Racing lines: Why we miss Niki Lauda

On 26 May 1991, Lauda Air Flight 004 plunged into the jungles of Thailand, with the loss of all 223 souls on board. Profoundly shaken, Lauda’s only priority was to the bereaved families.

Having first taken in the horrors of the crash site, he met them, grieved with them, attended funerals and promised an answer: why had this happened?

The dogged characteristics that had made him so formidable in a racing car kicked in as he pursued Boeing to come clean on why its 767 passenger jet had malfunctioned so catastrophically, not simply to clear his own name and to save his company but to keep his promise to those families.

His direct confrontation forced Boeing to publicly admit a flaw in its thrust reverser design and ensured the specifics of this disaster could never be repeated. You could argue it was Lauda’s finest achievement.

“The whole thing was the worst experience of my life,” said Lauda. “My [Nürburgring] accident was nothing compared to this. The crash in the Ferrari was a different issue, because I decided to take a chance of maybe killing myself: this was my decision. If I kill myself, this is my own problem and nobody else’s. But to run an airline and 223 people want to go from A to B and they don’t arrive, that’s a different responsibility.”

TOO HONEST FOR F1

Had Lauda not played a significant part in Mercedes’ astonishing current run of success in F1, his track record in team management would have been considered a failure. At Ferrari in the 1990s, his role as a consultant reporting to old friend Luca di Montezemolo ended without the intended team revival.

But as the biography points out, it was Lauda who anointed Jean Todt as the most likely saviour, in a move that ultimately cost him his own job. Once Todt’s position of power was established, Lauda was manoeuvred out – but his instincts were to prove spot on: he had picked the right man to deliver an era of sustained glory that even surpassed his own in the mid-1970s.

Lauda’s part in the debacle that was Ford’s Jaguar Racing campaign at the turn of the century blotted his reputation too, but such a man known for his “no bullsh*t” approach to life and ability to voice the most unvarnished opinions was clearly miscast within an uptight, corporate entity that had an astonishing lack of understanding and feel for F1.

No-one emerged from Jaguar in F1 with credit but, as the book again explains, Lauda’s instincts were on the mark: he attempted to introduce Dietrich Mateschitz and Red Bull as a team sponsor, only to be rebuffed by Ford’s Richard Parry-Jones. Some vulgar energy drink was beneath such a premium car brand, apparently – but we know who had the last laugh when Red Bull eventually bought the team and showed Ford how F1 should be done.

The contrasting success of his non-executive role with Mercedes-AMG F1 does credit as much to Toto Wolff as Lauda himself. The team principal speaks the corporate language Lauda always chose to ignore, but he was savvy enough to recognise the crucial human touch that his fellow Austrian brought to the team – again, against the stereotype.