TRIBUTES TO F1 LEGEND NIKI
THREE-TIME Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda produced the “most courageous act of any sportsman” in returning to racing so soon after a horrific crash, says former team-mate John Watson.
Austrian Lauda, who won the drivers’ championship in 1975, 1977 and 1984, died aged 70 on Monday.
He almost died following a crash in the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.
Despite suffering severe burns and inhaling hot toxic fumes, he resumed racing 40 days later.
Briton Watson was a team-mate of Lauda at Brabham and McLaren in the 1970s and 1980s and was one of the first people to attend to him after the crash.
“I came around shortly after the accident and the other drivers that were there managed to get him out of the cockpit and walked him away,” Watson said.
Burning
“We lay him down and I put his head in my lap and he was able to communicate.
“Nobody realised the actual damage to Niki. The real danger he was in was not from the superficial injuries that we could see but from the deeper injury, which was that to his lung.
“He had suffered inhalation of toxic fumes from the burning fibreglass and we didn’t appreciate the severity of the injury that he’d suffered.
“Racing 40 days after that accident was the most courageous act of any sportsman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart recalled of Lauda’s comeback race: “At the end I was there and the blood was running out of his helmet.
“He always had great integrity and was one of the smoothest, best drivers I’ve ever seen.”