“The movie stirred some emotions I didn’t feel at the time…” 

Almost 30 years after he won the last of his three Formula 1 titles, Niki Lauda remains a popular paddock target. In a world distorted by corporate flannel, his forthright opinions are a prized capture. Even in his latest role as non-executive chairman of the Mercedes team, he has a tendency to say exactly what he thinks.

Easy to imagine, then, that this most forthright of men might be deterred by a little cinematic polish, but that’s not the case at all. “The problem,” he says, “is that you and I remember the old days. Rush is for newer generations and viewers won’t know about 1976, or the two main characters fighting for the world championship.

“The movie’s target was to educate the audience about what happened and it has been done in exactly the right way. Today, almost nobody knows who I was, or who James Hunt was, so they had to make it this way. It’s a movie, rather than a documentary, but I was surprised how well Ron Howard managed to put it all together.”