Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  On race morning, the weather was unpredictable and Lauda received some bad news from home. That morning the Reichsbrüke, the biggest bridge in Austria, had collapsed into the Danube in the early hours, resulting in the loss of one life. At any other time of the day, hundreds of people would have been killed. Lauda was stunned by the news and he wondered if this was another omen. He didn’t like omens.

  Because of the circuit’s length, the race was only 14 laps and the average speed was expected to be close to 120 miles per hour. On the starting grid, it started to rain. Every driver, except Jochen Mass, chose to start on wet weather grooved tyres. Mass was totally familiar with the meteorological conditions at his home circuit and believed the track would soon be clear. When a stiff wind rose up and quickly blew the circuit dry, his instincts were proved right.

  Straightaway, Mass, who started from row five, was contesting the lead as Lauda and Hunt slithered away from the start. Lauda had a terrible start and seemed to be racing in reverse, dropping as low as twentieth place on the unsuitable tyres.

  By the end of the first lap, Mass was in the lead, followed by Hunt and Ronnie Peterson’s March-Ford. Everyone stopped on lap two for dry tyres.

  Everyone, that is, except Peterson, who was fooled by Hunt into thinking he was going to do another lap on the wet tyres and so followed suit. Hunt slowed down and let the Swede by, before suddenly diving into the pits.

  After changing tyres, Hunt’s McLaren-Ford rejoined the race in second place, but already 45 seconds behind Mass. Lauda also changed from wet to slick dry tyres and drove out of the pits. Speeding away on the new tyres, he tried to make up lost time on a mostly dry track that was still damp in places. But he misjudged the conditions and his Ferrari mounted a kerb with the left front wheel. The shock of the impact went right through the car and caused a tie rod to loosen. Unaware of what had happened, Lauda thought nothing of it. But Ferrari had had problems before with tie rods failing off; it was one of the car’s principal weaknesses and had not been fixed.

  As he approached Bergwerk, the magnesium tie rod (one of the components that secured the suspension to the engine block where it was mounted) completely broke and detached from the engine. As a result, the rear wheel mountings collapsed straight away and the car lurched to the right. Lauda was travelling at more than 130 miles per hour when it failed.

  The car went sideways into the catch fencing at Bergwerk on the outside of the corner, but it lost hardly any speed at all. With the fencing unable to contain it, the car slammed into the embankment behind and went airborne. It bounced back onto the track with Lauda helpless at the wheel. The car slammed down hard on the track and the fuel tank became detached and flew through the air, spilling lighted fuel on the track. The stunned Lauda was stationary in the middle of the racing line and looked around wondering what would happen next. It was too dangerous to move. The next car through was Guy Edwards’ Hesketh-Ford. He managed to avoid the Ferrari and stopped beyond it when he saw the burning fuel and realised that Lauda was still in his car. Then the Surtees-Ford car of Brett Lunger came through. Lunger was completely unsighted and smashed straight into the Ferrari with Lauda still inside. The Ferrari burst into flames and the two cars travelled at least 90 metres down the track from the force of the impact. Harald Ertl’s Hesketh-Ford then piled into the wreckage of both cars.

  Amazingly, Lunger and Ertl were unhurt and they leaped from their cars to help Lauda, who was now in serious trouble from three impacts. His car was a fireball, and Lauda was waving his arms in front of his helmet to ward the flames away from his face. His helmet was askew and had been half wrenched off his head in the accident.

  Now all of the cars behind Lauda stopped. Because the track was so long, the medical and fire rescue were nowhere nearby and it was up to the drivers to rescue Lauda.

  Arturo Merzario in a Williams-Ford was the last to stop and, by then, some marshals had arrived. But they had no fireproof clothing. Edwards, Lunger and Ertl were doing their best but couldn’t get Lauda out of the flames. Merzario rushed along the road and, without thinking, dived straight into the flames with only his overalls and flameproof balaclava to protect him. In a moment of incredible foolhardiness, the Italian went in with total disregard for his own life. As quick as a flash, Merzario unbuckled Lauda’s seatbelts. However, as he did so, Lauda’s helmet came off and the flames licked his face.

  It was inexplicable that Lauda’s helmet had come off without killing him. But it later emerged that Lauda was wearing a specially modified AGV helmet with extra foam padding to make it more comfortable to wear. The extra foam had compressed when pressure was put on the helmet, and it had easily slid off his head after the accident. The modified helmet was almost certainly not legal, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Max Mosley stamped on this practice when he became president of the FIA, and remains convinced that drivers are their own worst enemies when it comes to safety, as he said: “When the crash happened, it just came off. And of course that was the attitude in those days.” Bizarrely, David Benson wrote in the Daily Express that: “In the force of the impact, Lauda’s head had momentarily shrunk and his crash helmet had briefly expanded.” That was one way of putting it.

  Meanwhile, Harald Ertl had found a fire extinguisher and had no choice but to squirt it at Lauda to put out the flames. It was then that Lauda breathed in some of the toxic fumes. With the fire temporarily out, Lunger leaped onto the top of the car and lifted Lauda out. Amazingly, Lauda stayed on his feet and staggered around in great pain. Meanwhile John Watson, Emerson Fittipaldi and Hans Stuck, all of whom had been behind the accident, stopped their cars and ran down the road to help. Finding Lauda wandering around the track, Watson walked him to a dry area and lay him down.

  All the drivers gathered round him for support as he lay by the side of the track. Watson put Lauda’s head between his own thighs and cradled it. The other drivers carefully removed his flameproof balaclava but could see he was badly burned. Although still conscious, Lauda remembered nothing of the accident itself. He continued speaking – in Italian to Merzario and in English to Watson. He asked Merzario how his face was.

  An ambulance was on the scene in less than three minutes and Lauda was taken away. Luckily, there had been an ambulance stationed at Adenan bridge, near where the accident had happened.

  By this time, the red flag had been shown to the rest of the field and there was a loudspeaker announcement in the pit lane that a serious accident had blocked the track at Bergwerk, the most northerly corner of the circuit. The leading cars came round and parked in front of the pits ready for the restart.

  Only the seven drivers who had witnessed the accident and its aftermath knew the extent of Lauda’s injuries. The accident had happened a mile or so behind the front of the pack and they were behind Lauda before the accident. Although Edwards and Merzario had witnessed the horror of the accident, they got back to the start line just in time for the restart and did not speak to any of the other drivers. Neither did Watson, Fittipaldi or Stuck. That being the case, the only news that reached the pits was that Lauda had been walking around after the crash. As he got back in his car for the restart, Hunt believed that Lauda had escaped serious injury. He said: “He was taken off to hospital and obviously wouldn’t be racing again that day, but we thought he’d have his burns patched up and we’d see him at the next race in Austria. That was what we felt then; there were no alarm stories so one was able to get into the car and go racing again with no qualms.”

  Chris Amon, the 33-year-old veteran driver, had arrived at the accident just after it happened and, when he stopped his Ensign-Ford and saw Lauda lying by the side of the track, he was horrified. According to Amon, he didn’t think the Austrian would survive. He drove back to the pit lane and retired on the spot, saying he was finished with Formula One. Amon had also been witness to how slowly emergency services had responded to Lauda’s accident. He spoke to no one and left the circuit.

  The biggest loser from the rest
art was Jochen Mass. Mass had made the right choice of tyres, established a big lead and was certain to win the race. Now it was all for nothing and, as Hunt said: “Fate intervened and ruined it for him.”

  Hunt cleared his mind of everything but the task at hand, and streaked into a lead that remained unthreatened. He called that first lap “probably the most aggressive piece of driving I did all year. I was absolutely determined to get as big a lead as possible, and everything turned out right.”

  It was dry and this time there was no uncertainty about tyres. Hunt was ten seconds clear at the end of the first restarted lap, as he remembered: “I put in a blinding first lap and the others were spinning and falling about all over the place which helped me, so I virtually had the race won by the end of the first lap. It was only a matter of controlling things from the front.”

  Hunt was followed home by Jody Scheckter’s Tyrrell-Ford, with Mass coming in third. By the time he finished, he was half a minute ahead of Scheckter. He would later call the victory one of his most satisfying drives. But his abiding memory of the day was seeing Teddy Mayer’s reaction: “McLaren had never won at the ring and it was tremendously gratifying to me to see him so happy.”

  With no competition from Lauda, the victory had brought him to within 14 points of his rival.

  Meanwhile, Lauda was airlifted off the track in a helicopter and, upon seeing the extent of his injuries, doctors anaesthetised him. Lauda had endured his injuries incredibly bravely, being fully conscious for over three quarters of an hour. As he drifted off, the last thing he would remember was the clatter of the helicopter blades as they took off. He was taken to Mannheim Hospital.

  Lauda’s own personal aeroplane pilot, Hans Klemitinger, anticipating events, flew to Vienna the moment he saw his boss being put in the helicopter. Lauda’s wife Marlene was herself recovering from a miscarriage and suffered from low blood pressure, but Klemitinger knew she would want to be at her husband’s side. She was already at the airport when Klemitinger landed and they were at the hospital within hours of her husband’s arrival. Marlene said later: “At the time, I had no idea how badly injured he would be. I was told he was alright, but that he was in hospital. It was not until I spoke to the doctors and was allowed to see him that the shock hit me.”

  A team of six dedicated doctors and 34 nurses tended him. His injuries were diagnosed as first to third degree burns on his head and wrists, several broken ribs, and a broken collarbone and cheekbone. Much more serious were the poisonous fumes and toxic gases he had inhaled. His windpipe and lungs were scorched, and the build-up of fluid in his lungs was life-threatening.

  That night, the doctors thought he was going to die. But after only four days in intensive care, hopes started to emerge that he would pull through. While there had been no single great injury, serious damage had been done to his lungs and to his bloodstream, which was poisoned as a result of inhaling the fire extinguisher fumes, smoke and petrol vapour. The burns on his face, head and hands were severe, although not critical.

  When Hunt heard on Monday morning that Lauda was fighting for his life, he was devastated. Although they were rivals and not great friends, he said: “It was suddenly very important for me that Niki should live, in a way I hadn’t realised. And I felt awful because there was nothing I could do about it. There I was, sitting at home, enjoying life when I didn’t even particularly want to; I wanted to go and help or do something, and I couldn’t.”

  Marlene Lauda was entirely unprepared for the ordeal she faced. For four long days and nights, her husband’s life hung by a thread. She moved into a hotel near the hospital, visiting her husband for only an hour at a time. Each visit to the hospital was accompanied by a barrage of flash bulbs and journalists looking for answers to questions and hoping to record her anguish. She told one: “I was deeply shocked by the accident but it gave me my first real understanding of motor racing. Before that, I had no idea of the dangers of the race track. I used to smoke maybe one or two cigarettes a day, but from the time of the accident, I have become a chain smoker. I know that this is not good for my health, but it helps me through the crisis.”

  On Wednesday, a priest was brought into Lauda’s room to give him the last rites. Wavering in and out of consciousness, it was clear that Lauda did not like the intervention of the priest. He said afterwards it damaged his morale and determination to live. He survived by sheer force of will, although some people did suggest that the reading of the last rites was a ruse by Lauda to mislead Hunt about the extent of his injuries.

  Immediately after the accident, newspapers, especially in Germany, began writing tasteless articles speculating on the extent of his burns, relying on very sketchy information that had been ferreted from hospital staff. Journalists at the German newspaper Bild were particularly shameless. In an article with the headline: ‘My God, where is his face?’, one journalist wrote: “Niki Lauda, the world’s fastest racing driver, no longer has a face. It is no more than raw flesh with eyes oozing out of it. Niki Lauda has survived...but how can a man exist without a face?” The story went on to forecast what life would be like for Lauda, continuing: “Horrible as it may sound, even if his body recovers completely, he will not venture into public for six months at least. It will be 1979 before they can build him a new face. By then, nose, eyelids and lips will have been refashioned. But the new face will not bear the slightest resemblance to the one he had before. Lauda the racing driver will only be recognisable to his friends through his voice and his gestures.”

  It was all third-hand speculative nonsense, but it sold a lot of newspapers that week. It also influenced Enzo Ferrari, who entered into panic negotiations with disaffected Brabham driver Carlos Reutemann to replace Lauda immediately.

  A few days later, Lauda was airlifted to Salzburg Hospital nearer to his home. There, he would begin his astoundingly quick recovery.

  No official statement was ever released by Ferrari as to the cause of the accident. Only Ermanno Cuoghi, Lauda’s chief mechanic, was left to provide any explanation. As for Lauda, he said: “I recollect nothing. Not a damn thing. Except a big, black hole.”

  After many skin grafts, Lauda’s face was made reasonably presentable and his eyelids were rebuilt with plastic surgery. But angry scars remained, and no attempt was made to replace the missing half of his right ear; Niki jested that it made it easier for him to talk on the telephone.

  The accident would have no lasting effects on Lauda, although he admitted he was unsure of the psychological effects. Since then, he has only had one flashback to the accident, in 1984, when he inadvertently smoked a cannabis cigarette which caused hallucinations and memories of the flames. He then had complete and accurate recall of what had happened after the accident, and replayed it in his mind. He remembers: “Suddenly, it hit me: Nürburgring and the intensive care unit.”

  Despite the histrionics from Bild, Lauda was always unconcerned with the physical changes to his face and body, as he said: “My talent for overriding my emotions by staying detached and objective served me well. There was really no point in having a complex about losing half an ear. Take a good look at yourself in the mirror – that’s you, that’s the way you are. And if people don’t like you that way, you might as well forget them. I’m not going to have cosmetic surgery. As long as they function unimpaired, I don’t feel the need.”

  Remarkably, Lauda also seemed to come into a similar awareness about his marriage. Nearly 15 years after the accident, he decided to get a divorce from Marlene. At the family house in Spain, he recalls: “I took her out for a walk and I said to her: ‘Listen, I think we should get divorced’ and she said: ‘I think that’s a good idea.’”

  Having expected a somewhat more robust reaction, Lauda admitted he was taken aback. His attitude to her was: “Oh really?” to which she replied: “I’ve got my life” and he said: ‘Okay, tell me what you want. You can have anything you want.’”

  Her demands were modest, as she told him: “I want the house, I wan
t the donkey, I want the cat and the dog and the three chickens.” By this time Lauda was annoyed at how easy it all was. He had expected a fight and outrageous demands. He replied: “Fucking fine, help yourself woman, couldn’t give a shit.”

  Lauda later confided in John Hogan, the man he had enlisted to help him get married all those years ago, that: “Well the dogs, the horses, and cats, and donkeys, and all the other shit: that’s what drove me mad anyway. Then I realised I’m stuck with two houses in Austria, fucking aeroplanes, cars, all this fucking shit that I don’t want anyway. And she’s got the stuff I want.”

  Lauda spent the next 15 years reliving his playboy years. He finally fell for one of his airline stewardesses, Birgit Wetzinger, who donated him a kidney that he badly needed as a relic of the accident. In 2008, they had twins a boy and a girl. They married in 2009.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Championship Year July to September 1976

  Better than Clark, as good as Stewart

  When James Hunt arrived in Austria for the eleventh race of the 1976 Formula One world championship, he couldn’t have been on a greater high. No drink or drugs were needed to sustain him that golden weekend in the middle of August.

  The setting was the 3.67-mile Österreichring circuit, and it looked magnificent within view of the glorious Alps. Located 60 miles from Graz and laid out on the foothill slopes of the Alps in beautiful countryside, it was arguably the most beautiful circuit on the Formula One calendar.

  Europe was enjoying an unprecedented heat wave that summer, with over 60 days of unbroken sunshine since late May. Not a drop of rain had fallen in that time.

  It was even hotter in Britain, which had not seen weather like it in recent times. The good weather was set to last for another two weeks. It seemed as if the sun was shining on James Hunt.