Niki Lauda

Three-time F1 champion who overcame a near-fatal crash.

Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian racing driver, motorsport executive, and aviation entrepreneur who competed in Formula One from 1971 to 1979 and from 1982 to 1985. He won three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles and, at the time of his retirement, held the record for most podium finishes (54). Lauda remains the only driver to have won a World Drivers' Championship with both Ferrari and McLaren.

Quick Facts

Birth name: Andreas Nikolaus Lauda
Born: 22 February 1949
Birthplace: Vienna, Allied-occupied Austria
Died: 20 May 2019
Place of death: Zürich, Switzerland
Resting place: Heiligenstädter Friedhof
Children: 4, including Mathias

Facts from the source article.

Did You Know?

Lauda won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa.
He won three races in the BMW M1 Procar Championship for Project Four Racing and later won a BMW Procar exhibition race before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled 'Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits' regarding Lauda Air Flight 004.

Early years in racing

Lauda was born into a wealthy paper manufacturing family in Vienna; his paternal grandfather was industrialist Hans Lauda. Despite his family's disapproval, he began racing with a Mini and progressed to Formula Vee, then drove private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. When his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan secured by a life insurance policy to join the March team as a Formula Two driver in 1971. He was promoted to Formula One but drove for March in both series in 1972; the Formula One season was catastrophic, highlighted by both March cars being disqualified at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Lauda took another loan to move to BRM in 1973. He was quick but the team was in decline; his popularity rose after running third at the Monaco Grand Prix before a gearbox failure ended his race. Enzo Ferrari became interested, and after BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni spoke favorably of Lauda, Ferrari signed him for 1974, paying enough to clear his debts.

Ferrari (1974–1977)

Ferrari regrouped under Luca di Montezemolo after a disastrous start to the 1970s. Lauda finished second in his debut for the team at the Argentine Grand Prix, then took his first victory three races later in Spain. He achieved six consecutive pole positions but won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP, finishing fourth in the Drivers' Championship. In 1975, after no better than fifth in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the Ferrari 312T.

He clinched his first World Championship with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix, where teammate Regazzoni won; Ferrari won its first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda added a fifth win at the United States GP and became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes. In the 1975 German Grand Prix, he led early but suffered a puncture, eventually finishing third. Lauda often gave away trophies to his local garage in exchange for car washing and servicing.

McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)

Lauda returned to racing in 1982 for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix in his third race back. Before the season opener in South Africa, he organized a drivers' strike over the new Super Licence; drivers barricaded themselves in a hotel until they won concessions. The 1983 season was transitional as McLaren switched from Ford-Cosworth to TAG-Porsche turbo engines; Lauda did not win a race, his best finish being second at Long Beach.

Political maneuvering forced chief designer John Barnard to produce an interim car earlier than planned. In 1984, Lauda won his third world championship by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due to half points awarded for the shortened Monaco Grand Prix. His victory at the Austrian Grand Prix remains the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Lauda initially opposed Prost as teammate but later said beating the Frenchman motivated him.

They won 12 of 16 races; Lauda took five wins, Prost seven. Lauda clinched the title in Portugal by finishing second behind Prost after starting eleventh.

Roles beyond Formula One

After his second retirement from Formula One in 1985, Lauda went back to managing his airline, Lauda Air. He later worked as a consultant for Ferrari when Montezemolo was trying to refresh the team. Once he sold his stake in Lauda Air to Austrian Airlines in 1999, he ran the Jaguar Formula One team for two years starting in 2001. In late 2003, he launched another airline called Niki, which later joined forces with Air Berlin in 2011.

He bought the charter airline Amira Air in early 2016, renaming it LaudaMotion, and when Air Berlin went bankrupt in 2017, LaudaMotion picked up the Niki name and assets. Lauda held a commercial pilot’s license and sometimes flew as captain on his own planes. He entered the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 did Grand Prix commentary for Austrian and German TV on RTL, though he faced backlash in 2010 for calling Robert Kubica a slur on air.

His buck teeth earned him the nickname “the Rat,” and he wore a cap from 1976 to cover burns from his Nürburgring crash; one advertiser paid €1.2 million for that cap space. Austria issued a stamp in his honor in 2005.