He was an Austrian race-car driver who won three Formula One Grand Prix world championships (1975, 1977, and 1984), the last two of which came after his remarkable comeback from a horrific crash in 1976 that had left him severely burned and near death. Born and raised in Vienna, Lauda was the grandson of local industrialist Hans Lauda. Paper manufacturing was how Niki’s father made his fortune, though none of it would be made available for a contrary son who would surely bring the respected Lauda name into disrepute by playing at being a racing driver.
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Early Life
Starting his career in karting, he progressed to Formula Vee and privateer racing in the late 1960s. With his career stalled, Lauda took out a £30,000 bank loan and secured a place in European Formula Two March in 1971, making his Formula One debut with the team at the Austrian Grand Prix. He was promoted to a full-time seat in 1972, ending the season with a non-classified championship finish, despite winning the British Formula Two Championship. Lauda moved to BRM for the 1973 season, scoring his maiden points finish in Belgium and earning a seat with Ferrari the following year alongside Clay Regazzoni.
Time at Ferrari
The 1975 Formula One season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Lauda’s teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors’ Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today.
Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 Formula One season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality.
1976 Nürburgring Crash
The 1976 racing season is one of the most storied in F1 history. Through nine races, Lauda had five victories and more than twice as many points in the championship standings as his closest competitor. Lauda tried to get the other drivers to agree to a boycott of the 10th race of the season, the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, because of safety concerns about racing through the Eifel Mountains, but he was outvoted. In the race’s second lap, Lauda lost control of his car and slammed into an embankment. The car burst into flames, and Lauda was pulled from the wreckage, having inhaled noxious gasses. He sustained burns that cost him his eyelids, half of an ear, and large portions of his scalp. He later lapsed into a coma and was administered last rites by a priest, but he recovered and returned to racing after missing just two events.
Return to Racing
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 admission, absolutely petrified. Formula One journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda’s absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda’s lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain, and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tyres blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
First Retirement
He joined the Brabham team for the 1978 F1 season, but, after winning just two races over two years because of the inferior cars he was given, he retired from racing in September 1979 to focus on Lauda Air, the airline that he had founded earlier in the year.
McLaren Comeback
In 1982 he signed with McLaren for a reported US$5 million, the most lucrative contract in Formula 1 history. In his negotiations, Niki told the McLaren moneymen he was only charging one dollar for his services as a driver – all the rest was for his personality. In 1984 he won his third driving title, albeit by the slimmest of margins from his brilliant young McLaren teammate Alain Prost. Niki won a final Grand Prix in 1985 then retired from the sport for good as a driver, though he never really left the paddock.
Personal Life
Lauda dated Mariella von Reininghaus until 1975. In 1976 he married the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus. They divorced in 1991. Lauda and Knaus had two sons, Mathias, a racing driver, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias’s manager. In 1992 Lauda briefly dated racing driver Giovanna Amati. In 2008 he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, Wetzinger donated a kidney to Lauda after the kidney he had received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins, Max and Mia.
Death and Legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep aged 70 at the University Hospital of Zürich where he had been undergoing kidney dialysis. He had experienced a period of ill health exacerbated by his lung injuries from the 1976 accident. He had had a double lung transplant the previous year, and kidney transplants in 1997 and 2015. Lauda is widely considered one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time.
