PAST IMPERFECT:A near-death experience and grave injuries couldn't hold this F1 great back from the race
ANDREAS NIKOLAUS Lauda was born into a prosperous Viennese family in 1949. From an early age it was clear that Lauda was unlikely to follow in his family footsteps and become a conventional businessman.
It was an interest in cars, rather than any passion for racing, that was to lead him to race cars. At age 12 he was already driving around his parent’s estate, and in 1968 at the age of 19 he entered his first event, a hillclimb, in a Cooper in which he placed second in class.
Parental opposition to his racing was very strong and his father insisted that he stay away from motor racing. Nevertheless, Lauda continued to take part in hillclimbs and drove a Formula Vee in circuit racing.
By 1970 he was competing in European Formula Three and graduated to Formula Two the next year. Despite a lack of parental support, he nevertheless managed to use his family’s connections to obtain loans to finance his racing.
Using these, he bought a F2 seat at the March team for 1971 and for the 1972 season put together a programme of F1 and F2 drives there. From March he moved to BRM, running up huge debts in the process. But several outstanding drives changed things. First BRM began to pay him and then, incredibly, he received a call from Ferrari to drive for them in the 1974 season.
The move to Ferrari saved him from the potential collapse of his financial house of cards and, to cap it all off, he scored his first F1 victory in his maiden season with the Italian team.
The following year, Lauda scored five wins and took the 1974 championship with a car he had developed to be technically superior to anything else on the grid. The 1975 season began badly when he cracked ribs as a result of a lawnmower accident, but by the German Grand Prix he had a 20-point lead over his nearest rival, James Hunt.
Things were about to change, however, in a moment that would define the rest of Lauda’s life. In the race at the Nürburgring, just after Bergwerk, Lauda’s Ferrari unaccountably swerved to the right, impacted the bank and was thrown back across the track where it was hit by the car of Brett Lunger. The wrecked Ferrari caught fire and it was only the action of several drivers in pulling Lauda from the blaze that saved his life.
His injuries were grave and it soon became clear that he had suffered severe burns to his head and that the inside of his lungs had been damaged. Lapsing into a coma, for a while he hovered between life and death. Somehow he rallied and recovered enough to return to the cockpit of a Ferrari at Monza just six weeks after the accident.
Incredibly, he took fourth place at Monza, but Hunt had now closed the points gap. By the final race at a rain-soaked Mount Fuji circuit in Japan, Lauda’s lead was down to just three points. In a dramatic finale, Lauda, typically, retired from the race leaving Hunt to win his only world championship, saying it was crazy to race in such conditions. While many of his rivals admired his courage in making this difficult decision, Ferrari fans were divided.
Now fully recovered, the championship was regained in 1977, after which Lauda moved to the Brabham team for two seasons before suddenly deciding to quit the sport, thereafter devoting himself to establishing his own airline, Lauda Air. In 1982, for – by his own admission – financial reasons, Lauda returned to F1 in a McLaren. On only his third race back he won again and went on to take a third incredible world championship in 1984, whereupon he retired for good.
Niki Lauda – nicknamed “The Rat” by fellow drivers – brought a unique personality to F1 and certainly deserves his place among its greatest drivers.