During his 17-year career, from 1969 to 1985, in cars of Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren and other manufacturers, and most of them in the Formula 1 championship, Lauda won 25 races. And 16 such triumphs, along with numerous other high rankings, brought him F1 titles in 1975, 1977 and 1984. Since his dominance, only five drivers have surpassed that number of trophies, and the record holder is Michael Schumacher, with seven of them, from 1994 to 2004.
However, what Lauda will be most remembered for is the 1976 event on the Nürburgring. As the current champion, but also the winner of five races in the new season, in which he was second in two, he arrived at the German Grand Prix just when it was raining. The trail is about 20 kilometers long. On it and Laudin Ferrari. And his unrealistically fast ride.
At a speed of 225 kilometers per hour, he flew off the slippery track. The car turned, went through the protective fence, she threw the helmet off his head, and then there was a collision behind another fence, a deduction right on the track, where several other cars hit him. The fuel tank was broken. Sparks ignited the fire, and flames engulfed the cockpit.
It burned for a minute. Both he and his vehicle. A minute, until three other drivers managed to pull him out of the torch. When the trail is so long, help is not very close. Nor was it a time like today, in which helicopters are in a state of readiness to urgently pull out the injured and carry them to the hospital. They helped him - rivals. Friends. But they, too, thought that their help had arrived too late.
Niki Lauda had terrible burns on his face. Works of the head. Hand. He had a concussion, a broken collarbone, several other fractures. Right ear almost burned. And on top of all that, horrible gases filled his lungs.
He arrived at the hospital in a coma. It was thought to be far closer to death than life.
On the third day of his intensive care, the priest came to receive communion. Lauda was conscious then. He saw that meeting not as the last communion in his life, but as a motive to experience at least one more. On your feet.
"I was talking to myself (while I was watching the priest), if he considers this the last communion, okay. But I will not give up," Lauda once said about that event.
After a series of surgeries, which were necessary because he lost part of his ears, hair on the right side of his head, eyebrows and eyelashes on both eyes, he decided to return. He just put on his hat to save the rest of the world from its horrible scars and immediately began making plans to return.
And, forty days after the terrible accident, he got back in his car. And that is in Monza, where one of the most demanding tracks in Formula 1 is the famous street race, and this Austrian is on it.
Not only did he drive, he was fourth. When he took off his equipment at the end of the race, the protective fabrics on his head were bloody. He couldn't separate the hood from the bandage, he had to tear them both at once.
Then I said that I overcame the fear (of driving and a new accident) quickly and painlessly. That was a lie. But then it seemed silly for me to play the weakling in front of the competition. Then, in Monza ... Then fear overwhelmed me, "Lauda wrote in his autobiography" To Hell and Back ".
There he wrote the following about the feat in Monza that amazed the world:
"It was the best thing for my mental health. If I had lain down and just kept thinking about what happened to me on the 'Ring, it would have finished me off.'
Despite all the predictions, that championship not only ended, but ended in second place, just behind the Briton James Hunt.
The following season, Lauda was the champion. He surpassed Hunt by a point.
Seven years later, with a two - year "pension", he returned and became the Formula 1 champion again.
That was and remains even before that Nurburgring in 1976.
Niki Lauda passed away in May 2019.