He has won three world titles, cheated death, founded two airlines and run a
Formula One team.
Lauda’s current diatribe against the cult of celebrity has its roots in a
conversation we were having, inevitably, about Mercedes’
star recruit, Lewis
Hamilton, and his occasional well-documented forays into the gossip
pages. Lauda, typically, has no time for it. He points out that the 2008
world champion’s sometimes erratic behaviour in recent years would not even
have registered as ripples on the testosterone-filled Formula One pond of
his heyday, although he concedes that times have changed. “Everything has
changed,” he notes wistfully. “Society has changed.”
It is a timely lament. Lauda’s era, and more specifically his titanic battle
with James Hunt in the 1976 championship, has just been made the subject of
a big budget film, Rush, by the Hollywood director Ron Howard. It has its
world premiere in Leicester Square on Sept 2.
Rush tells the story of the intense rivalry between two very different people,
the charismatic playboy Hunt with his Sex: Breakfast of Champions-emblazoned
overalls, and the almost pathologically driven Lauda; of the latter’s near
fatal accident at the infamous ‘Green Hell’ of the Nürburgring when he had
to be pulled from the burning wreckage of his Ferrari; and of his
near-miraculous return, just weeks after being read his last rites and with
his face still bandaged and covered in weeping sores, to take the title race
to the final day of the season in Japan.
Hunt is played by Australian heart-throb Chris Hemsworth, but it is the German
actor Daniel Brühl in the role of Lauda who really shines, uncannily
mimicking the Austrian’s accent and mannerisms. “I was very impressed,”
Lauda says of Brühl’s performance. “I couldn’t believe how well he
[impersonated me]. He was even worse than I was. ‘—- you!’ ‘—-
this!’ He did a very good job.
“I have had no negative comments about the movie at all. Everyone who watches
it gets something out of it. Even women like it. The butt of Mr Hemsworth is
sensational. The butt makes the movie.”
A few factual inaccuracies aside, Rush appears to have gone down fairly well
with the paddock cognoscenti, too. A special advance screening of the film
at the Nürburgring in July, attended by Lauda and F1 chief executive Bernie
Ecclestone among other luminaries, ended in a standing ovation.
And while not the most subtle film, Howard clearly having given it the
Hollywood treatment (“It is a movie for today’s time,” says Lauda), those
who were there say it paints a decent portrait of Formula One in the 1970s,
a time of big personalities and ever-present danger. Lauda admits the scenes
in which he fights for his life before returning, disfigured, to an
awe-struck paddock in Monza, shocked even him.
Not that he has regrets. “You can never compare eras – or you should not,” he
says. “And thank God times have changed in terms of the danger. But as for
the rest? I miss it. You needed to be a different personality back then to
these Vettels and these drivers of today. Because they don’t have to think
about it [death] any more. I mean, every year one or two got killed. Right
in front of you. So if you think logically, with 16 drivers, you were just
waiting your turn.
“It was a completely different sport so therefore the drivers were more
charismatic, had more personality, bigger characters, more egocentric, more
screwing, more enjoying life… because you never knew when it might be over.”
Their antics certainly make the odd Twitter gaffe from Hamilton seem pretty
tame by comparison. Lauda muses over the damage Hunt could have done with an
iPhone. In any case, the Austrian, who once made headlines for saying that
Hamilton would “kill someone” unless he reined in his recklessness, claims
he is not in the least bit worried by Hamilton’s focus.
“Not at all. Not at all,” he says when asked if he feels the Briton has too
many distractions in his life. “He has to be careful because the media of
today, like so many people today, are interested in this bull—- [gossip].
But he is focused. He is super quick. And now he is in a very competitive
team, no question about it.”
The unlikely relationship between Hamilton and Lauda is blossoming, it seems.
It was the Austrian who was charged with enticing the Briton from McLaren
and he admits he did not know what to expect when they met properly for the
first time in Singapore last autumn.
“I asked around the paddock and they all said, ‘He’s a very complicated
character’. I said, ‘Fine’,” he recalls.
“Then I went to see him in Singapore and in two seconds it was the exact
opposite. Lewis is a clever, intelligent guy who can decide on his own. All
this bull—- of management and talks. They were not even there.
Straightforward questions, straightforward answers. We immediately spoke the
same language.”
Lauda reflects for a moment. “I think he respects me, and likes to talk to me.
And I like him very much. Whenever he has questions I am here to answer
them. You know, when we met his first question was, ‘Why should I leave a
winning car?’ And I thought for a few seconds and said: ‘You’re right. But
think about it. You are at McLaren for so many years with the same people. I
am famous, not only because I lost my ear, but because I proved myself in
different teams, different cultures.’ It was the first time I had got him to
think about it. And he agreed.”
Hamilton could do worse than continue to listen to a man who literally went
through the fire of Formula One and came out the other side, a champion.