Legend! If he, himself, would have pronounced the word, then, without doubt, with the Austrian sound that was peculiar to him. And at the same time, he would have been aware that he was exactly that: a racing legend!
“I’ve had enough of Driving In the circle,” he said in 1979, once. At that time, an Athlete already behind him, this would have thrown many others off the track. Two of the three world titles he had won, the cruel survived in the accident. Later, the quick re-entry to the formula 1 Cockpit: lead such A life only someone who devotes himself to his Sport with body and soul waste. So this set was hard to believe: “I’ve had enough of Driving In the circle.”
Andreas Nikolaus Lauda, the whole world called only Niki, needed to continue – the pace, the competition, the Vastness, the fight. As an entrepreneur and operator of several airlines, he went in the knee, stood up again, suffered the blows of fate, and had never quite of the runway turn. The 70-year-old Viennese was his life not a loser.
With the grandfather not reconciled
First of all: the wealthy starting in Vienna Pötzleinsdorf, the wealthy family that didn’t want him to get into the racing deny, the grandfather of Hans Lauda, the torpedoed in the Supervisory Board of the First Austrian Bank, the first sponsorship contract was to be the beginning just simply. Life insurance, with the help of which he himself inflicted, two million shillings at the time, to be able to participate in the formula 1. “Maybe that is why I became so good in the car,” said Lauda with a view to the beginning of the debt once the transmitter of the ORF, with a smile, by the way. To see the Interview with Lauda with a chuckle to. With his grandfather he has never reconciled. Niki Lauda has regretted it later.
The black horse on a yellow background
March-Ford, his first racing team, went bankrupt. Lauda was recording in the UK B. R. M. Team, drove, and drove so well that, for him, Enzo Ferrari offered a contract as a Ferrari driver, alongside Clay Regazzoni. These proud Italians, who thirsted after success, after the title, the glory, the “Scuderia Ferrari” took and takes. Until today. Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel could tell stories about this self-image in Red, with the black prancing horse on a yellow background with the coat of arms. Since 1964, the men had won from Maranello is no world Cup anymore.
This boy is so self-confident, cool and daring man from Vienna gave them the self-confidence. That he would take any rear views that showed the Episode in 1973 at Zandvoort. The Briton Roger Williamson verünglückt and burn racing cars in his March. Lauda, like others, to the misfortune over body to help without. He can’t see everything so good, he gives to the Protocol and a Reporter to the statement to provoke: “I’m a racing driver and not a fireman.”
Together with Luca di Montezemolo and designer Mauro Forghieri, Lauda developed the Ferrari. In 1975, the Team dominated the season. Niki Lauda is the undisputed champion of the world. The beginning of a great time. What was yet to come everything?
The helmet lost
It came: 1. August 1976. The large price of Germany on the Nürburgring. Meanwhile, the charismatic James Hunt of Britain is in the race. Before the Start at the Nürburgring, it had rained. In a book wrote Lauda later, that probably the right rear trailing arm was ripped on his car. In the distance the mountain section of the work, shortly after Breidscheid, crashed Laudas car against a rock wall, along hurled to the roadway and engulfed in flames. Several riders reach the site of the accident. “There are cars, which I warn now,” said Hans-Joachim Stuck, who was present at the time.get
1976: Niki Laudas Horror accident in the “green hell” at the Nürburgring
Several pilots try to pull Lauda from the burning car. Arturo Merzario managed to loosen the safety belts. Almost 200 liters had been run out of the Tank and had lit up. Only Amateur footage of the time showing the action, the official TV cameras had this route in view. Lauda had lost in the accident the helmet. The face hood was not so safe as it is today – no one had expected that the helmet could be lost.
“Doctors have done everything correctly”
Then: stucco has the ambulance a shorter way. Adenauer Hospital, then by helicopter to the Bundeswehr hospital in Koblenz, and later to the casualty hospital Ludwigshafen, Germany. Skin Burns, Lung Burns. “The risk that we received at that time, we had to consider before. Thank God this is no longer so,” said Lauda later in the life-threatening Racing at this time. As a result of the medication after the accident, the kidney Laudas in their function were strong. His brother, Florian, the first kidney, his future wife, Birgit donated in 1997 to the second kidney. The lung disease suffered by Lauda now, made a further organ transplantation is required.
“The lung was my main problem, but the Doctors have done everything correctly and as I came back again,” said Lauda in retrospect. And how he came back. 42 days later, Niki was sitting Lauda back in the Ferrari. The Italians had meanwhile hired a replacement, what incited the Austrians. In Monza, Lauda finished Fourth. “His return after the accident, the Bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” said his competitor, Jackie Stewart.
And then? Second world championship in 1977, an alienation between Enzo Ferrari and Lauda, the resignation in 1979, the first airline, Lauda Air. In 1982, he then returned to McLaren in the formula 1. Two years later, he is again champion of the world and puts its rivals and Team-mates at McLaren, Alain Prost in the laces. As Lauda in 1985 has finally stopped, it is the dominance of Prost, which allowed him to – for once – follow.
From Lauda Air Lauda motion: Niki Laudas second career: flying entrepreneurs
This athlete’s life would be enough to fill a portrait, embellish with details to enrich. What came after that, with the economic part of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” once overwritten: “Restless frequent flyer”. From the sports star, an entrepreneur with a pilot had become license. Not always successfully, but also here: a master of survival strategy. And here also – a profound experience that the life of Lauda changed.
Crash in Thailand
26. In may, 1991. Lauda Air flight 004 from Bangkok to Vienna. In the climb, the left engine of the Boeing 767, automatically switches to reverse thrust. The machine crashes in Thailand. 223 people are killed. It is later found that the accident was caused by an incorrectly constructed valve. Lauda gave to Protocol, that the crash had been worse for him than his own accident. With his red beret, which had long since become a trademark, hastened the Airline’s in-chief to the scene of the crash and had to watch as onlookers wish the belongings of the deceased, Herma. “It was a scene that I will never forget,” said Lauda.
“Over all, Niki is a survivor,” said the Belgian driver Jacky Ickx. Be a sport mate, Lauda had become successful and because of his expertise highly respected TV commentator for RTL. And he had used his experience for the silver arrows, the Mercedes race cars, which have ripened under the good star of the overseer Lauda to the world championship Team. “He is still here, and that is already a success,” said Jacky Ickx.
Lung transplantation in Vienna
In the summer of 2018, then the health-related setback: Lauda, a new lung transplant had to be discounted. Of the serious engagement he recovered only slowly. After a flu-a disease he had in January of this year, again to the hospital.
On the occasion of his 70. Birth day on may 22. February had thanked Lauda in a brief Audio message at the ORF for the congratulations with the words: “I come back and it’s a full-blown uphill.” His desire is not fulfilled. 20. May 2019, died Andreas Nikolaus Lauda. He is survived by his wife and five children.