Niki Lauda: Inferno & an incredible comeback

Lauda is 27 years old, world champion, defending champion. And the counterpart to his challenger James Hunt, the bon vivant, the playboy of Formula 1 at the time. Lauda is obsessed with technology, a perfectionist and disciplined. Lauda has been driving for Ferrari since 1974. He won the title in just his second year with the Scuderia, and the second one is set to follow immediately. An era is coming.

The tragedy on the Nordschleife Race number 10 of the season. Lauda starts in the Eifel as the world championship leader – he already has five wins this season. After a left-hand bend, Lauda accelerates and loses control of his Ferrari. The car spins and Lauda crashes into the embankment at over 200 kilometers per hour. The Ferrari starts to burn, ablaze, and Brett Lunger, behind, drives into the fireball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcr6STp6v8g

Then comes Lauda's lifesaver Arturo Merzario. The Italian immediately parks his car and runs to the burning wreckage. He hears Lauda screaming. Merzario frees him from the car. “When I arrived, he was already unconscious, hanging lifeless in the straps. “They were totally confused by his desperate fight against death,” Merzario once told “Bild am Sonntag.” Niki Lauda together with Alain Prost (in the car). © APA/afp / GERARD FOUET

Lauda knows nothing about the accident. Doctors are fighting for his life in a special clinic in Ludwigshafen. His lungs are sucked out for several days. Terrible pain, terrible agony. Lauda fights. He receives the last rites. “Then I thought to myself: Not like that with me,” he later says: “That was a good thing and motivated me to stay alive.” It is these days that really make him a legend. Someone everyone in Formula 1 has ever looked up to. As does the fact that Lauda is back behind the wheel just seven weeks after his accident at the Nürburgring.

>>> Click here for the best quotes from Niki Lauda.

In Italy, on September 12, 1976, he made his incredible comeback in the Ferrari homeland. He comes fourth in the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. This time Lauda will lose the World Cup fight by one point. Because he gave up in the last race. It's raining heavily in Mount Fuji, Japan. “This race is pure madness,” he said at the time. “There are more important things than a World Cup. For example, my head, my life.”

On Monday, May 20th Lauda died . Numerous greats from politics and sport took part at the death of a legend.

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Niki Lauda: Inferno & an incredible comeback

Tires squeal, a racing car out of control. Flames. An inferno. A drama. A wonder. Niki Lauda survives. It is August 1st, 1976. Formula 1 is competing at the Nürburgring. It will be the last time that the premier motorsport class races on the legendary Nordschleife, the Green Hell.

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