RIP Niki Lauda

[TobyV]

Niki Lauda has died aged 70. I first read about him I think in a book I found in the school library, probably around 1992 on F1 in the turbo era. He had of course retired from F1 in 1984, but here was a guy who raced F1 cars and set up an airline, and so interested me. As it would happen, my family went on holiday to the Salzkammergut almost every year throughout the 1990s and I can remember at least once passing Hof bei Salzburg and the tour guide on the bus pointing out that Niki Lauda's house was somewhere out of the window.

Sadly never got a chance to meet him, but I did spot him once at the qualifying for the 2008 British GP at Silverstone (not one of my better photos!)


To bring it almost on-topic for this forum, his first airline, Lauda Air leased a pair of BAC One Eleven-500s from TAROM in the 1980s, depicted here in MSFS painted by our own Garry Russell who is also sadly no longer with us:


For anyone who hasn't seen the film "Rush", I would recommend it. Not entirely accurate in all details - the rivalry between him and James Hunt being depicted largely as an enmity, which doesn't tally with a lot of information that can be read and the 2 litre replica F1 cars sounding a bit go-kart-ish and looking rather slow by comparison to real F1 cars - Daniel Brühl's performance definitely captures some of Lauda's wit. There are nice little details like him eating a bowl of yoghurt in one scene as mentioned in his autobiography, the English translation of which; "To Hell and Back" I have read and can also recommend.

[Airspeed]

I was saddened to hear this last night, Toby.
Though I don't follow motor sports these days, his is a name you can't miss.
He certainly made more of his life than I did of mine, but now he's gone a few years younger than me.
R.I.P. & condolences.