Giving up is something a Lauda doesn’t do
By: Iit Bombay Racing
Tags: Sports, Cars, Formula 1, Success, Racing

Giving up is something a Lauda doesn’t do

Photo by Tim Carey on Unsplash

“From success, you learn absolutely nothing. From failure and setbacks, conclusions can be drawn. That goes for your private life as well as your career.”

- Niki Lauda

Born on the twenty-second of February 1949 in Vienna, Andreas Nikolaus Lauda “Niki Lauda” is considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers ever. He is the only driver to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren. He started with racing against his family’s wishes with a Mini and moved into Formula Vee and then rapidly moved up to driving private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. His racing career stalled during that time and he had to take a loan from the banks to continue racing with the team named March. After a teammate of his joined Ferrari, he got accepted into the team due to his teammate’s glowing recommendations.

Ferrari had an abysmal performance in the 1970s culminating in a disastrous start in 1973, after which the team regrouped completely. A podium finish swiftly rewarded the team’s gamble in the little-known Lauda in his debut race, the season-opening Argentinian Grand Prix. From there he went from strength to strength winning multiple races, sometimes by huge margins and two world championships until he was seriously injured in a major car crash in Nürburgring.

On the first of August, 1976, during the opening laps at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari darted off the track, hit an embankment, spontaneously caught on fire, and made contact with Brett Lunger’s Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the flaming wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Guy Edwards, Lunger, and Harald Ertl, arrived at the scene a few moments later. Still, before they were able to pull Niki from his car, he had suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. He had been scarred for life.

After he was injured, he used to wear a red cap to cover the burns present there. It was reportedly said that an advertiser was ready to pay 1.2 million euros for ad space on the cap. He returned to the track while his wounds were still healing.

Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. His relationship with Ferrari deteriorated after he withdrew from Japanese Grand Prix due to adverse weather conditions. After a brief stint at Brabham-Alfa Romeo, he shifted to McLaren where he won his third world championship. He also developed a legendary rivalry with James Hunt which was then dramatically portrayed in the 2013 movie “Rush”. He also started an airline service. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He also held a commercial pilot’s license and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.

On the twentieth of May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich. He had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health, leaving behind his second wife, Birgit, and their twin children Max and Mia.

From being nearly broke to a legendary racer, from almost dying in a racing accident to returning on the track, his legendary rivalry with James Hunt; his life has been one thrilling roller coaster. His life can be summarized in his own words when he said:

“A race isn’t won until it’s over.”

Andreas Nikolaus ‘Niki’ Lauda, born 22nd February, 1949, is considered to be one of the greatest drivers in Formula 1 history. Born in Vienna, Austria to a prominent business family, he had to go against their wishes and eventually cut off all contact with his family to start racing, being forced to take multiple bank loans to fund his career.

He started racing in a Mini, and then moved onto Formula Vee and Formula 3. He had to get another bank loan against his life insurance policy in 1972 to secure a seat with the March team in Formula 2 and Formula 1. However, due to the team’s uncompetitive cars, he had an abysmal debut season. His worth still to prove, he joined the BRM team for the ’73 season. Here he finally got to show his true talent, and strong performances in the Monaco and Belgian Grand Prix impressed Enzo Ferrari, and Lauda got a very well-paying seat with the Scuderia Ferrari team for the next season, finally freeing him of his debts.

His time at Ferrari proved beyond doubt that he was a top driver. In ’94, he won his first Formula 1 Grand Prix in only his fourth race with Ferrari, and later in the season went on to win another. A combination of lack of experience and mechanical issues prevented him from finishing higher than 4th in the championship. However, he was dedicated, confident, and a quick learner, and in the ’75 season he won his first Driver’s Championship, as well as leading Ferrari to their first Constructor’s Championship in over ten years.

Lauda continued his run of success into the first half of the 1976 season, leading the championship comfortably. Then came the German Grand Prix, at the decidedly dangerous Nürburgring Nordschleife. He attempted to get all the drivers to boycott the race for their own safety, but was unsuccessful. The race went ahead, and on the second lap, Lauda lost control of his car and had a horrific crash that also took two other cars out of the race. Lauda was trapped in the burning wreckage of his car, and was pulled out by the crashed drivers as well as others who had stopped their cars to help. He was rushed to hospital with first degree burns on his head and damaged lungs from breathing in the smoke. His death seemed almost certain, and he was administered last rites by a priest. Miraculously, he began to recover; his lungs started to heal, and he got skin grafts for his face and eyelids. He had lost most of his right ear, and his head was covered in scars, which he would conceal with his signature red cap, and would get paid millions by sponsors to use it as advertising space.

He resumed racing at the Italian Grand Prix, just six weeks after his crash, and having missed just two races. James Hunt, his title rival, had closed down Lauda’s championship lead to just two points, and his title defense is considered to be the motivation that pushed Lauda to recovery. He got back into his car with his wounds still bleeding under the bandages and staining the inside of helmet; he was terrified, and initially believed that he was no longer capable of driving. He gradually regained his confidence, and went on to finish in an incredible 4th place in his return race, even extending his championship lead, and writing one of the sport’s greatest comeback stories. In the end, Lauda lost that year’s champion to Hunt by just 1 point, after retiring from the final race, declaring that the rain-soaked track was too dangerous to drive on. Their famous rivalry of 1976 was dramatized in the 2013 film ‘Rush.’

He won his second championship the following year, but retiring from the previous year’s final race had triggered a decline in his relationship with his team, and he left Ferrari at the end of the year, even skipping the last two races after he secured the title early. He moved to the Brabham team, but after two years in uncompetitive machinery, he said that he was “tired of driving around in circles,” and retired at the end of ’79 to focus on an airline business that he had started.

In 1982 he returned to racing, joining the McLaren team after he was offered the most lucrative driver contract of the time. People were skeptical of his return, believing that he might have lost his touch after two years away, but he proved his critics wrong by winning what was only his third race back in the cockpit. He truly showed his class during 84’ Austrian Grand Prix, where a gearbox problem nearly caused him to retire from the lead. But he realized that he could still drive using just 3rd and 5th gear, and managed to get his car across the finish line whilst still maintaining the lead, taking his first and only home victory, and showing the dedication of a true world champion, as the hard-earned points from that race proved crucial. After an extremely close fight for the title against teammate and future-legend Alain Prost, Lauda won his final championship by just half a point. He raced for one more year, taking his final victory at the ’85 Dutch Grand Prix, before hanging up his helmet for good.

Although he had stopped racing, Lauda never truly left the sport. In ’93, was took up a consulting role at Ferrari. After Ayrton Senna’s fatal crash in ’94, Lauda was involved in the re-establishment of the Grand Prix Driver’s Association, an organization whose main goal was to ensure adequate driver safety. He spent his last years as part of the Mercedes-AMG team, having joined in ’12 as non-executive chairman. He helped build up the team to become the dominant force it is today, having won 6 consecutive double-world championships and counting. He was pivotal in convincing Lewis Hamilton to join the team in ’13, who has been a very major contributor to the team’s success, and has won 5 world championships with the team.

Unfortunately, he had been suffering from poor health, and on 20th May, 2019, he passed away in his sleep at the age of 70. The Formula 1 community came together to pay respect to the fallen legend, with many prominent figures attending at his funeral. The following weekend at the Monaco Grand Prix, a minute’s silence was held before the race, and the drivers wore red caps similar to the ones he wore. Many of the cars and drivers’ helmets were emblazoned with stickers that paid tribute to him; the Mercedes team went the furthest in this respect, painting the halo on their cars red, as well as one of the Mercedes stars that adorned their livery. Hamilton and Mercedes dedicated their victory in that race to him. Mercedes kept the red star on their cars even after that race, and decided to make it a permanent feature of their livery, as a long-standing homage to the great Niki Lauda.

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P.S

This blog was originally published in our team’s magazine “Milestone”, you can find the complete magazine which contains this and many other such articles here.

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