospitality unit.
Jack returned to his inspection, but the exchange sat warmly in his chest. Small victories. That's what you built careers on.
Qualifying slammed into motion under clear Brazilian skies, the temperature already nearing thirty degrees. The pit lane was organized chaos: mechanics shoved cars toward the grid; engineers devoured data sheets; drivers pulled on helmets with the focused intensity of gladiators.
Jack stood anchored near the Brabham timing stand, his eyes locked on the update board.
Niki Lauda struck first.
The Ferrari 312T looked glued to the tarmac, the flat-twelve's unique howl echoing like a challenge. Lauda's lap was clinical, devoid of wasted movement or drama—the perfect execution of the racing line.
2:30.73
Provisional pole. The Ferrari garage managed a restrained celebration—fists pumped, satisfaction etched on every face. Lauda simply pulled off his helmet and walked calmly inside. He didn't need the board; he already knew the time was good.
Then James Hunt launched.
The McLaren M23 was a different beast—more aggressive, perpetually on-edge. Hunt savaged the corners with apparent violence, the rear stepping out mid-apex, forcing corrections with opposite lock, using every centimeter of track and then some.
The crowd noise surged as Hunt flew around the circuit. Through the sweepers, through the technical sections—he was pushing the McLaren harder than physics suggested was wise.
He crossed the line.
2:30.71
Pole position by two-hundredths of a second.
The McLaren garage detonated. Mechanics screamed, jumped, and hammered each other's backs. Teddy Mayer was grinning like a man who'd just stolen a wallet.
Hunt emerged, immediately lighting a cigarette. Photographers swarmed. He struck the pose: cigarette dangling, one hand gripping the roll hoop, looking every inch the rebel who'd just mugged the World Champion.
In the Ferrari garage, Lauda's expression remained glacial. He glanced at the board, nodded once, and disappeared inside. Two-hundredths meant nothing over a race distance. The championship wasn't won in qualifying.
But the psychological blow landed hard. Hunt had delivered his announcement: McLaren's new driver was unintimidated, fast, and ready to fight.
The 1976 season had just exploded.
The rest of the grid confirmed the Hunt-Lauda showdown at the front:
P1: James Hunt (McLaren) - 2:30.71
P2: Niki Lauda (Ferrari) - 2:30.73
P3: Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari) - 2:31.14
...
P9: Carlos Pace (Brabham) - 2:32.85
Carlos Pace had dragged the heavy BT45 to ninth. Respectable, considering the Alfa's crushing weight penalty, but miles from a competitive podium finish. Pace's skill—and Jack's flawless carbon brake system—had given him the crucial late-braking edge needed to even crack the top ten despite the engine's compromises.
Gordon Murray stared at the timing board, his jaw locked tight. "This is going to be a hard weekend. A harder season."
Jack didn't reply. There was nothing left to say. The Alfa engine deal was locked in. They would simply live with the consequences.
Jack stood at the pit wall as the sun set over Interlagos, watching mechanics pack equipment for the night. Tomorrow, the season would begin. Twenty races ahead. Sixteen different circuits. Hundreds of thousands of miles traveled.
He'd spent thirty-four years in Formula 1. Watched champions rise and fall. Seen cars more complex than rockets, built with computational power that wouldn't exist for another twenty years in this timeline. Aero maps generated by supercomputers. Telemetry streams measuring a thousand parameters per second. Hybrid power units juggling electrical deployment with surgical precision.
But tomorrow?
Tomorrow, everything would be raw. Analog. Mechanical calculators and hand-drawn sketches. Drivers feeling for grip through leather steering wheels. Engineers watching stopwatches instead of live telemetry. Fuel bladders that could turn cars into bombs. Canvas suits offering protection measured in seconds, not minutes.
This was Formula 1 before it became sanitized, commercialized, safe. Before the sport learned its lessons through tragedy.
The weight should have been overwhelming.
Instead, it felt right. Like everything—the time jump, the stolen life, the gambled capital—had been leading to this moment.
Tomorrow, he'd find out if he belonged here.