Niki Lauda

Niki Lauda (born February 22, 1949, Vienna, Austria—died May 20, 2019, Zürich, Switzerland) was an Austrian race-car driver who won three Formula One (F1) 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.

Lauda was born into a wealthy paper-manufacturing family that disapproved of his interest in racing. Undaunted, he began racing Minis in 1968, moving on to Formula Vee and Formula Three thereafter. In 1971 he secured a loan against his life insurance policy to buy his way into the March Engineering Formula Two team. While still primarily a Formula Two driver, Lauda participated in his first F1 race during his initial season with March, and in 1972 he raced in 12 F1 events.

Lauda raced in the 1973 F1 season as a member of the British Racing Motors team. In 1974 he signed with the prestigious Scuderia Ferrari team and garnered his first career F1 victory (as well as an additional win), finishing the season in fourth place. He broke out in 1975, winning five races to capture his first world championship.

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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. Britain’s James Hunt had won the German Grand Prix, as well as one more contest in Lauda’s absence, and he and Lauda entered into an electrifying chase for the 1976 title. Hunt was three points behind Lauda heading into the final event, the Japanese Grand Prix. Heavy rains on the day of the race led Lauda to withdraw because of safety concerns, and Hunt finished in third place to capture the championship by one point.

Lauda won three races and finished in second place six times in 1977 to win another world championship. However, his relationship with Ferrari was strained by his decision to withdraw from the previous season’s final race and—having already clinched the title—he, in protest of his treatment, stopped racing for the team with two events left in 1977. 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. Lauda was lured back into racing in 1982 when he was offered what was then the most lucrative driver contract in F1 history from the McLaren team. After finishing 1982 and 1983 in 5th and 10th place, respectively, he tallied five wins in 1984 to win his third career world championship by a half-point margin. He retired from the sport for good after a 10th-place finish in 1985. After his retirement, he served in various executive capacities for a number of racing teams, was a television racing analyst, and founded another airline, NIKI (he later sold his stakes in both airlines).

The rivalry between Lauda and Hunt during the 1976 F1 season was the basis of Ron Howard’s film Rush (2013). Lauda was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993.