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VIENNA: The great Austrian car racer Niki Lauda, who has returned from an almost fatal accident, makes him a world symbol of resilience and determination, has died at 70 years.
Lauda is so injured in the accident of the 1976 German Grand Prix that a priest gives him the last rites while he is in a coma.
Her Ferrari was crushed against a barrier and caught fire as she returned to the track, where an approaching car hit her again. By the time he was removed from the wreckage, his face, scalp and right ear were severely burned and his lungs burned.
Just six weeks later, his injuries burned and bandaged, he was racing again, seeking to retain his world title in Formula One. It remains one of the most memorable acts of courage and challenge in the sport .
"It was the most terrifying weekend," he told Reuters in 2013, acknowledging how afraid he was of running so soon after cheating on his life. He finished fourth that day.
But he rarely let himself go to such a feeling, even long after a career in which he had won three world championship titles, as much as Brazilian Ayrton Senna or Briton Jackie Stewart.
"It's over, I live today and I think about tomorrow, take the experience," he said in the same interview.
Lauda, who will later become a racing team leader and an airline entrepreneur, applies this pragmatic style to most things. After accumulating so many "ugly and useless" trophies, he handed them over to his local mechanic in exchange for a lifetime of free car wash. Https://www.reuters.com/article/us- motor-racing-price-lauda / niki-lauda-swapped-trophies-for-car-free-washes-idUSKCN0PE0SN20150704.
RAT DOGGED
In addition to the eye and eyelid reconstruction work, he opted against cosmetic surgery for the burns that disfigured him. Instead, he covered a large part with a baseball cap that became his trademark, prompting sponsors to affix their logo.
"Of course, people change their bads and their bad and so on.In my case, something could be done but I would not do it because it's a reality and that's all." , did he declare.
Lauda also saw the lighter side. Even before his fall, his lead teeth had earned him the nickname "Rat", and he would later remember that his friend and rival, James Hunt, had told him that he looked better after this accident: a scene described in the Hollywood movie "Rush" their rivalry this season.
"Now, if people try to annoy me with comments on my face, I simply say," I had an accident. But you were born like this, "he told the German newspaper Die Welt.
He also overcame his internal injuries. After two kidney transplants in 1997 and 2009, he underwent a lung transplant in 2018, almost 42 years after the accident at Nürburgring, during which he inhaled hot toxic gases.
Doggedness was a feature of his life.
Born into a wealthy Viennese family, he defied his desire to pursue a career in the race. Lauda's grandfather, who sat on the supervisory board of an Austrian bank, even blocked his company's sponsorship deal with his grandson. The rebel family borrowed to finance his early years.
A NEW BAS
In 1979, after two years with the less competitive Brabham-Alfa Romeo team during which he did not win the world title, he decided he was tired of driving and retiring from the sport.
He went on his own side that year, founding his first airline, Lauda Air, which he would sell to Austrian Airlines three decades later, after having taken the habit of surprising pbadengers. by piloting his plane himself.
This career had its own setback in 1991 when a Lauda Air plane crashed in Thailand, killing 223 people. Eventually, Boeing's plane rather than his airline was found liable.
"People still think the worst time of my life must have been after the crash of the German Grand Prix … but that was not it," he told the Observer newspaper in 2006. "When you run an airline and more than 200 people want to go from A to B and they do not arrive – it's a different responsibility."
His love of aviation has endured. Last year, he bought another airline that he had founded, Niki, after the bankruptcy of his new company Air Berlin. He renamed Laudamotion and quickly sold a stake in Ryanair, quickly recovering a large portion of his investment.
As in the field of aviation, he could not shoot long for the race. Barely two years after retiring from the sport, the McLaren team seduced him and he won his third World Championship title in 1984. Only five drivers won more titles.
His count was almost higher. In the year of his fall, he lost the world title against Hunt by one point after deciding that the last race of the season, wet by the rain, was too dangerous. He retired after one lap.
"The rain did not stop for two hours and that idiot of Japanese race director arrived and said the race was starting now, for me it was the most stupid decision of my life. I made a turn for Ferrari to get the money and I left., "He said.
Still, he said that he had no regrets.
"For me it was logical, I think I would do the same thing today."
(Additional report by Kirsti Knolle, edited by Darren Schuettler)
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