Niki Lauda 1949-2019

[doversoul1]

An end of an era in another field. RIP.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48345660

[Serial_Apologist]

An end of an era in another field. RIP.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48345660

One admired his extraordinary courage, while not necessarily, for all sorts of reasons, being an enthusiast of motor racing.

[jayne lee wilson]

There's a wonderful, very moving Ron Howard film about Lauda's rivalry with James Hunt, which pulls no punches about the 1976 accident at the Nurburgring and its aftermath (for both drivers). Deeply affected by the accident and a later, fatal one to Ronnie Petersen, Hunt retired just three years later after winning his sole championship - in 1976, by a single point from....Lauda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzNbGH1oZJc

Yet Lauda came back from those appalling injuries to win two more World Championships. A remarkable man who was Non-Executive Chairman of the Mercedes team since 2012, frequently seen & interviewed around the pits and garage during races.......it will be strange to watch F1 without him.
This team has won the last 5 World Championships, Lewis Hamilton with 4 and one for the now-retired Nico Rosberg. Their current drivers, Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, lead the table this season too...

Thanks for all the thrills, the human example of courage and spirit in adversity.... and the great driving, Niki...

[Nick Armstrong]

Glad to see this thread in tribute to an extraordinary man. On a personal level, Niki Lauda was a key reason I became wrapped up in motor racing during the 1975 Formula 1 season, his first championship year. The tall airbox Ferrari he drove is a key image of my youth (not least as there was a large poster of the car in my bedroom pretty much throughout my teenage years....)



Then the next year was the extraordinary drama of the accident and the return... (eerie resonances of which came home even more personally recently, as some here know).

It was a real shock to wake this morning to the news of Lauda's death - he seemed to have recovered after major surgery last year (I wonder if the lung weakness that led to the need for a transplant can be traced back to the inhalation of smoke, heat, fumes etc during that fiery accident in 1976)

RIP

[jayne lee wilson]

Wonderful picture Cal (not sure the present cars look much better...).... I feel I can now admit to having a good sob as I wrote my post before....
It was a thrilling but terribly dangerous time for the sport.

BTW - on the BBC24 Sports Slot at 1830 (IIRC, unless it was Sky) I was very pleased to see... Billy Monger, another great, young spirit-in-adversity, given the chance to make his own tribute...how wonderful.

Such a time for it to happen, just before the Monaco Grand Prix.....what to do...? Would anyone still want to drive in it? Even in tribute....?
I just don't know.

[johncorrigan]

I often thought he had a brilliant name that fitted fabulously with his sport - it sounded so exciting. After he finished I pretty much lost interest in motor racing.

[Nick Armstrong]

I was very pleased to see... Billy Monger, another great, young spirit-in-adversity, given the chance to make his own tribute...how wonderful.

Yes, it was moving that a few months after his own accident Billy got the chance to spend time with Niki Lauda in summer 2017 and talk about 'recovery'...

.

PS:

[LHC]

It was a real shock to wake this morning to the news of Lauda's death - he seemed to have recovered after major surgery last year (I wonder if the lung weakness that led to the need for a transplant can be traced back to the inhalation of smoke, heat, fumes etc during that fiery accident in 1976)

RIP

I think its clear that his lungs were damaged by the toxic fumes he breathed in during the accident. Indeed, it was the lung damage rather than the burns that put his life in danger in the immediate aftermath of the accident. From one of the tributes on the BBC site:

Nobody realised the actual damage to Niki. The real danger he was in was not from the superficial injuries that we could see but from the deeper injury which was that to his lung. He'd suffered inhalation of toxic fumes from the burning fibreglass and we didn't appreciate the severity of the injury that he'd suffered.

It was only after two or three days that the story came out that it was the lung damage that was the injury putting his life in danger.

Racing 40 days after that accident was the most courageous act of any sportsman I've ever seen in my life.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think its clear that his lungs were damaged by the toxic fumes he breathed in during the accident. Indeed, it was the lung damage rather than the burns that put his life in danger in the immediate aftermath of the accident. From one of the tributes on the BBC site:

And yet the fact that he died after having had his lungs transplanted makes his death seem so ironic. I don't suppose we'll have the answer until we have the full information.

[Nick Armstrong]

I often thought he had a brilliant name that fitted fabulously with his sport - it sounded so exciting.

Indeed. My reaction to his name was dominated by the fact that our school motto (on all exercise books, and my blazer) was "LAUDA FINEM" - it gave me a buzz to be wearing his name every day. The "FINEM" bit seemed somewhat gloomy in the aftermath of his accident - and now