#niki lauda quotes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cazzyf1 · 11 months

Text

My Favourite Quotes from: Niki Lauda Das Dritte Leben

So it's been 4 years since Niki has passed now. Over a year since I became so involved with Niki's life here. It's crazy how short of a time it's been.

It's been a while since I made one of these, but as I have brought two new Niki books recently, I figured I should make this to share. The book is fully in German, which I have had to use google translate on; so there will be grammatical issues in this but for the most part, I'd say this is accurate.

Enjoy

"Only Graham Hill and Chris Amon had private planes, and they were simple propeller mills. It had more to do with sport than luxury or gaining time when they came to the races in Fleger. Once they flew from Spa to London in Graham's Piper Actec, and because I was going the same way, they took me with them. Back then, you didn't travel 20 minutes after crossing the finish line of a race, but on Monday morning. It all started with Graham complaining about a headache that morning from drinking so much at the Grand Prix party. It was raining miserably and the runway was a grass runway. We barely made it over the embankment and darted rather noncommittally into the laundry room over the canal. Hill and Amon constantly argued and yelled at each other. Hill was a captain but only had a visual pilot's license, Amon understood instruments, and I think that's where the trouble came from. I sat in the back and had no idea of anything. Anyway, we ended up in London. I didn't feel like I wanted to be a pilot or have an airplane." - 8

"The impression improved when my cousin of a clear friendly tone took me in his Cessna 150 for a sightseeing flight over the Inn Valley. Everything was nice and smooth and friendly, and flying so easy. The view over both sides of the Alps suggested a direttissima between Salzburg, where I now lived, and Ferrari. I became a student pilot and I loved practicing in Salzburg-Bologna. That's how flying got a meaning." - 8

"Stay in your own house on the edge of the forest. Breakfast with Marlene. Fifteen minutes drive to Salzburg Airport, Kemetinger has already fired up the Golden Eagle, an hour later she sails into Bologna. Sante Ghedini picks me up. Two hours at Ferrari's circuit. Enzo Ferrari himself comes over from his office. We're going to Cavallino for lunch, I can do Polsk at the old man's (unfortunately very important). Another hour of testing. Off to Bologna. At half past five I walk in at Marlene's door, like someone who comes home from the office happily. To imagine that day with a scheduled airliner was impossible to fit in twice a six-hour drive: a horror." - Niki's routine

"A few years earlier I had been a hopelessly incompetent loser in high school, in my apprenticeship as a mechanic and then again at high school, and now I was playing the great analyst of Formula 1. I had a good sensorium in my butt, I could feel it Car lived, also in details." - 10

"I met Marlene in the summer of 1975. She was Curd Jürgens' girlfriend and as such the lady of the house at a party in Salzburg. She has a Spanish mother and an Austrian father, was born in Venezuela and mostly grew up there. She has a lot more Spanish than Austrian character. The name Niki Lauda meant absolutely nothing to her. Marlene was infinitely far away from racing and asked the most hair-raising questions, like a child. A few months later she definitely didn't marry the racing driver in me, she took that with her without realizing what she was getting into. As a racing driver you need naïve optimism ("nothing's going to happen to me anyway"), otherwise you wouldn't be able to get into the car at all, and Marlene was willing to believe in it just as I said she would. She was endlessly carefree, and before she knew she was right in the middle of the horror. I was 27, world champion and on my way to my second title. Before I got into the Ferrari on August 1, 1976 at the Nürburgring, Austrian journalists told me that the Reichsbrücke in Vienna had collapsed a few hours earlier. It was a strange feeling: that the biggest bridge in the city, in the whole country, could simply collapse in a second." - p11

"Frank Gardner in a Cortina Lotus had won. At the podium he put down the wreath and descended with tears in his eyes. He had just been told that Jim Clark had died in Hockenheim. Jim Clark was also my big idol, so that also affected me. What particularly bothered me about it was that it was caused by a technical defect, back then there weren't safety bolts in the rims, and if you had a puncture, the tire could jump off the rim. So Clark simply took a turn on the long straight in Hockenheim and pulled straight into the forest without it being his fault. That kept me busy for a long time." - p16

"First, there were these microscopic slivers of burned face shield (balaclava) that had been transplanted with the fresh skin I had developed an allergy to. He got 70 such things out of me in a three-day ordeal with tweezers, carefully treating everything with peppermint oil. The ears, or what was left of them, were raw flesh and painful beyond belief. Willy called the surgeon, who said: The rest of it will probably rot off as well, then the pain will be gone." Willy marched down to Lake Fuschi and dug up some roots, to which he said things like: That helped the Crusaders. As a result, I was able to sleep for the first time in three days, and for 15 hours, and two weeks later I had skin again over what was left of my ears. Then it happened incredibly quickly, also because I was so eager to return to normal life. I soon started running and strength training, and I noticed the progress every day." - p25

"Hannes was a good conversation partner in my euphoria for the future Lauda Air, which was already going through my head in 1977. He had an idea for the "style" that we wanted to develop, for our self-representation and our self-image. We talked about flying, about upcoming planes and an upcoming airline. No detail was too small for us, no fantasy too big. It "It was just fun to sand the contours of a vision. Hannes sketched a jumbo tail and painted a red L in it. This is what the logo could look like. No type of aircraft was better suited than the jumbo, because of the corresponding slant of the towering tail. However, since there was no company yet, the corporate design of the Lauda Air could initially only be applied to my crash helmet: a double red L, lightly scripted, on a white background." - p31

"In the years that followed, Hannes Rausch accompanied me to almost every Grand Prix. Of course there was also Bertl Wimmer. Bertl lived in my (Salzburg) area, worked as a salesman for motorcycles and mopeds for KTM and, through his enthusiasm for motor sports, came into contact with Walter Wolf and finally mine. Our common interests were motorcycling, flying and all kinds of nonsense, and by about 1975 we were friends. Ideally, I packed a team of four as a Grand Prix accompaniment in the Citation or the Lear Jet: Marlene and Messrs. Willy Dungl, Bert! Wimmer, Hannes Rausch (one for the body, one for the heart and one for the brain", at least according to Hannes' interpretation)." - p31

"I only passed the theory part of the exam on the second attempt in Braunschweig. For the practical part, I needed a long-range flight, so I shipped the flight instructor and examiner to the Lear in New York and then flew on to the US Grand Prix in Long Beach. Bernie Ecclestone was already waiting there, saying he urgently needed to go to Las Vegas. So I flew him there. Before I left, I flipped through the messages that Bernie had brought me from the hotel. I should urgently call Frau Maier, our housekeeper in Salzburg. In the phone box at the airport I was told: "An Buam ham S', an Buam ham S'." Our first child was born: Lukas." -p44-45

"Of course, I also drove a full Formula 1 season. When I came home from the Monaco Grand Prix, our kitchen was slightly damaged. Did the dogs behave like that?" I asked Mariene. "No," she said. I had a tantrum" She had her fit during the TV broadcast from Monaco when she saw Didier Pironi try to pass me at Mirabeau, riding on the back of my Brabham and missing my neck by six inches before slamming into the guardrail . Pironi's maneuver was so bloody stupid that you could get angry about it. But that wasn't why Marlene dismantled the kitchen. She was just so incredibly angry because she once again had to watch what she had been doing since the Nürburgring in 1976 knew exactly: That racing is idiotic. Everyone who takes part is idiots, and I, right in the middle, played a brilliant leading role: Congratulations!" and a kitchen box was due. When I got back into the car six weeks after the fire accident, she didn't stop me because she basically allows everyone every freedom, but she thought I was stupid. She thought the whole racing sport was stupid, our rituals, the rush, the heartlessness, and that you can cripple yourself. Marlene never again had a relaxed relationship with racing. My selfishness was strong enough not to let that deter me. I believed, and I do the same today, that in a partnership, too, the free development of the individual must be out of the question. If there isn't room for it, it's just not the right partnership." -p47-48

"Back then, I actually wore beige lace-up velvet trousers every day that had a burn hole over which Marlene had sewn blue fabric in the shape of a fish. I also wore a beige Niki sweater and the shoes painted by Hannes." - p51

"Gilles Villeneuve died in Zolder on May 8, 1982. I liked him for his charm and naturalness, admired his willingness to surrender unconditionally to sweet madness (which, however, had nothing to do with his death fall). In the last hours of his life I had two typical experiences with him. Thursday night at the hotel: I was about to go to bed and heard the flop-flop-flop-flop of a helicopter gone mad. It was pitch black and a searchlight scanned the area in front of the hotel, trying to sort out pylons and cables. The thing did land, it was Villeneuve's Agusta 109, a nice twin engine with retractable gear, Gilles had an immaculate Clarification: "I flew away from Nice when it was still quite light." The next day, first training, first ride. I happened to come out of box right behind Gilles and saw him in the allerer. flew out of the first curve. When we stood together later, I asked him out of genuine interest why a person would throw themselves out in the very first corner of a training session. He said: "Niki, I can't do it different." There was something in him, that simply does not allow him to drive in a calculating or cautious manner, no matter what the track (at the beginning of a training session, the ideal line is not yet sanded clean, that only becomes apparent after a number of laps) That was the last thing I heard from him heard: "I can't help it." - p61-62

"Now, sitting still on the plane, sadness, worry, anger and the burning uncertainty, of course also self-pity seeped into me: What had I done that I had to be the center of such an oversized disaster? In Kennedy I was finished, physically and mentally. I trotted to the PanAm counter, handed over my ticket. The Man looked at it, looked at me, made two dashes through, gave me the ticket and said Stand By". I hadn't bothered with the ticket before, no- had no idea I was stand by to Washington. When the PanAm man said "stand by", I didn't give a damn for the first time in six days. I thought I did like me Out of. Tilt Then again: I have to go to Washington. But how? should i cry shouldn't I cry? I was remote controlled, but the helmsman was not at the post I turned and walked back into the hall and squatted down. I couldn't do more. As if I had been beaten and can no longer hit back. I stared at the ticket without any realization. I almost passed out, I didn't care, I couldn't take it anymore. I would sit here, just sit there I couldn't sleep either. Except for race fans, no dog in America knows me, but now everything was different. - p139

"I flew from London to Salzburg to see Marlene and the children. Marlene was still completely distraught. The ten days that had passed since the crash hadn't lessened her shock. Lukas also showed concern, only Mathias was quite relaxed, listened to a lot and said he was going to play tennis." - p149 (about the plane crash)

"Lukas then came out with the fact that jokes about it were already circulating at school. For example, if you don't love your wife anymore, then send them with the Lauda Air."" -p150

"Niki Lauda's wife loves the neighbors was the headline in August 1989. With a photo (not of the neighbors on Ibiza, but of me), the report took up half the front page. The lover was not only described ("he is 33, tall, blond, blue-eyed"), but also called by name. It was the partner, now husband, of Marlene's sister Renate and one of our closest friends So they didn't bother with even a minimum of research. Since Renate was pregnant at the time, we were able to win the lawsuit against "Bild", which is otherwise hardly possible in such cases in Germany. By and large, the tabloid writes what it wants." - p240

"When the first journalist somewhere heard that I had an illegitimate child, he confronted me about it. "That's right," I said, but it doesn't help anyone if it's in the newspaper, not the child, not the mother, not the father and his family." right Okay, said the journalist and didn't write a word. Over time, others found out about it, too, and I said to them: 80 Yes, it's true, but anyway, he's known about it for a long time. He doesn't write it because he's helping me with it." They didn't write it either, and at some point quite a lot of people knew about it, at least beyond the narrow circle. None of them developed the ambition to make a particularly nice headline with the private life of Niki Lauda. Until at some point a German writer from wind and put it boldly in his newspaper, then followed short confirmations in the Austrian newspapers, but Christoph was already in kindergarten age. That's how my mother experienced it, for example. In her slightly crumpled Schönbrunner German she said: Niiiki, did that have to be?"- and never a word of it again." - p241-242

"Christoph is a bright fifteen-year-old growing up in Vienna and with whom I have little contact. We see each other about three times a year, so of course no sensible father-son relationship can develop from that. I only have one family, it stays that way, married or divorced, it doesn't matter. I have a bad conscience that it happened," and I can't get rid of it either. The situation presents itself as unsolvable in the sense of a result that could make everyone happy. I don't want to cut myself in half, and I can't see a middle ground that I could reasonably walk. Christoph grew up completely differently than the children under Marlene's and my influence. I feel the difference very strongly, but of course it's okay." -p242

"Marlene is my life person. She has uncanny strength and security, and she rests in the midst of a chaos she beautifully crafts." -p242

"I had lived with a very disciplined young lady for seven years and married Marlene within a few months. I didn't take it that terribly seriously, I just wanted to know what it's like: being married, and Marlene was exactly the kind of person who could understand it well." - p243

"When I confessed the illegitimate child to her, she was hurt but decided that if I wanted that to happen, nothing about our family should change. Of course I wanted. If we did eventually divorce, she demanded, "I'll have the kids, the dogs, the camera." So we continued this weird kind of marriage that we were both comfortable with. A relationship can only be based on how two people understand each other, and we got along well. I remained stubbornly focused on my egocentric life, racing, company, and Marlene accepted that. Normally you can only choose between family and freedom, I could choose as much as I wanted from both. I could lean my head back when I felt like it and when I felt fit I could run away and do whatever I wanted. Everyone knows that I wasn't a saint anyway. But even there it depends on what is ultimately the case remains. It's easy for me because I can decide for myself in this constellation. We do not need to discuss the responsibility for the three. If Marlene pulls the lace and says, what now?, I'm there immediately. Just: She has never pulled the lace. I know exactly the limits. And if the boundaries need to be shifted, then we'll shift them against me too. But since Marlene gives me such freedom, thank God, I also live it. But when push comes to shove, she always wins. Just as we got married, we divorced in 1991. It didn't matter and it didn't change anything. The official in Thalgau asked about the reason for the divorce. ..There isn't one, I want a divorce." "It's impossible without a reason." ..What could be a reason, for example?" ..If someone wasn't at home for six months." I haven't been home for six months." ..Are you sure?" Yes, of couse." "The marriage is divorced." On leaving, Marlene said: "The children, the dogs, the camera." I was flabbergasted. It had worked the way she always said it would. And nothing changed. Of course I took all the steps to protect her, and also signed the house in Salzburg over to her." -p244

"For five years only the very closest circle knew about it. Marlene wanted to spare the children who went to school in Hof near Salzburg the public discussion of our private lives. So we kept quiet" - p244

"Accordingly, it turned out that Lukas had nothing in mind with cars and motorcycles. He just got comfortable with cycling, that was all. I resented how he grew up with no technical spark. I had to do something. When he was about thirteen, I bought him a small motocross bike for his size. He was super excited about it, but for two months he just started the thing up in the garage and went wrrrrmmm, wrrrrmmm. No, he doesn't want to drive, he doesn't want to. One Saturday the whole family was sitting at the Schloßwirt in Anif, it was a wonderful day. I said to Lukas, let's drive home quickly, I'll show you something. On the lawn in front of our house I put him on the front of the motorcycle, sat on the back, grabbed the handlebars, showed him how to use the gas and clutch. But he only stopped in the middle of the handlebars and wasn't willing to move his hand towards the accelerator. So we drove around in the meadow, two on a small bike. It seemed like a solid hour before he finally parted his hands enough to get the gas and clutch. I suddenly jumped off. He roared like crazy, made a slow giant arc, and I had to run alongside. In the end I had to catch him because he couldn't get his feet on the ground properly. Very slowly, in first gear, he trembled through the meadow and scolded me. Anyway, he was on his way. - p246

"The next time I came to Salzburg, Lukas said: So what?" Come down with me. I'm going to go motocross." "Come down." He dressed carefully. Leather outfit, boots, fall home, the whole fuss. I stood there bored and waited for him to shake his way out. He jumped on his motorcycle and sped out of the garage on the back wheel - an image I'll never forget become. I ran to Mathias.,,What's the matter?" The little brother then told me that the day after our first trip, Lukas had gone down to the farm boys on his motorbike, and he had driven with them until he could, becoming more and more ambitious, and in the end totally stupid." - p247

"With Mathias, the result was the same, only the way to get there was much easier. He wouldn't have gotten up on his own, so I put him on the bike, said that's the gas, that's the clutch, he said yes, I know. He drove away, made a detour, came back and drove unsharpened to the garage door. ,,Are you dumb?" "I don't know where the brake is." He was fearless. Full throttle from the first second. And his brother was such a protégé. Anyway, they started riding motocross together" - p247

"If you really aspire to a motocross career, you should start just after walk school. So it was by no means too early when Lukas and Mathias, aged 14 and 12 respectively, asked for decent motocross machines for further training. Marlene had a fit, but I told her to let her go: Motocross is the hardest thing there is. You will never get ahead. There's no money to be made, the sport is just exhausting, dusty and dirty, they'll soon stop doing it." Marlene accepted and I bought the boys two 125 Hondas. They drive it really well and there is no longer any difference between the two. They are equally wild and equally good. I hope that it doesn't turn into a motocross career, and that suggests that they're jumping around like crazy out of sheer jokes and frolics. But they lack the seriousness of cardio, running and weight training every day, so I believe I think the racing bacillus will eventually suffocate in the eternal dust of motocross. Marlene has now fully embraced the kids' hobby, drives the machines back and forth, checks in between Barcelona and Ibiza." - p248

"My mother survived him by eighteen years. I didn't see her very often either, but there was always a bond and affection, maybe there was also a hidden longing for the family that had been lost so to speak. Her last days were moving. She had cancer, only wanted therapy up to a point, and then no more. Brother Florian and I took turns at her bedside for the last week and never left her alone. They were important days for me and for this last remnant of family. I think after all our mother understood that she had sons who loved her. Now only Florian is left. We had always had little contact, but after the death of our mother we became closer again. He lives his life completely differently from me, hasn't done anything in all his 46 years that I would call work, but that's by no means criticism, on the contrary, I admire him for it. He studied but didn't finish, did this and that, was always happy, and because of them Family circumstances he could also afford it." - p250

"I never had a problem with my appearance after the accident. problem That's what I look like, that's it. I therefore only had the medical technically necessary operations on the eyes and ears chen, but no plastic surgery. James Hunt, my 1976 World Cup rival, said the accident was the best thing that could have happened to me: "You finally have a face to look at." - p253

"In the meantime, an Austrian brewery had expressed interest in providing me with a Gösser"-Kapperl, green of course. Practical and unsentimental as I am, I thought five million schillings is a lot of money these days, so why shouldn't I have one green Kappl marching around?” I really didn't have any major concerns and made a preliminary contract. Then I showed up at the company with the green Kapperl on a trial basis. The employees were stunned. They thought I wasn't quite tight anymore. Lauda can't wear a green cap, he can't have any other cap but this red thing, and the fact that it says Parmalat isn't an advertising message, it just happens to be written on Lauda's cap. Of course, I have so much respect for symbols and the opinions of the employees that I allow myself to be taught. So I canceled the Gösser lecture with difficulty, wept briefly and violently over the beautiful coal and politely put the red cap back on. It will probably stay that way, I think." P254

"I had just come back from Miami, with the flu, overworked, overtired, came to the Viennese apartment next to the Hotel Sacher and suffered a heart attack. I fell to the ground, unable to move. With the utmost effort, I crawled to the phone, but who should I call? Emergency call, ambulance? It was the time of my worst argument with the AUA, and even in my fear of death I couldn't give them the triumph that the red Kappl was being carried out of the Sacher-Haus on a stretcher. So Willy Dungl, but he wasn't there. I asked for a call back, extremely urgent. Meanwhile, still on the ground, I scribbled notes for Marlene, account numbers and so on, farewell. After hours I think Dungl finally called. I'm having a heart attack, I said, please take me to the hospital discreetly. Willy and his wife picked me up, took me out of the house and straight to the general hospital, where on the Cardiac station everything was already prepared. First check: everything ok. healthy heart, as in the last pilot examination. Infinite relief, however wrong with unchanged Pains. So it could only be a misaligned vertebra, a pinched nerve, which is Dungl's specialty anyway (actually it was the fifth thoracic vertebra, I think). I'll take you straight to Gars, where I can treat you properly," said Dungl. I was dragged to Willy's car in the hospital yard. It came to me like a rocket from the subconscious Remembering Willy Dungl's car skills. ..Who's driving?" I asked, suddenly wide awake. I'll drive," said Dungl. I whimpered, "Let me drive, Willy."- p272-3

"The greatest driver personality over my 25-year span has been Ayrton Senna. The strongest, the best, innovative, extremely sensitive as a driver and as a person. He dealt with racing perfectly and with unbelievable intensity. He had everything under control and was creative in all his ideas. He was warm-hearted and friendly and inspired me as a person, although his religiosity was completely alien to me" - p291

"At the time of the 1993 Spanish Grand Prix, I tried to lure him to Ferrari. I met him in his Barcelona hotel room and told him how great it was to immerse himself in the Ferrari myth. But he didn't give a damn about myth and said he was only interested in a car that he could win races in. We didn't even get to talk about money, and in the end he probably drove for Williams almost free of charge in 1994 because he basically had to buy Prost out." - p292

Hope you enjoyed the read! When I finish the next book I'll try to get it out. Also tagging @f1yogurt

#niki lauda #classic f1 #f1 #niki lauda quotes

20 notes · View notes

cazzyf1 · 11 months

Text

My Favourite Quotes from: Niki Lauda Der Weg Zum Triumph by Peter Lanz

I finished reading the second book I got the other day, so here are the typed-up quotes that I liked. This is translated from German to English via google translate, so it's not grammatically correct and might have some mistranslations.

"If he appears to strangers as a cold, calculating man, he is in fact sensitive to moods and registers feelings that others have towards him very quickly and sensitively"

"Accordingly, Niki Lauda was disappointed in the evening when his wife Marlene came from Ibiza in Nelson Piquet's private jet. He said: "I want to drive the best race of the season tomorrow, but the most important thing in Formula 1 is to survive, that's also part of it."<< Marlene Lauda hadn't traveled to races for five years. She dismissed the fuss of the last few months with a catchy sentence: "It's nice when Niki becomes world champion, but what do I have to do with that?" But now she couldn't stand being alone in her house in Santa Eulalia on the race weekend , although she said she was going mad with excitement in the box, she came to Estoril. At the same time, I know that Niki can also become world champion without me. Reinhold Messner also climbs mountains alone. He doesn't need a woman for that. And Niki Lauda said: "I'm happy when she's there, but that doesn't mean I drive faster or slower."

"Second place meant the world title at that moment. Lauda was asked what he felt in those seconds: "Above all, fear that the petrol would not last until the end. It was trembling and praying. Shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon, when everything was finally over, Niki Lauda showed, perhaps for the first time in public, how much he was carried away by the joy and pride of victory. He, who often doesn't change his face after winning a race, got all excited, hugged his wife again and again, shook everyone's hand and even furtively stroked his eyes once or twice... As the champagne was passed onto the podium, Niki Lauda started shaking the magnum like a little boy and splattered the champagne all over the place, so that in the end Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, McLaren boss Ron Dennis and the car's designer John Barnard, standing with Lauda on the podium were completely soaked."

"Marlene Lauda even hugged Alain Prost, and Niki Lauda kept saying: "I'm really sorry for Prost. he was for the biggest challenge for me in the 13 years that I've been driving Formula 1. Now that the war of nerves is over, I can tell you - he's a really good guy. The next day, Niki Lauda brought his wife and children back to Ibiza and flew on to his office in Vienna himself."

"We had met in a café on Vienna's Schwarzenberg place agreed. When Lauda came in, he did not correspond at all to the image that is commonly made of a racing driver. He seemed rather shy and uptight. He wore a light-colored duffle coat, corduroy pants, and Clarks. In contrast to later times, he immediately made an extraordinary effort to appear in the best light. Somehow he seemed very proud that journalists from Germany flew to Vienna especially to talk to him. We then drove to his parents' house on Potzleinsdorferstrasse, where he had a room, and the first thing Niki Lauda did was to call the Levis jeans advertising man to tell him that he was giving an interview. Then he called the Bosch recruiter and rattled off the same litany again. I don't know if he was so proud of being interviewed at the time or if it was a service for his sponsors, in any case he was very accommodating and when the photographer asked him to he gathered all his trophies and draped them around himself on the needle felt floor. We then took a picture of him packing his racing suit and one of him lying on the couch reading a book. nod The room in which he lived was about thirty square meters and furnished in a rather carelessly manner. The wall was covered with veneered cupboards, there was a washbasin and a shower behind a partition and there were a few Reansport books on the shelves between the trophies. Once his mother looked briefly at the door but went right back. Niki Lauda wore his hair quite long back then, it was neatly parted and smooth, not as curly as it is today. He had a signet ring with a black stone on his left ring finger. His demeanor made him look like hundreds of other boys from upper Viennese society. Only his language didn't fit the picture: he spoke a strong dialect, and to this day he has maintained a certain fondness for flowery expletives. Of course, he knows how to speak High German on TV or in radio interviews, but in small circles, rude words come out quite easily. At that time, Niki Lauda collected the newspaper clippings and photos that dealt with his racing career. He probably wouldn't like to admit that today, but at first he was exceedingly proud when there was something about him in the newspaper. He often called sportswriters on the go and told them how the races he had competed in had turned out. Out of gratitude, the Viennese newspapers always wrote a few words about the young Austrian Lauda, even if he was only placed somewhere in the middle. Nothing that Niki Lauda learned today about his early days counts, is 100% correct. But it's not a lie either. Rather, it's a mixture of half-true memories and a role cliché that he's grown into over the last ten years. In any case, it is certain that it all began in 1967. With a car accident." -p27-29

"So Niki Lauda told her (his grandma) the story of the borrowed car and the accident. He must have told the story to Berst dramatically, because when he left his grandmother he was 38,000 shillings richer - a little over five thousand marks. He was able to buy the battered Mini 1300 from Jose Draxler. For Niki Lauda, getting into racing was a means to an end. All sorts of people in the years that followed made terrible accusations against his grandmother for helping him become a racing driver. If N Lauda had a really warm relationship with a family member, it was with the old lady. And when, many years later, he decided to finish racing, it was Marlene Lauda, his wife, who first called grandmother and told her about the decision.

Question: What is your first childhood memory?' Answer: "I always had to go horseback riding when I was eight or nine years old. I was terrified of the stupid horses. I always disappeared to the toilet and hoped that I wouldn't have to ride then. I never knew why my parents sent me to horseback riding. They just wanted it. Out of. Then I remember my nanny. That must have been before. I was always raised by nannies. I remember her kind of uniform, she had a cap like that on her head. She was about thirty years old. Normal looking, not particularly pretty. She existed, but she couldn't replace my parents. I also remember something that happened when I was about seven years old. My father parked a car on a mountain with the handbrake on. And somehow the handbrake disengaged. Anyway discovered I did and ran with my brother. And I held. We screamed like crazy, then my father came." - p33-34

Niki Lauda didn't get along very well with his classmates at school. Although his parents him repeatedly dragged him to dentists and oral surgeons to have his teeth adjusted, he had to put up with the ridicule of the others. They called him rabbit or squirrel because of his protruding teeth, and his mother's pampering concern did the rest to make Niki Lauda appear as half a portion to his peers. He had to go to school in a hat and coat at the slightest breeze, and once he said: When I think back today and myself. and see my brother when we were kids, well, we were pretty sweethearts.” Which means something like sissy. According to his brother Florian, who is four years his junior, he was "terrified". Nothing fascinated the sissy like a car. - p34

"Niki Lauda once said to me: >> Many young men only start racing out of a need to show off or because of complexes. If you are successful and recognize your complexes, you can discard them. I had a tremendous number of complexes. inferiority complex. I was always bray, I'd never pulled a rascal prank. The only thing that didn't fit the picture of the model boy was my bad performance at school. I was particularly bad at religion.” - p35

"I asked him, 'Have you been dealt with harshly? Have you ever been beaten?< Laura: No. Barely. A slap in the face at most. I have one brother who is studying medicine. He's younger than me. He's very different from me, he's a very quiet, dreamy, spiritual idealist. His interests go more into the music.<< Question: 'Then you are a loud, unromantic, realistic person?' Lauda: »I am harder and more stubborn.<<" - p36

Back then, nothing fascinated Niki Lauda more than trucks. When he spoke in a Playboy interview in 1974 about how crazy he was about trucks, that he was almost addicted to driving such a thing, the Steyr works made a truck train available to him for a day. Lauda drove the truck to Zeltweg, onto the race track and did lap after lap. He'd never gotten a truck license, but he was a natural. He was having fun like a little kid, chasing the train around the track at breakneck speed and making the back of the truck swerve. He even considered opening a trucking company in the past because he was so fascinated by trucks. - p37

"Niki Lauda packed. He had a stack of suitcases in front of him and a light canvas bag with leather details. In it he put his racing overalls, crash helmet, head protection, fireproof shoes, high gauntlet gloves and coarse underwear, which in an emergency could keep the fire away from the body for a few seconds. » Where are my swimming trunks?' asked Lauda. It was bitterly cold in Vienna back in January 1972 and the cold was gradually eating through the brick walls, like that that people had to heat up their ovens vigorously in order to to get the apartments tolerably warm. Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda's girlfriend, was rummaging around in a drawer. They were at Lauda's parents' house in Vienna. "Here," Mariella held out the swimming trunks, "there she is." - p43

"act that is second to none. At the time, he would break down the doors of anyone who could help him in any way. His confidence bordered on the insane" - p46

"Once upon a time, in November 1972, a skinny, brunette boy started getting drunk in a Viennese wine bar. This young man, who usually only drank apple juice and milk, drank one glass of wine after the other. He had good reason to. He was broke. He was in debt and had no job. The boy was Niki Lauda. He gambled big and lost. There he was with a horrendous loan and no racing car. Because Max Mosley put him on the street at the end of the 1972 season. A stupid situation for the young man from the best family. He was with a sportswriter at the wine bar to get drunk. "Now I don't know what to advise you either," the journalist was saying. The two were silent for a while. Then they ordered wine again. "I could take a job in an office," said Lauda pensively, "and then slowly pay off my debts. ask them for a contract for touring car races. "You would earn more that way than in the office." "But not enough," said Lauda. He had reached the fourth quarter of white wine. It never occurred to him to ask his father for money, although that would have been the easiest way in the situation. He could have helped him. But Niki Lauda decided that only one person could pull him out of the shit he was in now - Niki Lauda. "Louis Stanley asked for my address at Watkins Glen last month for the American Grand Prix," he said thoughtfully. >>So what?< >>What and?<<< »Did you give it to him?<< Laura shook her head. "Not yet. I don't think Stanley had any honest intention of enlisting me. It was just a joke.' The journalist grabbed his arm and looked at him as if he were looking at a madman refusing a cold beer in the desert after seven thirsty days. "Come on," he said, "come on, you have to use every chance you have now."<< Two days later, an airmail letter from Vienna landed in the attic suite of London's venerable Dorchester Hotel on Hyde Park Corner. express, of course. Sender: Nikolaus Lauda. - p49-51

But before Niki Lauda entered the fashionable Dorchester, he passed the Playboy Club, where the Bunnies were busily running around behind glass facades on the first floor. He stopped for a moment and looked up. The girls looked good enough to eat in their tight suits with bunny tails on their buttocks and long legs. Then Niki Lauda quickly walked the few steps to the hotel. The most expensive English luxury limousines were parked bumper to bumper in front of the driveway. This time, Niki Lauda's heart beat even harder than when he saw the Playboy bunnies in the club. Whenever he sees a nice car, he's completely smitten. An almost sensual desire overcomes him, he wants to touch it, sit in it, look under the hood, drive around with it. That was the case then and it's not much different today. Niki Lauda used to wash his car every free hour. There was something immensely calming about washing the car. - p51

Lauda has a cleanliness tick when it comes to cars. His car must always be sparkling clean, Helmut Marko once gave him a car vacuum cleaner, one of the nicest presents, as he claimed for a long time. P52

"A few days earlier he had borrowed a tuxedo for a party. Lauda, who hated formal attire, was quite glad he had his tuxedo with him. He was blessed. After the aperitif, Louis Stanley said: 'Wonderful what you did today. Very splendid. honest.< Fittipaldi and Stewart, the two world champions, came to congratulate them. The Austrian racing driver Lauda was even a little tipsy. After dinner, Stanley offered Lauda a cigar. Lauda refused. Back then, he only smoked a cigarette once, but only when his sponsor, Marlboro, could see him." - p60

He, who doesn't like discotheques, was persuaded by the nightclub manager Bruno Reichmann to advertise a discotheque called Half Moon in Salzburg. He received five thousand schillings a month and the rumor spread that the bar belonged to Niki Lauda." - p61

Lauda later said: "It never occurred to me that there could be another person in the car. The car had overturned, one ran around with a fire extinguisher and tried to extinguish his car. That's what I thought.<< Only when Lauda's BRM fails on the 52nd lap due to fuel pressure problems does the Viennese slowly realize what a drama he had unknowingly witnessed. He didn't help because he didn't know anything about it and because the mushroom cloud made it impossible for him to see what was happening. Lauda felt dying. He crouched in a corner of the box and didn't want to see anyone. A reporter came by. >Why didn't you stop, man? Wh did you let the poor fellow burn without any help?' Lauda was depressed. “I got a puff of smoke. I didn't know there was another one inside. »God in heaven, why don't you see that?<< >If I come along with 250 things, the route i wet from the foam of the fire extinguishers and the air is fuller Rauch, then I must see that I put my BRM on the stop.<< >But I still don't understand why you don't could see.' Lauda became angry. Hell, he had the poor one Roger Williamson actually not seen. He had chosen a goddamn profession, he felt that at the moment and he was full of self-doubt and blame. But the journalist did not want to hear all this. He wanted to hear something else. So Niki Lauda told him: "I'm not paid to save, but to drive." - p63-4

"I asked Lauda: »An American psychologist found that 600 racing drivers who were examined had an above-average desire for intimate intercourse and a great need to attract attention in women. How do you feel? Lauda replied: "Maybe that's how it is in America. It's different here.<< I quoted Stirling Moss, a former racing driver >>There's always a bunch of girls hanging around the racetrack... the sights and sounds that accompany the drama of a race are a strong attraction for almost all women. During a race a woman is more receptive to an offer than usual.<< Lauda said: >> How does Moss want to be able to judge that if he is not a woman? The women who hang around there go to the races because they want to meet one of those special people. So the receptive women go there.<<" - p70

"In the evening, Niki Lauda went to a discotheque in Madrid with Mariella von Reininghaus. Suddenly the Blue Danube Waltz sounded. Lauda said to his girlfriend: 'Today I felt like someone who always stands at the station and has to watch his train go by. He finally stopped today." - (after his first win) p80

"It snowed. Thick, sticky flakes steadily sank to the ground. Lauda liked skiing. He skied for as long as he could remember and he skied very well. Actually, apart from car racing, skiing was the only thing that actually fascinated him at the time. He watched ski racers on TV and really suffered with them. (Much later he was to develop a close friendship with ski racers. When Franz Klammer finally managed to win the World Cup again in 1981, after many, many defeats, Niki Lauda sat at home in front of the television and cried with joy.) In the winter of 1969 he went on holiday in Ba Gastein. It was very cold then. It seemed as if one's breath froze in front of one's lips. Niki Lauda stood on the slope, jumped, pushed himself, took his sticks under his arms and sped off... suddenly he gave a jolt, he lost his footing, snow flew up, he fell, rolled in an avalanche straight down the slope. When he finally lay still, everything was spinning around him. He rubbed his eyes. A young girl stood next to him and watched him silently. The girl was five foot five at most, fairly thin, and had a delicate bone structure. It had huge amber eyes. Niki Lauda later remembered the girl's first words to the letter: "Can I help you in any way?" That's how he met Mariella von Reininghaus." - p82-3

"Niki Lauda hates being photographed. He doesn't like to pose and when a photographer persuades him to do so, he usually looks at the camera in an angry or artificial manner. He didn't like it either when someone wanted to photograph him in his first apartment of his own. However, since his popularity also increased the demand for personality stories, he had to endure a few private photos for better or for worse." - p84

"Before Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda only had one close friend" - p86

"Once, in March 1982, he was the guest of honor at the Astro Show. He told me at the time that he didn't believe in astrology, that he only went to the show because he liked the presenter, Elizabeth Teissier, so much. He then actually sat across from Madame Teissier throughout the broadcast, gazing at her as enraptured as a rabbit would gaze at a snake, and yet denying all the things that Teissier claimed to have gleaned from the stars about him. But... somehow everything fascinated him." - p87

"Niki Lauda thought he was going crazy for a moment. The spectators behaved like wild animals. Thousands upon thousands pressed on him from all sides. Someone suddenly gave the order for the new champion to be pulled out of the confusion with mounted police officers. Suddenly,« Niki Lauda later recalled, I was surrounded by ten police officers. The policemen sat on mighty horses. I just saw the buttocks and the dangerous hooves of the horses. And so we walked around. It was almost horrible, and I would have wet my pants for fear." - p97

"It was around this time that Niki Lauda started chasing after the girls like crazy. He got engaged when he was almost 20 years old and before that had hardly had time to gain experience with women. A reporter once asked him, "Can you remember the names of your girlfriends? And Lauda answered to everyone's amazement: "Yes, because there was Mariella and before Mariella there was Ursula Aus - that was it." His dogged determination to raise money and get the cars he was given roadworthy took all his strength. In addition, of was shy and more comfortable in the company of other racers." - p98

When he gained enormous popularity after his first Grand Prix victories, he clearly noticed for the first time how unimportant external appearances are for a man. The women fought for the successful one. And to his surprise, he found that he could win at the girls even against handsome men like Clay Regazzoni, the womanizer with whom he often hung out at the time. And he slowly began to get a taste for social life. He really enjoyed being the star of Munich society. And the glittering, glamorous society found it fabulous when the young star Niki Lauda suddenly turned up in one of the Ine discotheques such as Why not or Josephines in the evening, in crumpled tweed jackets, with an open shirt collar and a rat's tail of young, glamorous skinny, long-haired girl in tow. Suddenly Niki Lauda was in all the gossip columns. - p99

"Niki Lauda was certainly never a compulsive womanizer who tried to compensate for defeats with conquests, but through his successes he suddenly found a taste for life. that had been foreign to him until then. He no longer had to face the embarrassment of being rejected by a woman he spoke to. He was famous and anyway the girls made a move on him. He once said to me: "'If I think about it, I didn't meet the prettiest girls at the race tracks, but often in discos like Why not.'" - p100

"Once she gave a party in honor of Niki Lauda. It was a warm summer night, the guests had to appear in costumes from the 1920s, but Lauda herself didn't think of dressing up and came in the usual tweed jacket. And in the free space in front of Why not there was a vintage car. Of course there were also photographers and they persuaded Niki Lauda to pose for photos. »Come on Niki, get in the car, we need some pretty pictures. Lauda took a seat, disgruntled. He hated posed photos. When he wanted to get out, the photographers asked him to put his arm around a girl. The girl was a certain Iris Grass, a model who had already been associated with all sorts of high-profile men and who once said of her first encounter with Niki Lauda: »We were both in a bad mood and hissed at each other.<< But over time, the mood changed. Niki Lauda: I liked her green eyes. She always looked so sincere. As if she had no idea of anything. So... I don't know... poor actually, pitiful. But pretty. I got myself the same evening arranged to meet her and often went out with her.<«< Whereupon the Bild newspaper reported: »The small, almost frail Austrian racing driver has a fiancée in his hometown of Salzburg, who is also from Adel. is very wealthy and beautiful. But that doesn't stop Niki from calling the beautiful Munich girl Iris from all corners of the world to arrange a meeting. Then the two go to La Cave or Victor's Bistro on Hohenzollernstraße to feast - and then they end up dutifully at Why not. I like him very much, Iris openly admits and is happy when the Formula 1 racing driver flies quickly from Frankfurt, Monza or Copenhagen to Munich for her sake. However, she doesn't quite believe that Niki Lauda only goes out with her, as he does with a deep look into her pretty. green eyes has claimed.<" - p101-2

"He fell head over heels in love with the actress Christine Schuberth, who had made her career naked in the cinema as the 'Mutzenbacherin', and then with another actress, Iris Berben." - p103

"Once, when the relationship between the two was about to break up, Mariella von Reininghau complained »Niki can only develop feelings about his car and about nothing else. Maybe he needs someone who only sees him as the world champion when he wakes up in the morning. Niki Lauda wrote about the nasty arguments: "We were arguing more and more often, and I cheated more and more often in the summer of '75 - I just needed a lot of variety as a counterpoint." On the other hand: "I had been with Mariella for seven years and was actually pretty sure that we would get married someday." - p104

"Whenever a reporter asked him the inevitable question, Mr. Lauda, how do you feel about sex before the race?' What really drains your condition is what's around it. You get to know a woman at a race track, you go out to eat with her, then to a bar, and you don't go to bed until four in the morning. It's different with your wife or girlfriend. You can still sleep twelve hours despite all the sex. I once asked Niki Lauda: »Jackie Stewart was a monk two days before the star when he was a racing driver. He has a very attractive wife, but he wants to go hungry and hot, what do St think? Lauda replied: "I don't know what Jackie Stewart used for his races. I need my arms and legs, nothing else. I don't think sex and racing cars have anything to do with each other. A woman is a woman, a car is a car. I can try to master a machine, but you have to understand a person.<< - p104-5

"James Hunt, the Brit who snatched the world title from Niki Lauda in 1976, is a man that women love. And who loves women. One of his friends once said: »He starts caressing your body, kisses you all over. Really everywhere. And he doesn't care if a race is coming up or not. For a while he had a sticker over his heart: 'Sex is also a Sport.' James Hunt once fell into the hands of Wendy Leigh, an attractive Englishwoman who was writing for the book What Does a Girl Do? wife researched well in bed. Hunt's wife Suzy had just gotten engaged to Richard Burton and the racer was willing to provide information to the reporter. He said, "Sometimes I analyze myself a little and watch myself trying to maneuver a girl into bed. Then I'm always surprised at how devious I do it. I fool people. It's actually fun for me, just like selling something to people. Sometimes you get a woman who refuses to do certain things in bed; perhaps because she has inhibitions or is afraid that she will like it too much afterwards. It's your job to relax her, work on her gently, explain things to her skillfully, and get her to think it's a good idea. Then there are women who pretend to reject something, they play you their number, refuse to go to bed with you just because they want to appear different from who they are. These women are a waste of time. Others resist certain things in bed and want to make an impression. But they make no impression on me. I like a woman who asks for what she wants in bed, and I tell her that too. The real pleasure in bed, what really gets me excited, is when I can please a woman. I like it when the girls come to my bed and have a great time there. if they really enjoy it, that's great for a man and that can be fun. Personally, I like the women who reach orgasm quickly. Because that means she enjoys it, orgasm is the same as feeling pleasure.<< James Hunt - p105-6

Lauda didn't like the superficial party talks. He'd never gotten used to the chatter, and for a brief moment wondered if there wasn't a way to slip away undetected, when suddenly he felt someone watching him. He looked up. A beautiful young woman was quiet to him kicked, sat down and naturally put her hand on his knee. The hand was long, slender, and soft as a feather. >Are you thirsty? Do you want something to drink? whisky, gin, Cognac?< She addressed him as "du" straight away, and she had a voice, heaven, what a fascinating voice. A little hoarse, with a barely noticeable foreign accent. It was only much later that Niki Lauda found out that she was born in South America and that she had been brought up there for a few years. In all honesty, he replied, 'I'd have an appetite for a mineral water.< Oh. She gave him an amused look, got up without a word and brought him a glass of mineral water. - p111

"Marlene Knaus was extraordinarily pretty. She liked to wear her hair up, had a dazzling figure and worked as a model in Munich for a while. From time to time she was also photographed naked. (The photos of Marlene, with her hair pinned up, naked, crouching in a wicker chair, still haunt the editorial offices of daily newspapers to the displeasure of her future husband." - p113

Lemmy Hofer came a short time later. Lauda stood up and took a deep breath, the beautiful Lemmy Hofer from yesterday's party. Marlene Knaus. Curd Jürgens' girlfriend! With a few quick steps he stood in front of her and took her hand. "What are you doing there?" he asked awkwardly. Marlene grinned and Lemmy intervened. 'I spoke to her on the phone this morning. She was bored and we made a date. So I thought, just take her with you.' They sat down next to Niki Lauda. Marlene was silent for a while, then she said cheekily: "I wanted to take a look at Niki Lauda in daylight. That's what she did until Lemmy Hofer said: "Imagine, Niki, that Marlene has her no idea about car racing. She thought you were a Marlene nodded. »Yeah? They all ordered coffee. Lauda looked at Marlene furtively. She had a wonderfully even face. the Hair was back in a bun, her skin suntanned. Her hoarse voice, her closeness... I had seen many beautiful women. They didn't worry me. But this woman was something very special.< How would other men behave in Niki Lauda's situation? They would have used all their charm to impress Marlene Knaus. Lauda not. He turned to his friend Lemmy. »Tell me, what's new in Vienna?<< Lemmy looked at him in amazement for a moment. Then he began to tell. The two of them chatted about old times all afternoon. Marlene listened. She said nothing, no doubt irritated that none of the men took any further notice of her. When she said goodbye, she asked Lauda: "One thing I would like to know... are you always so... so reserved?" Niki Lauda smiled. »Depends.<< He had the feeling that he had won this first round." - p117-8

"Miss Knaus, please." »Miss Knaus isn't here.<< Niki Lauda hesitated for a moment. "When will she come back?" We're not expecting her any time soon.'< 'Where is she?' Miss Knaus is in the hospital. She has severe pneumonia.<< Niki Lauda asked the name of the clinic where Marlene was. Later he told friends with a grin: 'It wasn't nice that Marlene was in the hospital, but it was my big chance. Curd Jürgens was shooting a film in Vienna, but I was there. And I sat at his girlfriend's bedside as often as possible.« He visited Marlene every day. And when the doctor threw him out after a while, he would stand by the window and talk to her. She says, "I thought it was cute. I was in a bad way, but Niki helped me with his visits.<<" - p119

"Where do you want to go, Marlene?<< I would love to take you to an inn and have a schnapps.' Lauda had to laugh. "I'll bring the car here carefully so that the doctors don't notice anything," he said. "You're getting dressed and then we'll take off.' No sooner said than done. Fifteen minutes later they were already behind them in Salzburg. Niki Lauda stopped in a pine forest. "Shall we go for a walk?" "Gladly." Marlene got out. He took her hand. Tall conifers left and right. A narrow path, covered with pine needles. Cicadas chirped. The inn, which they soon reached, looked rather run down Window frames hung askew in the wall. Lauda put his arm around Marlene. They entered. Farmers from the area sat at massive oak tables with smoothly scrubbed tops. The only thing not in the tavern fitted, the jukebox was in the corner. Nobody here knew a racing driver, Niki Lauda, and nobody cared about Curd Jürgens' girlfriend. They sat down at an empty table. Marlene laid her head on his shoulder. The innkeeper joined them. Niki Lauda ordered slivovitz twice. You could see a piece of sky from the window. Clouds came up. A locomotive whistled in the distance. A hit came from the jukebox. The innkeeper brought the schnapps. They drunk. Niki Lauda took Marlene's head in his hands and kissed her she. Shall we have another one, Niki?< »But then we're really drunk.<<< So what? The whole afternoon is ours. They held hands, and Niki Lauda suddenly realized: this is the woman for life! Suddenly he felt as if someone had turned on the light in a dark room. He himself had always resisted marriage, he had said: 'If two people like each other and live together, there is no need for a marriage certificate.' But in a tiny second everything had changed. Niki Lauda felt he had to seal his relationship with Marlene Knaus. She asked him, "What are you thinking about now?" And he answered: 'I remember that I'm always with you want to stay with you Always.” His racing car, the world championship, Mariella, Curd Jürgens… everything was suddenly far, far away. The small village economy became the center of the world for him. He was happy. - p121-2

"There is no doubt that Lauda suffered greatly from public attention in his first year of the World Cup. He had enjoyed being a celebrity in the beginning, but it was already too much for him." - p123

"Another racer, who has since died in an accident, took a particularly good-looking stewardess to his bungalow and began exchanging affections with her in broad daylight. Of course, Lauda and Stuck and a few other racing drivers noticed. They crept up to the bungalow, quietly opened the window and then splashed cold water in the room and on the two naked people." - p128

"Once some one poured milk in Jacky Ickx bed. The sun burns relentlessly hot on the bungalows during the day and when Ickx wanted to go to sleep in the evening, there was a pitiful smell of sour milk. Ickx returned the favor and smeared the windows of Lauda's rental car with honey. Mario Andretti, the American Indianapolis winner, piled up all the sun loungers in the swimming pool one night, a little nervous, and James Hunt was delighted to go naked through the pool scurrying around the garden and scaring the female guests (until all of a sudden he got fed up with the fuss and moved to Sleepy Hollow a few miles away and ended up trying to stay with friends when he didn't like it there either)" - p128-9

"Three years after her first visit to Kyalami, when Marlene Lauda was pregnant and couldn't go with her, she sent her husband a sex doll by post and wrote »so that you don't get any stupid ideas down there«. It was also a birthday present for Lauda. Oddly enough, the puritanical customs of South Africa, who otherwise rigorously confiscate every sex magazine, had nothing against the inflatable doll and Niki Lauda's friends seized it, dressed it in overalls and laid it in the garden." - p129

"Niki Lauda, who was with Mariella a few months earlier von Reininghaus had said, "Hand on heart, I feel married and a ring and a marriage certificate wouldn't change that much either," suddenly moved heaven and earth to get the marriage papers for Marlene and himself. "I wanted to marry her because I wanted to get married," he told me at the time. »It's a feeling - she belongs to you. There's no logical explanation for that.<< If someone spoke to him about Marlene's pregnancy, he got very angry: "When a racing driver is married and has children, he doesn't drive any differently than usual. It's just me driving, not mine wife, not my children. When I race, I turn off everything around me. I don't think about whether my wife is pregnant. It doesn't matter if I have 36 children and five wives, or none at all. Anything else is idiotic. A few days after the race in South Africa, Niki Lauda married Marlene Knaus. So that no one would get wind of the event, they decided to get married in England. But then things didn't work out with the papers, Marlene Knaus doesn't have a birth certificate because it was burned at some point in Venezuela and Niki Lauda couldn't find her parents' marriage certificate. Salzburg was just as out of the question as a place for the wedding, just like Vienna. "People would have been standing in line," said Niki Lauda to his friend Dr. Oertel, who got him the first sponsorship money from the Raiffeisenbank years ago. So Niki Lauda and Marlene Knaus decided to get married in Wiener Neustadt, a good hundred kilometers from Vienna in Lower Austria. No one took care of Lauda there, Dr. Karl-Heinz Oertel was the best man and had to lend Niki Lauda a tie because the groom didn't have one." - p131-2

"A child seemed to complement Niki Lauda's life. It gave him the chance to correct his own messed up childhood. Marlene would make the child feel. to be needed and useful. She surrounded herself with a lot of care, and Niki Lauda didn't tell her that during a first training session on the Jarama race track in Spain had crashed through three fangrines at more than 200 kilometers per hour and had been hit in the skull by a wooden stake. Although he had a headache, he continued testing despite the slight concussion." - p132-3

"She remembered for a moment the first race she had witnessed in South Africa. She had been at the finish tower and when he won she ran down to congratulate him. Hundreds of people pounced on Niki Lauda, everyone wanted something from him, Marlene involuntarily withdrew and just waved at Niki Lauda. On the plane she congratulated him and ordered champagne. He adjusted his seat so that he could sleep comfortably. Before he fell asleep, he asked her, "How did you like the first race you witnessed?" And Marlene answered: >>You're all a bit crazy, I think." - p148

"Around this time Marlene Lauda drove to Salzburg, from the airport she wanted to fly to Cologne with the pilot in Lauda's plane and meet her husband. She was a little confused. In Vienna she had had a very strange dream that would not let her go. It had been Friday night into Saturday night. »I saw, she told Niki Lauda's mother, a car on fire. It was Niki's Ferrari. I saw that very clearly. But only the car was on fire, I didn't see Niki.« Lauda's mother tried to calm Marlene, when that didn't help, she snapped at her. >stop. Don't talk nonsense. Here, take a pill.< Marlene thought about this dream while driving to Salzburg Airport. Of this dream and the race from the Nürburgring... it was 1 p.m." - p154

"Arturo Merzario, the small, skinny Italian, was the first to help Lauda. He was lying behind Lauda in his Wolf Formula 1, stopped immediately, jumped out and ran into the flames. Afterwards, he kept remembering what he witnessed at around two-thirty in the afternoon on August 1st: 'Lauda's screams were terrible. I didn't understand what he was shouting, but I can imagine it.<<" - p156

"When the announcement came through the loudspeakers that Niki Lauda had had a serious accident and that the race would be started again, a few thousand spectators in the finish area started to laugh and shouted and hooted with joy. Huschke von Hanstein gave a first radio interview: "Niki is fine," he said, ser is already flirting with the nurses.<< Then the race started again, but four cars were missing: those of Brett Lunger, Harald Ertl, Chris Amon and Niki Lauda." - p159

"When the ambulance brought Lauda to the hospital on the edge of the rolling hills of the Eifel in Adenau, there was tremendous excitement. A doctor held out a telephone receiver to Lauda: "A call for you, Mr. Laudas," he said. Brazilian radio. They want to do an interview with you.<< It was completely absurd. Lauda lay on the stretcher, got a telephone receiver in his hand and spoke live with a reporter. The conversation was broadcast on the radio across Brazil. But Lauda still doesn't know what he said back then. He was completely gone and has no memory" - p161

"The two nurses who took turns tending to him had soft, friendly voices. Later, when he could see again, he noticed that they were very pretty." - p168

"Once his wife asked him if he would like his parents to visit him. They were in Mannheim, but they didn't want to let them into the intensive care unit without his knowledge. Not yet, Lauda indicated with his wife's hand movements. They communicated by finger pressure or by raising and lowering their hands. Lauda couldn't talk. Marlene Lauda remembered: »I stayed in the hospital, I couldn't go to the hotel. I didn't want to take Valium either. Everyone always gave me Valium. I didn't take any. I collected the pills because, I thought to myself, if anything happens, you'll take them all at once. I already had a whole bunch.<<" - p172

"He really wanted to see himself in the mirror. The doctors forbade it, but when nobody was looking he would sit up and face the glass windows in such a way that he could at least catch a glimpse of his appearance. On Friday the swelling around his eyes receded, he recognized his wife and mother. Whoever wanted to visit him had to strip down to his underwear and put on a sterile gown. He blinked at his mother and croaked, "My God, how do you look?" The green smocks confused him. "You look like Martians," he said." - p173

"One night he got up quietly and crept into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror for a while and said to Marlene, who went to the hospital at five o'clock the next morning. »Now I look like I did at the carnival in Rio. Or one of the leading actors in a horror film.' Marlene Lauda didn't know whether to laugh or comfort him." - p174-4

"They came up with all sorts of tricks to let the transport go smoothly. They issued a bulletin saying that three days later the patient Nikolaus Lauda could be transported from Mannheim to Ludwigshafen by ambulance. In truth, however, they drove to the other clinic the following day in the private car of Prof. Peter, the head of the hospital at the time. It was like a thriller and Niki Lauda had fun doing it. He was given a wide-brimmed hat and a blanket covered his bloated body. And while the reporters were standing in front of the front door, they carried Lauda through the delivery entrance to the doctor's Mercedes." - p174

"Lauda had to record radio commercials for a while, which were broadcast before the races and sounded like this: Narrator: Niki Lauda, who do you fear most when racing in South Africa, Hunt, Scheckter or Fimpaldi? Lauda: None of the three. Only the customs, because they always want to take my Römerquelle away from me, because they think it's a magic potion He was paid 180,000 marks for saying such nonsense." - p191

"He always knew that he could hit some people, yes, that he could hurt some if he stole a disproportionate amount of money from them. He punished people by charging astronomical sums. I remember once having lunch with Niki Lauda in a particularly expensive Munich restaurant. He had brought his wife and two other friends. And then there was an older man who wanted to win Lauda for some business. I noticed that Lauda felt uncomfortable in the man's company. He didn't like him. When it came to paying the very high food bill, Lauda shirked. He also motioned to the rest of us to leave the bill behind. In the end, the businessman had no choice left to pay. And Niki Lauda triumphed" - p200

"Lauda herself characterizes himself differently. He once told me: »I really enjoy a candlelight meal with tender music by Leonard Cohen or Gorden Lightfoot, I love sitting in the middle of a green meadow and looking at the flowers.<<" - 211

"On the other hand, he is brutally open in some respects. When his four-year-old son Lukas once asked him where the severe facial burns came from, he put the child in front of the television and showed the video cassette with the film of the accident. 'You see,' he said, 'I sat inside and burned myself.' Lukas was terribly frightened.

He doesn't mind if children stop and look at him and ask what happened to his face. But he hates being stared at by adults. He once said: “I don't like intrigues and lies, even if I'm not involved myself.” What he fears most is “people's stupidity. Not if they're uneducated, but if they're just stubbornly stupid." - p211

"While the phone rang in the living room, Marlene Lauda sat her son Lucas in his little chair. Niki Lauda had said goodbye to her two days earlier and she had no idea that he was planning to give up racing. She kissed him the usual farewell, then he sat down in his car in the garage, about twenty yards away to the kennel, she walked alongside. She picked up the phone. "Yes, please?" "It's me, Niki." It was silent for a moment. Marlene asked: "Why aren't you at training?" She was a little irritated because her husband called at a very unusual time. Lauda replied: "Look out, you can tell Frau Meier, our housekeeper, that she no longer needs to wash my overalls." At first, Marlene Lauda didn't understand what her husband meant. Then she asked softly and doubtfully: Have you... I mean... have you stopped? 'Yes,' he replied. 'But' she didn't know for a split second what was happening to her... she wanted to scream with joy... but she just said: 'You can't stop suddenly, in the middle of the season... why. "Nothing. I have stopped. I can stop.< Bernie Ecclestone picked up the receiver and said: >Marlene, Niki has gone mad.<< Finally, Niki Lauda calmly said goodbye to his wife. Marlene Lauda later confided to friends: »I thought motionless for a whole hour. Why now? But then I stopped wondering. Because, let's assume it's the kid or something. I think he should keep that to himself.<< Marlene went completely nuts. She phoned her sister in Geneva and immediately yelled: »Niki stopped.<< She said later: »I called my doctor. I had him paged by radio at the clinic. This is the doctor who gave birth to Lucas - he's so nice. I called down at the village inn in the middle of the night and said everyone who is there now can drink whatever they want and as much as they want on my account. I also recently called Curd Jürgens. I was already a little tipsy. He was really happy. Anyone who doesn't know something like that doesn't know what it's like to suddenly no longer have to be afraid for the man. No longer afraid that one day they will carry him away on a stretcher and you stand by and know: So that's it - your life, your marriage.<< p219-20

"In early 1977 he even flew from Austria to California in the Cessna Citation, a jet-powered aircraft. The flight lasted 23 hours. Marlene Lauda played stewardess, served ham sandwiches, pepper sausage, mineral water and hot coffee. When they arrived at the Hotel Holliday Inn in Long Beach, everyone thought that Lauda had gone crazy." - p229

"He called a press conference, invited the journalists onto his plane and flew around Austria with them. He was particularly lovable and, for the first time, did something he had always detested. He also took Marlene and his son Lukas, who was born in April 1979, with him and offered the photographers and journalists the opportunity to take family pictures. When Lukas was born in 1979, Niki Lauda was in Long Beach because the American West Coast Grand Prix was coming up. He heard about the birth of his first son over the phone before flying to Las Vegas with his then-team boss Bernie Ecclestone to see the new racetrack. And it was clear to him that his son should not be marketed. “I've strictly forbidden photography. A reporter who offered to radio him a picture of the newborn to America was dismissed: "I said no photo, and I'll see my son often enough." Of course he was proud to be the father of a boy, but he didn't want children as vehemently as Marlene did. Once he said when his wife still was pregnant: "If it's a boy, he's to be called Lukas Ben. If it's a girl, we've already chosen a name... wait a minute, that was... oh. damn, i forgot. Well, it doesn't matter.<< In December 1980, when Lukas was one and a half years old, he kept having his picture taken with Marlene and Lukas and also said: »My boy is a super child. He's friendly and incredibly open-minded. He drives like a wild tractor. Only in the passenger seat, of course. But if he's not allowed to come along, he'll start crying.<< - p249-50

"I am too sensitive. And maybe too open. At least for my self. There are situations when people hurt me. And that hurts me. That's why I build a wall around me." - p251

"Now he was vulnerable, a man with little cultural sense whose favorite film is Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford, who went to the opera only once in his life, as a child, and almost fell asleep doing it, who doesn't read novels and only thought of business." - p251

"Once, it was a Saturday morning, he came home to Hof near Salzburg. He'd gone out to buy newspapers that morning and forgot to close the garage door. Marlene wasn't at home either, so the house was empty for a good hour. As he stepped into the hallway, he saw a man walking around in it. He had his arms spread wide and was striding toward the spiral staircase that leads from the garage hallway to the living room. room on the first floor. The man moved very stiffly and earnestly. It looked funny looking As if he were a bird ready to fly away at any moment. He didn't pay any attention to Niki Lauda. Lauda said: "Hello, can I help you?" The other man looked at him and replied: "Ah, Mr. Lauda, nice day. Thanks, it's all right... Niki Lauda thought hard, but he had it man actually never seen before. The stranger now began to climb the stairs with outstretched arms. He touched the railing with his fingertips. 'Damn,' he said crossly. Now it was too colorful for Lauda. "Listen," he snapped, "this is my house. What are you doing?< The other stopped, put his arms down and left towards Lauda. He seemed really upset. "But you're being rude, Herr Lauda," he said. 'I'm building a house like yours and I'd like a nice spiral staircase like that too. I saw yours in a newspaper. Now I have to measure whether my closet goes up the stairs. My closet is<< - he spread his arms apart again - »>about that deep.<< Lauda threw him out." - p252-3

"Lauda let in on the edge of his large property Put up a sign that read: »Private property<<. That didn't help. People came anyway. Even after he stopped racing, they kept harassing him. When someone was at the door again at the weekend, Lauda asked: "Why are you following me?" He said: »I would like to look at your house.<< Lauda answered: »What would you say if I came to you one day and sat in front of your apartment door?«< "This is something else. You are Lauda. «< Marlene was getting scared. And Niki Lauda tried to get a gun. Initially, however, he was denied a firearms license, saying that taxi drivers had caused enough mischief with pistols and that no new firearms licenses were being issued in Austria. Lauda said: "But I'm not a taxi driver. It took a while and several interventions before Niki Lauda was able to obtain a pistol, a Walther, and received the gun license number 074894. This bureaucracy also annoyed him. And slowly the desire to leave Austria, at least for a while, germinated in him." - p254

"Niki Lauda generally says that he is a particularly cautious driver (»Everyone claims that they are good drivers. Anyone who cannot do it at least says they drive >quickly<<<), but in truth he accelerates vigorously, wherever it is possible. I had an appointment with him on April 27, 1981 to find out more about the rumors that Niki Lauda wanted to return to Formula 1. He told me that he had just overlooked a speed limit on a German autobahn and had run into a speed camera at over 200 kilometers per hour. The police officers who then stopped him were quite perplexed. They said it was one of the few devices that could measure over 200 kilometers per hour and that he was the very first to drive in there. Then they said they would consider that a test measurement and he should continue driving now. Niki Lauda was in good spirits, he had been lucky and he could just as easily have gotten rid of his driver's license" - p261

"At first, Marlene Lauda did not want to accept the fact that her husband was getting back into the Grand Prix circus. "She cried quite a bit," Lauda put it gently. "For what Niki is up to there," Marlene Lauda said to me on the phone in November 1981, "there's really only one word - crazy! I have the impression that he must have gone completely mad. When I first read about these rumors in the newspaper, I still thought they were inventions by journalists.<< But slowly she began to suspect that there was more to it than that. >>Whenever Niki talked to me about car racing, she teased his voice a little. Good heavens, I thought if there is nothing in the bush!<< Then one day she received certainty. “Niki came home from Egypt. He had had difficult negotiations about his airline and the Fokker charter and I thought he would be tired and taciturn. But he was all high-spirited and funny. He was suspiciously in a good mood. There's more to come, I thought. And indeed. That evening he taught me that he wanted to try again.<< Marlene Lauda now knew that nobody could be strong enough to dissuade Niki Lauda from making such a decision. »Not if he's really determined to do it.<<" - p266

Niki Lauda attracted the most beautiful girls. A number of top-class love affairs were immediately attributed to him. There he hung out in New York's Xenon and in Rome's Bella Blue he hung out with Ileonora Vallone, the beautiful, long-haired daughter of actor Ralf Vallone. The Munich evening newspaper then asked Marlene Lauda if she was jealous and she replied: "I don't take something like that seriously. After all, I've known Niki long enough.« The picture said: »An infidelity can happen spontaneously with him«, says his wife, »but he would never let himself be caught.« And: »Niki Lauda prefers to come five minutes too early than a minute too late. But every two months he gets drunk with friends in the village inn in the Salzkammergut, but in between he calls his wife. I'll be there soon and won't be home until after midnight. He even missed Christmas Eve. He drank with his pilots, didn't get home until ten and fell asleep next to the Christmas tree. >The next morning I looked in the mirror and said to myself: you asshole." - p272-3

"At the end of 1982, the Laudas decided to move to Ibiza for a while. "Marlene and the children are there most of the time anyway," he said. He liquidated his household in Salzburg and had his two mastiffs put to sleep. Marlene had longed for the dogs after the wedding, they were two particularly beautiful, dark dogs, Bagheera and Balu. The dogs slept in a four-poster bed with checkered curtains and were kind-hearted. "But then suddenly," Niki Lauda told the Bild newspaper, "they became jealous of our children." Because the dogs were running around freely, there was always trouble with hikers and hunters. Once Lauda even left Austrian television is looking for his dogs because they like had disappeared from the face of the earth and he was afraid they could be killed by hunters." - p273

Tagging @f1yogurt to read in their own time; lots of information here

#niki lauda #f1 #classic f1 #niki lauda quotes #formula one #formula 1

8 notes · View notes