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**The Unstoppable Niki Lauda: A Story of Perseverance and Triumph**

It's the 1976 German Grand Prix and Formula One's reigning world champion has just slammed into an embankment at 174 miles per hour. His Ferrari burst into a fireball, and he's trapped in the middle of an 800-degree hellfire for an agonizing 55 seconds. Burnt horribly, lungs scorched, he's given his last rights. And yet, 39 days later, he's back in a race car, nearly clinching the championship, losing by just one point.

**Who is This Guy?**

Who the (beep) is this guy? And how did he come back from what would have been a career-ending crash to win two more world championships and change Formula One into the sport that we know today?

This is everything you need to know to get up to speed on Niki Lauda.

**A Life of Extremes**

Like many F1 drivers, Niki Lauda was born into extreme wealth – the Austrian kind. Which involves a knighted great-grandfather and probably some gold of questionable origin. But his ritzy industrialist family was never on board with his chosen career. Niki wanted a different life – he wanted speed, danger, glory. He wanted to be a race car driver, and he was willing to fight for it.

**Cutting Off Ties**

Now that meant cutting off ties with his parents, so be it. It's harsh, I know. But the man was born to drive, and he would let nothing get in his way – not even his mommy and especially not even his dad. Niki had a chill relationship with his uncle Heinz, though, and with Heinz's monetary assistance, 20-year-old Niki started racing in Formula Vee in 1969.

**A Big Step Up**

Nice! What's Formula Vee? I'm about to tell you. It's a relatively cheap, open-wheel racing class – basically whittled-down Volkswagen Beetles. Tons of Formula One drivers get their start in Formula Vee. Now this was a big step in the right direction, and Niki, he was stoked.

**From Formula Vee to F1**

After a success in Formula Vee, he coughed up $30,000 – which is about $200,000 in today's money – for a drive in Formula 2. How did he get this money? Simple: he borrowed it through his estranged family's connections without their permission. Ooh, what a rebel! Screw you mommy! And screw you too daddy!

**The March F1 Team**

Like I said, the man wouldn't let anything get in the way of his goals. Paying for a seat on a race team was pretty common back in the day. So it wasn't weird to see some random rich kid on March Racing's F2 roster for the 1972 season. What wasn't as common back in the day was finding out that that random rich kid could drive.

**A Surprise Bump-Up**

The March team was surprised – they had been so impressed that they bumped Niki up to their Formula One team. You guys! Niki made it to Formula One astonishingly quickly and did pretty good in his first season. But he was held back by the small team's less-than-competitive cars.

**The BRM Era**

It's a story as old as time, so Niki moved on to the legendary British Racing Motors or BRM. You ever heard of it? The only problem is, by the time that he got there, the legend had sort of dried up. BRM couldn't compete with the Ford-powered Lotuses and Tyrrells of the day.

**Ferrari Takes Note**

But Niki fought hard behind the wheel – his skills were obvious enough for this one Italian guy named Enzo Ferrari to take notes. He was like, "This kid can drive!"

**The Unstoppable Lauda**

And that's how Niki Lauda became a legendary F1 driver, known for his incredible talent and unwavering determination in the face of adversity.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- It's the 1976 German Grand Prixand Formula One's reigning world championjust slammed into an embankmentat 174 miles per hour.His Ferrari burst into afireball and he's trappedin the middle of an 800 degree hellfirefor an agonizing 55 seconds.Burnt horribly, lungs scorched,he's given his last rights.And 39 days later, he'sback in a race car.And nearly clenches the championship,losing by just one point.Who the (beep) is this guy?And how did he come backfrom what would have beena career ending crashto win two more world championshipsand change Formula One intothe sport that we know today.This is everything you needto know to get up to speedon Niki Lauda.(video game music)Like a lot of F1 drivers,Niki Lauda was born into extremewealth, the Austrian kind.Which involves a knightedgreat grandfatherand probably some goldof questionable origin.But his ritzy industrialistfamily was never on boardwith his chosen career.Niki wanted a different life.He wanted speed, danger. He wanted glory.He wanted to be a race car driver,and he was willing to fight for it.Now that meant cutting off tieswith his parents, so be it.It's harsh, I know.But the man was born to driveand he would let nothing get in his way.Not even his mommy andespecially not even his dad.Niki had a chill relationshipwith his uncle Heinz though.And with Heinz's monetary assistance,20 year old, Niki startedracing in Formula Vee in 1969.Nice.What's Formula Vee?I'm about to tell you.It's a relatively cheap,open wheel racing class,basically whittled downVolkswagen Beetles.Tons of Formula One driversget their start in Formula Vee.Now this was a big stepin the right directionand Niki, he was stoked.After a success in FormulaVee, he coughed up $30,000,which is about $200,000 in today's moneyfor a drive in Formula 2.How did he get this money?Simple.He borrowed it through hisestranged family's connectionswithout their permission.Ooh, what a rebel.Screw you mommy!And screw you too daddy!Like I said,the man wouldn't let anythingget in the way of his goals.Paying for a seat on a race teamwas pretty common back in the day.So it wasn't weird tosee some random rich kidon March Racing's F2roster for the 1972 season.What wasn't as common back in the daywas finding out that thatrandom rich kid could drive.The March team was surprised,they have been so impressedthat they bumped Niki upto their Formula One team.You guys!Niki made it to FormulaOne astonishingly quickly.And he did pretty goodin his first season.But he was held back by the small team'sless than competitive cars.It's a story as old as time.So Niki moved on to thelegendary British Racing Motorsor BRM.You ever heard of it?The only problem is by thetime that he got there,the legend had sort of dried up.BRM couldn't compete withthe Ford powered Lotusesand Tyrrells of the day.But Niki fought hard behind the wheel.His skills were obvious, obvious enough,this one Italian guy namedEnzo Ferrari took notes.He was like,"Get to me some Capocolloand then find out that young man's name."Niki was scooped up by noneother than Scuderia Ferrarifor the 1974 Formula One season.Little Niki Lauda, a boy whogrew up watching F1 legendslike Juan Manuel Fangio win for Ferrari.Now it was his turn and hedidn't have to pay for the drive.They paid him.Niki spent 1974 proving, hewas much more than a cash cow.Because cows can't even take fourth placein the Driver's Championship.Niki Lauda did.Cows don't even know how to drive.So now we're in 1975.Later in life, Niki wouldcall this his dream year.Probably because it wasthe first time that he wona Formula One Championship,which yeah, I mean,that seems like a pretty good year.But it wasn't suddenly easybecause he was in a Ferrari.Much of Niki's success camefrom his dedicated workwith Ferrari engineers to improve his car.Now that's pretty common in F1 now,but it really wasn'ta thing in those days.Guys would show up halfdrunk, smoke some cigarettes,hop in the car and go.But Niki was cut from a different cloth.He didn't just want to be ontop. He needed to be on top.And as he'd alreadyestablished by this point,he'd fight until he got there.So when he got back fromhis first pre-season testin the Ferrari 312, he told Enzo Ferrari,a famously not very chill dude,that his car was "a piece of (beep)".Then he said that he wantedto work with engineersto make it the oppositeof a piece of (beep),you know, hot piss.And the crazy thing isthat he actually did it.This is when Niki Lauda earnedthe nicer of his two nicknames.They called him The Computerbecause he was a calculating genius.Remember, no driver had really workedwith the engineers on the car before.Side-note.His other nickname was TheRat because he had buck teethand he looked like a rat."You think this bothers me.You call me The Ratbecause of the way I look."It's from Drive.The product of The Computer'swork with Ferrari engineerswas nothing less than the company's returnto Formula One glory, aftera very disappointing decade.This is the Ferrari 312T.This car and it's 500horsepower, three liter,naturally aspirated, flat-12busted the prancing horseout of the loser's stableand into the winners stable.It was so fricking goodthat it dominated F1 until like 1981.Can you imagine a six year old car,busting it up in F1 today?The 312T is the single most successful carin the history of the sport.And it sounds pretty good too.(heavy engine noise)The world was Niki Lauda's oysterand the Ferrari 312T was it's pearl.Niki won five out of 14 races in 1975.And by the end of the season,he was 20 points ahead of thenext driver in the paddock.20 points!So like I said earlier,he nabbed his first worldchampionship title that year.Through sheer force of will,Niki achieved his boyhood dream.Was he stoked?Yeah.But celebration, sentimentality, laughing,those things weren't Niki's style.He told the press he tradedis useless championship trophyfor some free car washes,which is hilarious.He probably didn't even eata bunch of chili out of it,which is definitely one of thefirst things that I would do.But whether he showed it or not,the determined Austrianwas on top of the world.But little did he know,what happened next seasonwould almost take him out of it.Niki started the 1976 seasonas F1's most dominant driver.He was fast, confident, thriving.That all changed going intothe 10th race of the season.This race had him spooked.It was the German Grand Prixset to run on theNurburgring, Nordschleife.A track that was literally designedto be as difficult as possible.It was narrower than somecity streets, 14 miles long.And a huge portion of its 76curves carved through thick,spooky German woods inthe Eifel mountains.You've heard of the Black Forest.Well, this is the Green Hell.This is a track so specialthat we made an entire video about it.I'll put the link down below.Now, if someone were to crashin the back woods of the ring,it would take ages for medics to arrive.Not to mention that there'sbasically zero run-off space.So an off was an almost guaranteedcrash into the guard wallAnd because of all those things,plus the lack of fire marshalsand a lack of safety equipment,Niki wasn't feeling it today.I mean the track was designed to challengethe race cars of 1927.Things got a lot fasterin the past 49 years.And to be honest,running F1 on that trackat that time was insane.And Niki, he knew that.So a week before the race,he called on his fellowdrivers to boycott.But it didn't work.The majority of thedrivers wanted to go aheadwith the race.I found a quote from Nikitalking about this and he said,"Some of them wanted to seem brave.Others were simply too stupid to knowthat what they were doing.I steeled myself to drivealthough my brain kept tellingme, it was sheer stupidity."Now Niki was a bit cold andmaybe a bit full of himself.But the fact that he triedto organize a boycottmeant that he caredabout his fellow drivers.I mean, everyone wants a coworkerthat doesn't want them to die, right?And if you think that yourcoworkers want you to die,you either need to start acting right,or you need to get a new job.So the race starts, in the rain.Here we go.Everybody, except forone dude Jochen Mass,started on rain tires.And as the race began,the sun came up and dried up the track,the parts not shaded by the forest.Now Mass took an early lead,which motivated the other drivers to pitand swap their tires backto slicks, including Niki.But remember the woodsI was talking about.There were shaded spotsall over the tracks,still cold and damp becausethe sun didn't reach them.On the second lap of therace, Niki's left rear tireclipped the curbing at 174 miles per hour,sending him into a slide.Now this must have beena terrifying moment.I mean, Niki was alreadybasically convincedthat someone was gonna die on that track.And now he's sliding atover 170 miles per hour.He countered steered instantly,but cold slicks on a damptrack plus all that momentum,I mean, there's not alot of traction going on.Niki's car ran througha restraining fence,which tore off his helmetand slammed hard intoan embankment at more thana hundred miles per hour.The fuel tank ruptured and thecar turned into a fireball.Then, the flaming wreckagerolled back onto the narrow trackThe guy behind Niki avoided hitting him,but the driver behind him, couldn't.He careened directly intoNiki's burning Ferrari,which triggered a second explosion.Like I said before,emergency response was dangerouslyslow at the Nurburgring.Things were looking really bad.Now fortunately for Niki,his fellow drivers came to the rescue.Brett Lunger, the guy who hit Niki,leaped out of his car andpulled him from the wreckage.Another driver Hans Stuck,stopped his car, flaggeddown an ambulance.He convinced the emergencycrew to break protocoland drive against trafficto get to Niki quicker,maybe saving his life.But the horrifying truthis that Niki sat directlyin the center of an 800degree gasoline fuel bonfirefor an agonizing 55 seconds.It was a miracle thathe didn't die instantly.Would he survive his injuries?It really did not seem likely.But he did, (angels singing)which is unbelievable.I mean, how does a regular person survivesomething like this?Niki was flown to the hospitalwhere he hovered just abovethe brink of death, wrappedin bandages from head to toe.He remembered a Catholic priestgiving him his last rights,which made him angry and motivated himto fight harder for his life.In the wreck, he hadinhaled a toxic cocktailof poisonous gases thatgreatly damaged his lungsand sustained severe burnson his face, head and handsthat scarred him for the rest of his life.He had had reconstructive surgeryjust to get his eyelidsto work properly again.Back on the day of the wreck,officials resumed the raceand Niki's rival, James Hunttook the checkered flag.This was the last F1 flag flownon the original Nurburgring,and for good reason.Officials decided that maybe that trackwas a bit too dangerous after all.A new, shorter, infinitelysafer Grand Prix circuitwas built on the south endof the old track in 1983,but really wasn't used inF1 until the mid-nineties.Now, after literallybeing scarred for lifeby his horrific wreck at the Nurburgring,you might think retirementwas on Niki's mind.Nope.He was like, "I'm not done yet."He fought to be a racecar driver and he made it.He fought for his life and he made it.And he wasn't done fightingfor another Formula One Championship.Niki Lauda was determined tobe the best or die trying.So just 39 days after his wreck,Niki was back on a racetrack.Which isn't just insane, itseems medically inadvisableAnd I'm sure he was advisedby medicals not to do it.And I'd love to tell you thatdespite missing two raceswhile he was in the hospital,that he scored enough pointsto win the 1976 Formula One championship.That's not true.Niki lost the '76 championshipby a single point.And that's after he bowedout of a third race,the Japanese Grand Prixbecause of bad weather.When his team manager askedif he wanted to claim itas a technical failureto save face, Niki said,"My life is worth more thanthe title", which is sick.Now at this point in his life,one fight wasn't enough for Niki.That wreck at the ringcould have been avoided.Now he was determined tomake sure something like thatwould never happen again.He became an outspoken advocatefor safety in Formula One.And in a 1977 interview,Niki said, "Some of theGrand Prix circuits,we drivers are asked to race ondo not fulfill the mostprimitive safety requirements."He also said someonebesides race organizerswho had tons of money inthe game should be in chargeof deciding whether to call off a race.Danger was, still is and willalways be a part of racing.Niki knew that.It's part of what attracted it to him,but safety reform was desperately needed.Now if multiple explosionshadn't forced Niki to chill fora month, he would have easilytaken that '76 championship.So instead, he easilytook the '77 championship.Too easy.The Ferrari 312T was too good.There wasn't enough fight.So Niki left Ferrari for Brabham F1.He only asked twoseasons there and decidedto retire suddenly duringa practice session in 1979,stating that he had no more desire to"continue the silliness ofdriving around in circles",which is a perfectly NikiLauda way to quit something.But he couldn't stay outof the driver's seat.He came out of retirementin 1982 to join McLaren.And in 1984, he wonhis third championship.The following season was kind of a bust,so Niki decided to hang up hisinfamous red Marlboro helmetfor good, choosing thetotally normal second careerof running his own airline, Lauda Air.If you think that NikiLauda could stay awayfrom Formula One forever,you're dead wrong pal.You (beep) idiot!Niki returned in 1993.This time in a managerialposition at Ferrari.Little did he know that the next yearsomething terrible would happen,calling him back to a familiar fight.Formula One legend AyrtonSenna died tragicallyin a wreck at the 1994San Marino Grand Prix.So did rookie Roland Ratzenberger.In response, Niki and anumber of other driversand officials reestablishedF1's long dormant drivers union.They fought hard for safetyreforms and thanks to them,major accidents in FormulaOne steadily declined.In fact, only one person Jules Bianchi,has died in the last 27 years of F1.This is Niki Lauda's legacy.And it's impossible toforget what a determined,intense, calculating driver he was.He's gone down in historyas one of the greats behind the wheel,but winning simply doesn'tcompare to saving lives,especially if you're tradingyour useless trophiesfor carwash tokens.Hey doc, stop wearing layers upon layersof Yota's Tacos T-shirts this winter.Just by the all new Yota'sTacos hoodie and sweat pants.They're exactly likethe shirt except thickerand with the hood and afun draw string and pants.Get yours today at www.donutmedia.comDon't be a chilly Billy, be a warm Norm.(music)Thank you guys so muchfor watching this videoand everything else on Donut media.I really love this story.There's a really good movieabout, it's called 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