Three-time Formula One world champion Niki Lauda, who won two of his titles after a horrific crash that left him with serious burns and went on to become a prominent figure in the aviation industry, has died. He was 70.
Niki Lauda was attempting to win his second Formula One world title when he was almost killed in one of the most famous accidents in the history of motor sport. As his Ferrari caught fire after hitting a bank at high speed during the 1976 German Grand Prix, Lauda lay unconscious in the cockpit. Other drivers stopped and tried to help. One, Arturo Merzario, plunged into the flames to unbuckle the Austrian’s safety harness. Eventually he was extricated and taken to hospital, where he was treated for burns so severe that he was given the last rites.
At 27, Lauda was young and fit. But his physical toughness was nothing compared to the mental strength that enabled him to survive not just that night but the weeks of treatment that included the reconstruction of his badly burnt eyelids with skin from behind his ears. Half of one of those ears had also been incinerated, but Lauda rejected surgery to rebuild it because it would increase the time before he could get back in the cockpit.
Six weeks later, to general astonishment, he was clambering painfully back into his Ferrari, his wounds bandaged but still weeping. He wanted to prove to his sceptical employer, who had already hired a replacement, that he could still fight for the title. Having missed only two races, eventually he lost his crown to his rival and friend James Hunt. But he came back the following year to win his second championship, and was to take another in 1984.
Lauda, who has died aged 70, retired from the cockpit a year after that third title to pursue his interest in running his own airline. Lauda Air was the first of several such enterprises, an involvement which continued after he had re-entered the world of Formula One, first as a consultant to the Scuderia Ferrari in 1993, briefly as Jaguar’s team principal in 2001, and finally, from 2012, with the Mercedes team as non-executive chairman. It was thanks to Lauda’s persuasion that Lewis Hamilton joined Mercedes, winning four world titles in five seasons.
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Formula one legend Nikki Lauds dies aged 70
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