{"id":849477,"date":"2026-08-09T20:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T20:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/849477\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T20:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T20:20:13","slug":"outside-line-here-is-why-niki-lauda-has-to-be-the-goatest-of-the-formula-1-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/849477\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside Line: Here is why Niki Lauda has to be the GOATest of the Formula 1 GOATs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was 15 years old when Niki Lauda crashed and defied death 50 years ago at Nurburgring Nordschleife aka the Green Hell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I cannot believe five decades have passed because certain events in your life stay with you forever. For some things in life, you remember exactly where you were, no matter how much time has gone by or how young you were at the time. <\/p>\n

I remember I was at boarding school and, on the evening of that Sunday, 1 August 1976, we were in our common room where we played pool, flung darts and talked shit. We had a TV there and, for the first time I can remember we saw Formula 1 on the telly, SABC showed images of Niki Lauda’s crash.<\/p>\n

At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. It wasn’t like today, when you can watch Formula 1 live virtually anywhere. And hit social media seconds later for info. It was very rare that we watched Formula 1 live in the ’70s in South Africa; television itself was hardly a thing because it had only recently been introduced.<\/p>\n

I don’t think Formula 1 even had a regular television feed apart from the BBC and perhaps a few American broadcasters. I certainly don’t recall seeing Formula 1 live on TV at that stage of my life. For us, following the sport required a very different level of commitment.<\/p>\n

My whole school class had become infected with Formula 1 fever, along with soccer fever, cricket fever and all the other obsessions you get at that age. But Formula 1 was pretty much it for us. We even went to Grands Prix together, hung out talking about Formula 1 all week.<\/p>\n

We read Autosport, Motoring News, Motorsport; anything we could get our hands on, we devoured. On that particular Sunday, we were waiting to listen to the crackling BBC World Service later in the evening. Usually, we would get literally 30 seconds telling us who won, who scored points and perhaps the top six finishers.<\/p>\n

No news was bad news for Formula 1 fans in the seventies\"1976<\/p>\n

There was no detail. Nothing like the minute-by-minute coverage we take for granted today. Then suddenly we saw this crash on television, cranked up the sound and realised it was Niki Lauda. We were horrified. Proper, proper horrified.<\/p>\n

The next weekend was one when I could go back home, and I immediately went to my grandfather’s place. We talked about the crash non-stop, and he had just received the latest Autosport, which in those days arrived in South Africa by airplane on Thursdays after publication in the UK a few days earlier.<\/p>\n

The images were insane. The one that really stood out for me was Niki wearing the bloody balaclava during his comeback race at Monza. It was just one of those images you never forget, etched forever into your mind’s eye. That whole episode drew me even deeper into Formula 1.<\/p>\n

My Formula 1 history had really started earlier. In 1971, I attended my first Grand Prix at Kyalami, which Mario Andretti won. We still have random family photographs as receipts, and I remember my mum rooting for Andretti, and he duly went on to win the race.<\/p>\n

After that, I used to go to Kyalami four or five times a year because they held national races there as well. My grandfather was an avid motorsport fan, so the bug quickly bit me. He would pick me up, we’d take our sandwiches, head to the circuit, talk shit, watch the racing and wander around the pits.<\/p>\n

Serious fascination with Formula 1\"1973<\/p>\n

That was the era. But I’d say my serious fascination with Formula 1 really started in 1973, when I received a John Player Special Formula 1 annual for Christmas. It had everything in it: results, photographs, race reports, interviews and an enormous amount of information about the sport.<\/p>\n

It was an incredible book for me at that stage, and I absolutely devoured it. It eventually disintegrated in my hands because it wasn’t particularly well made and I read it over and over again. It was thick and badly bound, but I got an unbelievable amount of information out of it.<\/p>\n

My grandfather also bought Autosport every week, so that became part of my education. I started learning about drivers, teams and races. Pretty soon I was researching everything I could about the sport’s past.<\/p>\n

The 1973 season<\/a> itself was incredibly deadly. Roger Williamson died in a fire during the Dutch Grand Prix that year. And, not long after I received that book, Fran\u00e7ois Cevert was killed at Watkins Glen. He was the heir apparent to Jackie Stewart. It was a shocker.<\/p>\n

God forbid, but for a reality check, think Charles Leclerc and Ollie Bearman perishing in one year! Unthinkable, but that’s the kind of level of drivers we lost.<\/p>\n

Peter Revson reality check at Kyalami\"peter<\/p>\n

Reading about these deaths, and many before them, had an enormous impact on me and made me understand very quickly what Formula 1 could mean.<\/p>\n

For some odd reason, from then I was hooked. By 1974, I was researching everything from the past and, I’d say, going back to around 1967, I became very clued up on what had happened in Formula 1. I wanted to know the drivers, the races, the cars and the history.<\/p>\n

In ’74, I followed every race religiously, through reports and whatever tidbits we got on the telly. Again, death followed my passion. At Kyalami, it happened in front of the exact spot where my grandad, his crew, their kids and I watched from, aka Barbecue.<\/p>\n

A couple of days before my 13th birthday, on 22 March 1974, American superstar Peter Revson was killed in a crash during a testing session ahead of the 1974 South African Grand Prix. I sat throughout the weekend there staring at the black section of Armco where Peter breathed for the last time.<\/p>\n

Later in the year, Austrian rookie Helmut Koinigg suffered an almost identical crash to Cevert’s a year earlier. Same track, same corner, same glitch, same destiny: death.<\/p>\n

In 1975, American racing legend Mark Donohue died during the Austrian Grand Prix. Those happened in real time. Switching on the radio, hearing the top six and a side note about a death. This time it was Mark.<\/p>\n

In November, a Formula 1 World Champion and racing legend, Graham Hill along with a promising British talent, Tony Brise, were killed in a plane crash. It was a shocker.<\/p>\n

Tom Pryce another Kyalami victim\"tom<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, the reality of Formula 1 was that drivers died, frequently. I was already very aware of death in Formula 1 by the time I reached my mid-teens. But as you grow older, around 15 or 16, you start understanding things.<\/p>\n

You realise what those risks actually mean. Then, boom, the Niki Lauda crash happened, and suddenly one of the biggest names in Formula 1 was fighting for his life.<\/p>\n

I remember speaking much later with people I had been at school with, and they could verify how enormous the story was for us. We were all completely mesmerised by it. It became the biggest talking point at school because, for a week or more, nobody knew whether Niki was going to live or die.<\/p>\n

There was no internet telling you immediately what was happening. You’d open the newspaper and sometimes there would be nothing. Especially in South Africa, everything felt very disjointed and far away from what was happening in Europe, let alone Formula 1.<\/p>\n

There were so few sources of information. AP, Reuters and AFP would occasionally provide reports, but Formula 1 was not covered anything like it is today, with a million ‘reporters’ delivering news in real time.<\/p>\n

In fact, Formula 1 wasn’t always treated as a proper sport in the South African newspapers of that era. You would rarely find our sport prominently featured in the sports pages. Sometimes a race report would simply appear somewhere between general news and entertainment, followed by the results.<\/p>\n

Lack of information incredibly frustrating<\/p>\n

For a young Formula 1 fan desperate for information, it was incredibly frustrating. And through all of that, we knew Niki’s life hung in the balance. When he eventually recovered and returned to racing, there was an enormous sense of relief.<\/p>\n

Then, in 1977, he came back to Kyalami and we were there with friends from school. We were overwhelmed simply to see Niki in the flesh after what he had survived.<\/p>\n

Sadly, that same Kyalami weekend became another devastating chapter in Formula 1 history. First, on 18 March, Brazilian superstar Carlos Pace was killed in an aircraft crash. Our family were fond of Carlos as fans; it was shocking news. Tears were shed.<\/p>\n

But it got worse. During the 1977 South African Grand Prix, Tom Pryce and a marshal were killed in one of the sport’s most horrific accidents. My school mates and I were there, where the Shadow ended up in the catch fencing at Crowthorne. With the occupant lifeless. But that’s a story for another day.<\/p>\n

Drivers died frequently. The fact that Niki survived his N\u00fcrburgring crash and went on to become World Champion again in 1977 says everything about the man. It was a testament not only to his ability as a racing driver, but to something much deeper in his character.<\/p>\n

Lauda beat Boeing\"laudamotion<\/p>\n

He quit the sport suddenly in 1979; he’d had enough of driving around in circles, and went on to start Lauda Air. Once again, he found himself tested to the maximum. On 26 May 1991, the Boeing 767 operating the route crashed following an uncommanded deployment of the thrust reverser on one engine during the climb phase, causing the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stall, uncontrolled dive and in-flight breakup, killing all 213 passengers and ten crew members on board.<\/p>\n

Boeing tried to exonerate itself, but a relentless Lauda effectively “beat” Boeing by personally uncovering and forcing the manufacturer to admit to a catastrophic design flaw<\/a> following the 1991 crash of Lauda Air Flight 004 in Thailand.<\/p>\n

That story is not directly about Formula 1, but it is absolutely about Niki Lauda. He simply never gave up. Whether he was driving a racing car, running an airline or confronting one of the world’s biggest corporations, that trait never changed.<\/p>\n

Later, he became involved with Jaguar in Formula 1. It wasn’t necessarily the greatest chapter of his post-driving career, and Jaguar eventually evolved into Red Bull after fellow Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz bought the team. For a while, Niki seemed to step away again and concentrate more on his airline interests.<\/p>\n

\"lauda<\/p>\n

Niki re-emerged when Mercedes became a major force in Formula 1. The team wanted Lewis Hamilton, and he played a crucial role in persuading Hamilton to leave McLaren and join Mercedes. That decision helped create one of the most successful driver-team partnerships Formula 1 has ever seen.<\/p>\n

For me, Niki touched greatness not only as a racing driver, but also as a businessman and as an enormously influential figure within Formula 1 teams. He was never really a conventional team principal, but he became something equally valuable: a team boss at large, a deal-maker and a man whose judgement carried enormous weight.<\/p>\n

And that got me thinking. Formula 1 fans hate trying to single out one driver as the GOAT because there are too many eras, too many different cars and too many extraordinary champions. Comparing them directly is almost impossible.<\/p>\n

But considering everything Niki Lauda did, and after doing the research for this piece, I realised something. If you measure Formula 1 greatness not only by driving and speed, but by courage, intelligence, resilience, influence and everything that came afterwards, he has a very strong claim to it.<\/p>\n

Researching and reliving the crash 50 years since he defied death, I conclude that Niki Lauda has to be the GOATest of the Formula 1 GOATs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was 15 years old when Niki Lauda crashed and defied death 50 years ago at Nurburgring Nordschleife…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,305846,167610,813,816,58683,47804,85],"class_list":["post-849477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-f1-history","tag-flashback","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-niki-lauda","tag-nurburgring","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}