One special racer and man

NIKI Lauda was a super driver but far above that, he was a special man.

We were very, very close and what has happened is in some ways a terrible thing. But in others it is a blessing because he had been in bad shape for some time. The last few months were bloody torture and a misery for him.

I choose to remember him the way he was, the old Niki I wish he could still be: A fighter, an always-onthe-go dynamo who won three world titles and was busy and successful afterwards in so many areas from team management to business.

I wouldn’t have liked to see him struggle on and be unable to live life to the full, at top speed. That was not his way. He would not have been happy.

In the memories of the wider world it is his accident in Germany in 1976 for which he will always be known, and more specifically the way he recovered to return to the cockpit so quickly. He showed real courage in the face of a terrible injury.

A bit of me wishes Niki could have lived a peaceful life but that would not have suited him. He was not a peaceful man. He was a fighter.

I have millions of memories of him. He drove for me at Brabham and they were wonderful years with Nelson Piquet also. He was a clever driver. He knew exactly where the limits were and how much he could get out of himself and his car.

He would come in and say I can make up time here and there, and then he would go out and do precisely that.

In later years he was the mainstay in pulling Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team together. He had the support of the Mercedes board but, 100 percent, without him they would not have achieved what they have.

Yes, Niki was a warrior, and just a bit special in general.

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