Jack was tightening the final bleed nipple on the brake caliper, packing his wrench away when Carlos Pace's voice cut through the fading noise. Qualifying was over; the brutal precision of the stopwatches had been replaced by the dull sounds of equipment packing up—the paddock settling into that post-session calm that always preceded a race.
"Jack! Jack Hartley!"
Carlos Pace's voice cut through the fading noise. Jack turned. Pace was walking toward him, Emerson Fittipaldi beside him, both men smiling easily.
"Come here, my friend," Pace said, waving him over. "I want you to meet someone properly. Stop just watching from across the pit lane."
Jack approached, suddenly conscious of his rookie status: four months at Brabham, four months in Formula 1. Standing before a two-time World Champion who'd won races on tracks Jack had only seen on television—in this timeline, at least.
"Emerson, this is Jack Hartley," Pace said. "Our brake systems engineer. The one I told you about—the carbon discs."
Fittipaldi extended his hand. "It's a pleasure. Carlos speaks highly of your work."
Jack shook his hand, fighting the urge to look starstruck. "Thank you, Mr. Fittipaldi. Honestly, I'm very new to all this. Still figuring out which end of the car goes forward."
Fittipaldi let out a genuine, warm laugh. "Four months? You're practically a rookie. The paddock gets easier. Or maybe it just gets more familiar. I'm not sure there's a difference."
"How are you finding Brabham?" Fittipaldi asked, the tone shifting to professional curiosity.
"The team's good," Jack said carefully. "Gordon Murray is brilliant. The challenge is... well, the engine situation."
Pace snorted. "The Alfa is a beautiful-sounding disaster. Heavy, unreliable, drinks fuel like Bernie drinks champagne. We should have kept Cosworth."
"The Alfa was a political decision," Fittipaldi said diplomatically. "Bernie knows what he's doing. Usually."
"Usually doesn't win races," Pace shot back. "Hunt took pole today with the Cosworth. Lauda's running the Ferrari flat-twelve, which actually works. We're stuck with the Italian experiment that breaks every other session."
Jack seized the opening. "Hunt's pole was impressive. Two-hundredths ahead of Lauda—psychologically, that matters."
"Hunt is fast," Fittipaldi agreed. "Always has been. The question is consistency. Lauda wins championships because he finishes races. Hunt needs to prove he can do the same."
"Do you think Hunt can challenge Lauda over a full season?" Jack asked.
Fittipaldi considered it seriously. "Talent? Absolutely. Temperament? That's the unknown. Hunt is emotional, reactive. Lauda is calculating. In a long championship fight, calculation usually wins."
Pace gestured toward the Ferrari garage. "Lauda has the best car on the grid and he knows it. The 312T is last year's winner, still competitive under the new rules. Ferrari made minimal changes—they didn't have to. Everyone else is scrambling to catch up."
"That's the Ferrari advantage," Fittipaldi said. "They're stable. They have resources, experience, and Italian pride. When you walk into that garage, you feel it—the certainty that they're supposed to win."
"Arrogance," Pace muttered.
"Confidence," Fittipaldi corrected sharply. "There's a difference. Arrogance assumes victory. Confidence earns it. Ferrari earns it."
The conversation paused as a group of mechanics walked past, pushing a Tyrrell toward the transporter. The paddock was gradually emptying.
"You mentioned challenges with your own team," Jack said to Fittipaldi, genuinely curious. "Building Copersucar from the ground up—that must be incredibly difficult."
Fittipaldi's expression shifted slightly—still warm, but with an edge of weariness beneath the determination. "Difficult doesn't begin to cover it. At McLaren, I had fifty people supporting the race program. Here? We have fifteen total. My brother Wilson manages everything—team principal, logistics, parts procurement. We're designing, building, testing, and racing simultaneously. It's... intense."
"Why do it then?" Jack pressed. "You were championship-competitive at McLaren."
"Because it's ours," Fittipaldi said simply. "Brazilian team, Brazilian dream. That matters more than I can explain. Sometimes you have to build something yourself, even if it's harder, even if it's slower at first. Pride isn't just about winning. It's about what you're winning with."
The statement landed with particular weight. Jack had been nursing the idea of building a team, creating something from nothing, competing on his own terms. Hearing it from Fittipaldi, seeing the mix of exhaustion and resolve, made the ambition terrifyingly real.
Fittipaldi studied him for a moment—a flash of kindred ambition in his eyes. "You're planning something, aren't you? Four months at Brabham, but you're not thinking about staying forever."
"Not sure," Jack admitted. "Just an afterthought."
"Good," Fittipaldi smiled. "The paddock needs people who want to build, not just work. But take advice from someone learning this the hard way: don't underestimate the capital, the development time, and how many failures you'll endure before success. Building a team is ten times harder than I imagined, and I already thought it would be nearly impossible."
Pace laughed. "This is why I just drive. Let other people worry about the engineering nightmares."
"Speaking of driving," Fittipaldi said, "who's your favorite driver on the current grid, Jack? I'm curious what a young engineer notices that I might miss."
"Niki Lauda," Jack said without hesitation. "Watching his approach—it's pure engineering applied to driving. Every input calculated, every risk assessed. No wasted emotion. It's beautiful, honestly."
"Lauda is brilliant," Fittipaldi agreed.
Jack laughed. "I have to confess—I had a poster of your 1974 championship win on my wall. Watching you clinch the title at Watkins Glen—that was one of the moments that made me want to work in Formula 1."
Fittipaldi's expression softened—genuine pleasure mixed with deeper satisfaction. "That means more than you know. Drivers race for many reasons, but knowing we inspired someone to join the sport? That's worth more than prize money." He clapped Jack on the shoulder.
The paddock emptied around them. The sun dipped toward the horizon, and the Brazilian heat finally broke.
"Tomorrow's race will be intense," Pace broke the silence. "Hunt on pole, Lauda right behind him. Ferrari's confidence against McLaren's hunger. It's a fight from the first corner."
"And you'll be charging through from ninth," Fittipaldi added. "With carbon brakes that might actually give you an advantage."
"If the engine doesn't explode first," Pace said darkly.
"When does it ever?" Jack muttered.
They all laughed—the dark humor of people who knew their equipment was compromised but would fight anyway.
Fittipaldi glanced at his watch. "Listen, there's a local karting event happening right now, twenty minutes from here. It's where you see the future of Brazilian racing—kids who'll be in F3 in five years, Formula 1 in ten."
He looked at Jack. "You're new to Brazil? You should see where our racing culture actually comes from. Not the fancy circuits. Just dusty karting tracks where kids race for trophies that cost less than our brake pads."
Jack felt the invitation settle—a genuine window into something real. "I'd like that," Jack said. "If Carlos is going?"
Pace shrugged. "Why not? Qualifying's done. The race is tomorrow. Tonight, we watch the young ones crash into barriers and learn nothing."
"Exactly like we did," Fittipaldi grinned. "Come on. My car's in the paddock lot. We'll take a drive."
Twenty-five minutes later, they stood trackside at a small karting circuit on the outskirts of São Paulo. The facility was basic: dirt paddock, chain-link fencing, and a decades-old wooden timing tower. The air stank intensely of two-stroke oil and burnt rubber.
Fifteen karts circulated, engines screaming at impossible RPM. Motorsport stripped bare—no aero, no complex suspension. Just driver, kart, and the racing line.
The track was far enough from the city center that recognition came in waves rather than all at once. A group of teenagers spotted Fittipaldi first, rushing over with programs and scraps of paper for autographs. A photographer—local press, judging by his worn equipment—appeared and snapped a few shots. But mostly, they were left alone. Just three men watching karts circulate under harsh lighting.
This kind of casual accessibility wouldn't last, Jack realized. In a decade, Formula 1 would become too commercial, too global for World Champions to casually watch local racing without security cordons and media scrums. But for now, in 1976, this was still possible.
Just barely.
The lead battle was fierce. Numbers 7 and 14 were separated by less than a kart-length, the leader defending, the challenger probing for a killing move.
"Number 14 is quick," Pace observed. "Good racecraft."
"Too aggressive," Fittipaldi countered. "He'll make a mistake. He keeps forcing moves that aren't there."
They were right. Jack watched the escalation—the challenger grew desperate, diving for closing gaps, forcing the leader to defend harder. The battle was a countdown to contact.
Penultimate lap. The challenger saw a sliver of space entering the tight chicane and committed fully.
The leader held his line.
The challenger's kart bounced violently over the inside kerb, his front-left wheel catching air. The steering snapped right, and the kart slammed into the tire barrier, spinning dead.
Retirement. From second place with one lap remaining.
Pace shook his head. "Too much risk. He had second secured."
Fittipaldi confirmed it. "A racer must know when the door is closed. That's Brazilian temper—all passion, no patience. It destroys you if it's not controlled."
Jack stared at the crashed kart. The young driver sat motionless for a moment, then climbed out, movements sharp with barely controlled fury. He ripped off his helmet, and for a fleeting moment, Jack saw the driver's face in the harsh, low light. It was young, burning with frustration, and achingly familiar, yet Jack couldn't place it—just a shadow of a memory he couldn't grasp. The driver threw the helmet into the dirt, standing there with fists clenched.
Something about the scene felt profoundly familiar. The impossible commitment. The refusal to accept a closing gap. The rage at the outcome.
Then a group of locals near Jack started cheering, chanting the driver's name.
"Ayrton! Senna! Ayrton!"
Jack's breath stopped.
The name snapped everything into place. Not the three-time World Champion. Not the legend who would define an era. Just a fifteen-year-old karting driver in São Paulo, talented and reckless, burning with competitive fury.
The future greatest driver Brazil would ever produce had just crashed himself out of second place in a local karting race.
The irony hit Jack with physical force. He remembered the quote, the philosophy that would define Senna's career—a line that was both his creed and his doom: "If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver."
He was watching that philosophy being forged, raw and dangerous. The gap had closed. Senna had gone for it anyway. The kart had crashed. But the absolute commitment to racing was already there, unrefined but undeniable.
Jack looked at Pace and Fittipaldi, who were now dissecting the young driver's poor judgment and dangerous aggression. They were critiquing the earliest, most flawed incarnation of the man who would surpass both of them.
The absurdity of it—standing in 1976, listening to Brazilian F1 royalty dismiss Ayrton Senna's karting technique—threatened to break him.
"Something funny?" Pace asked, noticing Jack's strained expression.
"No," Jack said, suppressing the smile. "Just... I think that kid's going to be something special one day. If he survives his own aggression."
Fittipaldi glanced back at the young driver, who was being consoled by his father. "Maybe. But talent alone doesn't make champions. He needs discipline, strategy, and patience. Right now, he has speed and anger. That's not enough."
"Give him time," Jack said quietly.
They watched a few more races—nothing as dramatic as Senna's crash, just competent karting from drivers who would likely never progress beyond regional competition. The sun dipped below the horizon, and the track lights bathed everything in harsh, artificial illumination.
"We should head back," Fittipaldi said eventually. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day."
They walked back to his car—a modest sedan, nothing flashy despite his World Championship status. The drive back was quiet, all three men lost in their own thoughts about the struggle between ambition and limitation.
Jack stared out the window at São Paulo—a massive city he barely knew, in a country he'd never visited, during a decade he'd already lived through but now experienced completely differently.
The day had been extraordinary. He'd watched Hunt steal pole from Lauda. Felt Ferrari's suffocating dominance. Spoken with Emerson Fittipaldi about building teams from nothing. And witnessed a fifteen-year-old Ayrton Senna crash while forging the philosophy that would define a legendary career.
This was 1976. This was Formula 1 before it became the sport Jack knew in 2025—smaller, rougher, more dangerous, but somehow more real. The drivers were accessible. The engineering was visible. The racing felt close enough to touch.
Tomorrow, the season would begin properly. Carlos Pace would rely on Jack's carbon brakes, fighting to score points with a compromised car. Hunt and Lauda would clash for victory, setting the tone for a championship that would be decided by a single point.
And somewhere in São Paulo, that fifteen-year-old karter was likely still furious about crashing out, already planning how to go faster next time, already refusing to accept that some gaps should remain untaken.
Jack felt a surge of excitement that had nothing to do with knowing the future.
This was real. He was here.
And tomorrow, the racing would begin.
That was enough.