Wolff pays beautiful tribute to Lauda on his birthday: 'Niki got emotional'
F1 News
- Kimberley Hoefnagel
Toto Wolff has paid tribute on Mercedes' website to his old friend Niki Lauda, who would have turned 76 years old today. The Mercedes team boss had an incredibly close relationship with the three-time world champion, and reflects on a wonderful memory for this special day.
"Niki never complained," Wolff looks back on his years of working with Lauda. "He just did what he had to do, he was just a great guy. He had tremendous resilience and determination and that kept him going. I was lucky to call him one of my best friends." Wolff explained that he spent endless hours on the plane with Lauda. "He was hugely supportive of our success. He was a sparring partner, a strong leader and we miss him very much."
He continued: "My favourite memory was when we came back from Suzuka one time, just him and me. He said he wanted to tell me something, after which he stopped [talking] for a moment. I thought, 'Wow, Niki is getting emotional.' He said he had no friends, he always said that. But he said that if there was such a thing as half a friend, it was me. He almost cried, but it was the best reaction I got from Niki in all the years we worked together. It meant we were friends," the Austrian concluded.
Niki Lauda's career
Lauda made his official debut in Formula 1 in 1971 racing for March Ford at the Österreichring, however, that was the only Grand Prix he raced that year. For 1972 he managed to secure a permanent race seat with the same team. After a brief tenure at BRM, he joined Ferrari in 1974, taking his first victory at the Spanish Grand Prix.
He won his first world title in 1975 and was well on his way to his second in 1976, when disaster struck. After a violent crash at the Nürburging in Germany, his car caught fire, with some drivers even jumping out of their cars at the scene to pull him out of the fire.
Many assumed that the accident would be the end of his career, but nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, he was back behind the wheel just six weeks later at Monza, eventually losing the 1976 title by just one point to good friend, James Hunt, having chosen to sit out the final race of the championship at Mount Fuji due to the harsh almost monsoon-like conditions. He clinched his second title in 1977, before making the switch to Brabham.
Having retired from F1 after the 1979 season following a rather unsuccessful two-year spell at Brabham, he came back to the series in 1982, racing for Ron Dennis' McLaren Marlboro project, going on to win his third and final world title in 1984 from teammate Alain Prost. In 2012, he was appointed advisor to the Formula 1 team by Mercedes, a role he held until his death on the 20th of May, 2019 at age of 70. Today, he would have turned 76.
This article was written in collaboration with Kim Hoefnagel.
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