Niki Lauda: Ferrari's F1 'Quick-fixer'

To be fair, the Italians themselves were still wrestling with that ticklish problem. Fiat, who had been funding Ferrari since 1969, had decided to take a much more active role and to this end plonked a young Luca di Montezemolo, go-ahead scion of the Agnelli family, into the role of team manager. He was there to protect Fiat’s interest — but he did much more than this, handling the unpredictable Enzo with respect and honesty, greatly reducing the team’s Whitehall Farce antics and shielding Lauda from what politics remained. These two men swiftly became great allies: the prototype Schumacher and Jean Todt.

Enzo, though, was still capable of theatrical gestures.

Lauda: “I suppose, as a pragmatic Austrian, that the whole sense of drama was difficult for me to understand. But I like to think that I was pragmatic enough to play the game the way they wanted me to. For example, when I first drove the B3 at Fiorano I told Piero Lardi, who was translating for his father Mr Ferrari, that the car was shit. Piero nervously told me that I really should pull my punches. So I said that it had too much understeer, which it did. So Mr Ferrari told me that I had a week in which to lap one second faster round Fiorano, otherwise I was out. So we made the modifications and delivered the result. It was a piece of cake, actually.”

That ‘we’ was another reason for hope: Mauro Forghieri was back. After a disappointing 1972 Ferrari’s long-time race designer had found himself sidelined at Special Projects and replaced by Sandro Colombo. This ex-Innocenti designer took the unpopular step of having the new F1 car’s monocoque built in the UK by TC Prototypes of Northampton and then oversaw a season of spiralling apathy and pathetic results. Forghieri was recalled to the team by Fiat before August’s Austrian GP, and he revamped the B3 in just 20 days. It proved only a marginal improvement, but it was a start.

Forghieri was not averse to the occasional madcap tantrum himself — but he was brilliant, had a point to prove and was mulling over a big idea. A formidable talent capable of designing all aspects of a race car, he’d been worn down previously by his concurrent team manager role of Ferrari’s F1 and sport scar outfits. But this pressure had been eased by the arrival of di Montezemolo and the abandonment of the sports car programme after 1973. Forghieri was thus able to forget his ‘Ross Brawn’ role and concentrate on his ‘Rory Byrne’.

Lauda and Forghieri did much more than dial out that understeer. During an intensive winter of R&D at the new Fiorano track (another major plus) the B3 was extensively reworked: for 1974 it featured a much-revised weight distribution — its cockpit being positioned further forward to accommodate more of the 47-gallon fuel load in the centre of the car — and many aerodynamic improvements. Its 3-litre flat-12 now boasted 485bhp at 12,200rpm, a useful 20bhp more than the best of its Cosworth rivals. Lauda used it to great effect to put in the foundations of his reputation and begin the restoration of Ferrari’s. He took comprehensive wins at Spain and Holland, recorded nine poles and two fastest laps, and led in South Africa, Monaco, France, Belgium, Italy and Canada. He wasn’t flawless — he got tangled up on the first lap at the Nürburgring having started from pole — but he was also denied wins at Brands and Mosport by late dramas: a slow puncture and a crash caused by the unflagged detritus of somebody else’s off. He finished fourth in the overall standings, while the slower but more consistent Regazzoni fell just three points shy of the title. It had been a sensational turnaround… and Forghieri had yet to unleash his big idea.

Towards the end of 1974 Mauro told Lauda that he was thinking of using a transverse-mounted five-speed gearbox fitted ahead of the rear axle line on his ’75 design.

“I have to admit,” says Lauda, “that I was very sceptical of the advantages it would offer. Forghieri was talking about reducing the car’s polar moment of inertia by concentrating all the mass as close to the centre as possible. I’d been through all that with Robin Herd and the March 721X way back in 1972, so I thought, ‘No thanks’. But Mauro persuaded me this would be different. And it was.

“I didn’t fully appreciate the advantages it would offer because it seemed such a big change from a chassis about which we knew everything. But the 312T (Trasversale) really did possess totally neutral handling and a wide torque curve. It was a true gem, a lasting monument to Forghieri’s abilities.”

Despite the new car’s apparent technical potential its race debut was held back until the third round of the 1975 world championship, the South African GP at Kyalami. So Niki started the season on a gentle note at the wheel of the old B3, finishing sixth at Buenos Aires and fifth at Interlagos. Then he crashed the 312T in testing in South Africa and could only finish fifth there. It was a huge disappointment. But the car’s performance shortcoming was explicable.

“When the team got it back to Maranello they examined my engine very closely,” says Niki. “They found that the belt driving the fuel metering unit was slipping so badly that the engine was around 80bhp down. There had been criticism in the Italian media of our poor showing in South Africa and this had sapped morale in the race shop. So I suggested that we take a B3 and a 312T over to Fiorano for a back-to-back demonstration. I set a time in the B3 and then broke the track record in the 312T. And everybody was happy again.”

Prior to the start of the European grand prix season, Lauda ran in the International Trophy. On the wide open spaces of the Northants aerodrome circuit he just fended off the McLaren M23 of reigning world champion Emerson Fittipaldi to give the Trasversale its first win. Satisfying yes, but just that bit too close for comfort.

“Emerson was certainly the man to beat in 1974, but James Hunt’s Hesketh had led the opening stages at Silverstone,” remembers Lauda. “I switched off the rev-limiter and gave it a quick burst to 12,800rpm, but it didn’t make any difference.” Niki made the mistake of mentioning this to the press and was rewarded when an Italian paper suggested he had been fortunate to win after abusing the engine.

The first European round of the championship was at Barcelona’s superb Montjuich Park, but the race took place amid a furore over track safety. The guard rails were poorly installed and the drivers threatened a boycott, only to reverse this stance and compete after the governing body had intimidated them. Niki was on pole, but Mario Andretti’s Parnelli tipped Regazzoni’s 312T into its sister car on the run to the first corner, eliminating it from a race that would unfold into bitter tragedy when Rolf Stommelen’s Hill vaulted a barrier and killed four onlookers standing in a prohibited area. Lauda’s girlfriend of five years, Mariella Reininghaus, a usually serene member of Salzburg’s brewing dynasty, accused Niki and his colleagues of being hypocrites: “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ferrari was an amazing place and Forghieri was a genius. We had the best car, but I like to think that I made good use of it.”

But how good was Lauda?

It can be difficult to assess. Most fans remember him post-accident: canny and astute, but not the fastest. People forget that he scored 18 GP poles in 1974-75. And in ’76, before the Nürburgring fire, he had exhibited Schumacher-style dominance: first, first, second, second, first, first, third, retired, first.

There’s no doubt that Lauda and Schumacher understand where each is coming from. They both pulled an ailing team — Formula 1’s most famous at that — around and behind them, minimising its negatives, maximising its positives. Lauda was denied the long period of pay dirt success that Schumacher’s initial Ferrari spadework brought him, but his turnaround years at the Scuderia certainly bear comparison with Michael’s.

That’s how good Niki Lauda was. Schumacher knows it and is happy to show it. And so should we be.

***

Niki in Formula One: The last ten years

Lauda would continue with Ferrari for another two seasons, justifiably gaining heroic status for the manner in which he bounced back from near fatal burns sustained at the Nürburgring in 1976 to win another title in ’77, after which he left Maranello to join Brabham.

He retired from F1 — for the first time — midway through a practice session for the 1979 Canadian GP. He was deeply into his airline business at the time and his interest in racing was fading, particularly as his young team-mate Nelson Piquet was putting him under a lot of pressure.

Two-and-a-half years later, though, he returned to F1 with McLaren, won the third race of the 1982 season and went on to bag his third title in ’84 by the wafer-thin margin of a mere half-point ahead of team-mate Alain Prost. In ’85 he scored his 25th and final GP victory, at Zandvoort, narrowly beating Prost in a bare-knuckle fight.

But Niki was by now visibly tiring. He was 36 and anxious that he should stay alive until the end of what would be his final season. But out of the car he was just the same: gently nodding head, buck-toothed grin, well-versed grasp of zany British humour — and winding up Ron Dennis on every occasion he could. He briefly led his final race, the Australian GP at Adelaide, but spun into the wall after problems with a grabbing brake. There was to be no dream finale for the man affectionately known as ‘The Rat’.

Let Prost have the last word: “I was happy that Niki stayed on for 1985. Okay, he won the ’84 championship, but I could live with that. What was important was the trust between us. I didn’t know Niki when I came to McLaren, but I believed him to be completely honest: by the end of the ’84 season I was certain of it.”

That’s what a good bloke Lauda was.

Nothing’s changed.

2025 Motor Sport calendar: 75 years of F1 The stunning shot above of Niki Lauda driving for Ferrari at the 1976 Spanish GP features in Motor Sport’s 2025 calendar, celebrating 75 years of the Formula 1 World Championship Buy now