Niki Lauda
Andreas Nikolaus Lauda was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers’ Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984. He is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport’s two most successful constructors. He died in a car crash at the Nürburgring, Germany, in 2003, aged 83.
About Niki Lauda in brief
Andreas Nikolaus Lauda was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers’ Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984. He is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport’s two most successful constructors. As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and LAuda. He also worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which he owned 10%. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Laud a. He became a racing driver despite his family’s disapproval. He had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact. He took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two driver in 1971. He then moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. In 1973, he joined the BRM team, but the team was in decline. He raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the 1984 title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost. He died in a car crash at the Nürburgring, Germany, in 2003, aged 83.
He has been described as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time. He won the F1 Drivers’ Championship in 11 years; he picked up a fifth win at the last race at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in 2005. He will also be remembered for his work as an ambassador for Bombardier Business Aircraft, which he founded in the 1980s and 1990s, and for his role in the creation of the Formula One Hall of Fame at the University of Texas at Austin. His son, Lothar, is also a Formula One racer and a former F1 driver. He currently works as a consultant and TV pundit in Germany for German broadcaster DMAX. He died in 2011 after a car burst into flames at the German Grand Prix. He suffered severe burns in the crash. He later died of a heart attack in his native Austria in 2012. He left the sport in 2013. He still lives in Vienna, Austria, with his wife and three children. He spent his last years in a retirement home in Austria. He now lives in Switzerland with his daughter and three grandchildren. He passed away in 2013, at the age of 80. He never had any children. His last F1 race was at the Austrian Grand Prix in 2007, aged 85. He retired from racing at the end of his career in 2011. He went on to become a successful aviation entrepreneur in the 1990s.
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