From horror crash to heroic return: Niki Lauda's incredible Monza comeback

The Athletic Hello and welcome to And Colossally That's History, the podcast that re-appraises motor racing history. I'm Matt Bishop and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host Richard Williams. And Richard, I'm very excited about today's episode. Yes, this is one we've wanted to do for quite a while. It's the remarkable story of Nikki Loud as Monza comeback, just 40 days after the horrific F1 crash that nearly killed him. It was described at the time by no lesser figure than Jackie Stewart, as the most courageous thing I've ever witnessed in sport. And all these years later, the nature of the comeback remains unparalleled in sporting terms. Yes, it absolutely does. And I think I agree with Jackie and I'll explain why. Well, we'll both explain why. Because we're going to chronicle the story of how Nikki Loud accrashed during the German Grand Prix of 1976 at the fearsome, and it was fearsome, Nürburgring Nordschleifer, how he was engulfed in flames and how he sustained life-changing injuries and scarring that being Frank Richard might well have killed many other beers. Indeed. Including many other drivers. Anyway, that he not only survived, but then went on to race successfully just six weeks later, while still afflicted by those injuries. Both mental and physical is, in my view, nothing short of astonishing, and even more so when viewed through a modern lens as we'll discuss today. Yeah. So perhaps we should start with a little background in context, because I'm sure there are younger listeners out there who remember Nikki Loud a primarily as a senior management figure in the F1 paddock, is the one who persuaded Lewis Hamilton to join what became the all-conquering Mercedes team of recent years, rather than as a driver himself. Probably right, yes, probably. But he was a brilliant driver, a triple-world champion, and possibly at his peak in 1976 when he was driving for Ferrari. You remember he'd had his first full season in 1972 when he was just 23 driving for March. And after switching to BRM for a second season in F1, he moved to Ferrari for 1974, at a point when they were right down in the dumps as they occasionally are. Well, had been. 74, they bounced back up. They were. They were bouncing back up with him. Yeah, exactly. And he helped drive that revival to the extent that he won his first world title for them the following season. In 1976, as I said, he was at the height of his powers and looked odd-zoned for a second title. And leading up to the German Grand Prix on the Nürburgring, he'd won five of the nine races to that date, finishing second twice and third once with just one retirement. So he established a massive championship lead, 23 points, his 58 to James Hunt's 35. And that was in the days when you got nine points for a win. Yes, in old money. In a good money. Put it. So Nikki was a talented brave and ambitious driver, of course, but also a smart one, Arn and off the track. He'd got into F1 in 1972 by defying the wishes of his grand VMEs family and borrowing £100,000 to get a drive with March, which turned out badly when the car was in the term he always used. Shit! You remember him saying that? On many occasions. He borrowed another 80K to move to BRM for 1973, but when Big Lou Stanley, who ran BRM, saw how good he was, he offered him a proper salary 30,000 a year, I think, in exchange for two more years on his contract. Yeah. And when Ferrari came calling at the end of 1973, he managed to get out that one and into the Italian team, where he was soon working very effectively with the Chief Designer, Maro Forghieri, and the mechanics, all of whom worked to make the car competitive. And that gave him a great deal of confidence in his own ability and judgment. Yeah. Nikki was confident, but he was also incredibly plain speaking and matter of fact about everything. If you asked him a question, he'd give you an honest answer. Not only honest, actually, but trenchant too. He usually began his replies with, "It's very simple!" Then what followed was always both trenchant and honest. He used the word "bullshit" a lot. Actually, I think he was the originator of the word "bullshit" being such common parlance in Formula One as it still is. Anyway, he used the word "bullshit." That's because it's still full of bullshit. It is full of bullshit. He used the word a lot, and he peppered his sentences with louder isms, such as, and this is one example I remember, like you cannot believe. So, I'm just going to give you a little example, and I'm a apologise for my impersonations, but they amuse me if no one else. So if you'd asked him, for example, how good was Carlos Reitman? Obviously, you know Richard Carlos Reitman was a childhood hero of mine, but Nikki did not see it the same way. They were not friendly. Anyway, Nikki would have replied something like this. It's very simple. Reitman was full of bullshit like you cannot believe. Anyway, he was very honest, typically honest, and trenchant too, when voicing his opinions in the lead up to the 1976 German Grand Prix. Oh, and by the way, if you'd argued with him about Reitman or any other subject at all, he'd very often kick off his counter-argument with, "Are you nuts?" I have to say, Matt, I think you're a louder impersonation. Is your piercester system? You haven't heard my Rossburg yet. Kekki Rossburg, that is. That'll come another time. Anyway, in the lead up to the 1976 German Grand Prix, Nikki suggested to his fellow drivers that they should boycott the race on safety grounds. In his own words, he considered the Nürburgring Nordschleifer, the famous 14-mile 23-kilometer green hell, as Jackie Stewart had christened it in the previous decade to be from the Stone Age. He probably put a swear word in there as well, but he said it was from the Stone Age. In the end, his fellow drivers outvoted him. They voted him down because the organizers had committed to making improvements to the track, you know, stuff like installing barriers here and there, that kind of thing. But you have to remember, as I say, that it was a 14-mile lap, nearly 23 kilometers, and much of it was very fast, very bumpy and therefore very dangerous. And I think you have to put in there that there were 174 corners, that's sort of generally included in the description of the Nordschleifer. Absolutely. You need 174 corners. Not sure who counted them, I don't know. No, but that's, I think, the subject, the number that's used. I have heard 176. Well, maybe they've found two more. Even so, he was accused in some quarters of being a coward, despite the fact, and get this, despite the fact that in 1975, he'd become the first Formula One driver to post a green hell lap of less than seven minutes when he put his Ferrari on the pole with a lap of six minutes 58.6 seconds, which was 1.4 seconds quicker than Carlos Parché, who had qualified his Brabham second. And they called him a coward, as I say, also, despite the fact, in first practice on Friday morning in 1976, the following year, the year we're going to be talking about, having just expressed the view that he was about to drive a Formula One car in anger around a death trap racetrack from the Stone Age. He posted the fastest time. More than two seconds quicker than anyone else's. And that's something I think we should never forget. And indeed, our chat is about to prove and probably reproof this repeatedly, I expect Richard. Nikki was not only trenchant and honest, as I say, but also very, very brave. There were several things that influenced his thinking about the Nürburgring and F1's safety a bit more widely. Three years earlier, at the Dutch Grand Prix, this was in his second season in F1. He'd been deeply affected by the preventable death of the British driver, Roger Williamson, who was burnt to death in his car as helpless marshals just watched on. And by the way, David Purley tried valiantly to save him. To pull him out, yeah. But you know, David Purley's advantage was that he was wearing a flameproof suit and the marshals weren't extraordinary. And then in 1976, in the months preceding the German Grand Prix that we're going to be talking about, three drivers have been killed in accidents on the Norge Lifer in lower categories of racing. So Nikki argued that it was impossible to adequately marshall a track as long as the Nürburgring, which needed five times the number of marshals of a normal track. And they needed to be properly equipped to fight fires and remove drivers from the wrecks. And they needed effective medical support as well, which they also didn't have. In 1976, there was nothing of that. So immediately before the Grand Prix, Nikki gave an interview to Autosport in which she said that at any other circuit if you had a big crash, you had a 70-30 chance of surviving. At the ring in his words it was a hundred percent death. Very typically louder. I should have done the impersonation. 100 percent death! And he spoke some extremely prophetic words to the Swiss magazine Power Slide. He said, "I dread the weekend. The important thing is to get through the weekend alive, in my opinion. If nothing happens, it will be a miracle." Well, very prophetic. And as we know there would be no such miracle. Louder qualified his Ferrari second behind McLaren's James Hunt, who took the poll. And by the way, Hunt was in agreement with Louder. Hunt, too, thought the Nurburgring was too dangerous. And he, too, had voiced his opposition to the race taking place. Yes, like Nikki, James would have liked the Nurburgring race to have been abandoned. Yet also like Nikki, he was super quick there. They qualified first and second. After qualifying, James said, "I'm frightened. I don't mind telling you. I'm glad to see the finish line every lap." Richard, in my view, courage isn't the absence of fear in dangerous situations. That's full-hardiness. No, courage is overcoming real and justified fear in dangerous situations. And at Nurburgring in 1976, both Louder and Hunt did exactly that. Anyway, when the race started, the conditions were gloomy and parts of the circuit were underwater. Almost all the drivers, therefore, started on wet tires. But Louder was one of several to stop the slicks at the end of lap 1, in fact. An on lap 2, it happened. At the 130 miles an hour, 210 kilometres per hour left hand kink before Bergwerk, the circuit's northernmost corner, Louder's Ferrari 312 T2 suddenly twitched before snapping to the right. It went through the catch fencing, hit an earth bank, then bounced back onto the straight, now engulfed in flames. It's left hand fuel cell having been ripped off. Unable to take avoiding action, Brit Lunger plowed his certies into the wreckage of Louder's Ferrari, turning the fire into an inferno. To quote the then autosport reporter, the great Nigel Robuck, your friend and mine, Richard, it was a scene from Hades. Yeah, Louder was trapped in his flaming car. And to make matters worse, his helmet had been ripped from his head in the initial impact, fracturing his cheekbone, so that his balaclava was all that was protecting his head. And to have your helmet ripped off in an accident is kind of unthinkable, isn't it? That's what they're there for to stay on. And it's interesting that he was wearing a helmet of a quite unusual design made by a French company called GPA. And they didn't have chin straps, unlike all other helmets, unlike the bell helmets and so on, that other drivers wore. They had a rather unusual fastening. The bottom rim of the helmet actually hinged in two parts, one under the chin, the other under the back of the neck, operated by a button on the side of the helmet. I know this because I used one for a bit partly because Nicky and Jill Villeneuve and one or two other Renee Arnoux, one or two other heroes used them. And they were very nice, they're nice to wear, very comfortable. But there was a theory in Nicky's case that the shock of this crash was so great that his skull contracted momentarily, fractionally during the impact and the helmet just kind of, that was enough for the helmet to fly off because there was no chin strap. Yeah, holding it on. What an extraordinary thing. I mean, it would have been a terrible accident anyway. Yeah, but made even more terrible by that detail. So there he was lying in the car, which was in flames. And Guy Edwards, another driver who'd managed to avoid Nicky's Ferrari and Harold Erthel, who'd hit Brett Lungerscar, joined Lunger in trying to get louder out of his car. And they were joined by Artur Amatsario, who'd stopped his wolf Williams on the track nearby. Just to press pause there for a second, Harold Erthel, former one driver and journalist. Can you imagine that now? He wrote, didn't he write for Artur Motor and Sport? And I'm supposed to refer to him as bearded Harold Erthel. And Mastasio. And Mastasio. Yes, yes, yes. But imagine, imagine a journalist who works for the race. Imagine any of them. Well, I just, I will finish my new story, but I just have to just do qualifying that Monaco first. Then I'll finish the new story. Don't worry boys. Yeah, it just shows there's nothing to it really. Can't be. Anyway, back to this terrible accident. There wasn't any time for the drivers who were trying to get Nicky out to worry about possible neck or spinal injuries. They just had to get him out. And they couldn't rely on the Marshalls, just as Nicky had feared. In the end, it was Mastasio, who was actually an ex Ferrari driver, who put his hands into the fire to release the buckle of loudest six-point harness. And here's what Mastasio said later. It wasn't easy because Nicky was obviously an agony and straining hard against the belts, trying to get away from the flames. Thank God he eventually lost consciousness. It was only when his body relaxed that I could free the buckle. My goodness. What a quote. Extraordinary. John Watson, who'd also stopped his penski at this point, helped move loud a clear of the car and cradled his head on his knees. What he said, it was clear that his head was badly burned, but it looked more like he was otherwise free of injuries. He'd regain consciousness and he was actually talking. Emerson Fittipoldy had also stopped and he and Lunga stripped off the loudest charred overalls and ran their hands down either side of his body, trying to check for broken bones. They couldn't find any, but when they stood up and looked at each other, they saw that their overalls were stained with loudest blood. In fact, the potentially lethal damage was out of sight. Loudest windpipe had been badly damaged and his blood poisoned from breathing in the toxic fumes from the burning fuel, the bodywork and the fire extinguisher fluid. His lungs, in his words, had turned to shit, soon he'd be in a critical condition. He would, indeed, soon be in a critical condition, but later he learned and recognised that he'd been very lucky actually in terms of what happened next. The doctors at the first hospital he'd been taken to soon realise they couldn't treat him. It was too much. The injuries were too bad. So he was moved to another hospital in Ludwig Schaffen, quite a distance away actually, where a senior doctor was on duty, which was very unusual on a Sunday in those days. That senior doctor recognised the specific care that louder required and arranged a transfer to another hospital, University Tats Clinicum, in other words, University Clinic, in Mannheim near Ludwig Schaffen, where there was a unit that specialised in treating lung trauma and where there also happened to be a senior specialist working that Sunday. Nowadays, of course, every Formula One circuit has its own medical centre with a helicopter on standby ready to take drivers to appropriate hospitals if their injuries are too severe to be treated at the circuit, but almost 50 years ago things were very, very different. So he was lucky in those two regards. He was very lucky. He said afterwards that one of the obvious things to do to somebody in that condition might be to give them oxygen. The first nurse or doctor might have thought, "Oh, let's give him some oxygen." He said, "Oxygen at that point in the state that his lungs and his windpipe ran, oxygen would have killed him at that point." So there's another. Again, another stroke of luck. Yeah. But anyway, let's leave it there for part one. And when we come back, we'll discuss Nicky's incredible recovery. When we left you before the break, Nicky Lauder was lying in a hospital bed in Mannheim fighting for his life. His face and hands were horrifically burned, ranging from first to third degree. And he'd lost most of his right ear, his eyebrows and his eyelids. His lungs were barely functioning, burned by the poisonous fumes he'd inhaled from his Ferrari's burning bodywork. And the oxygen level in his blood was found, I remember reading at the time, to be lower than that considered necessary to sustain life. A vacuum pump was used to drain liquid from his lungs and to try to clear some of the infected tissue, which process Nicky later described, by the way, as incredibly painful. I'm in I bet. At that point, he couldn't see. He couldn't speak, but he could hear. He later said that although his brain was still alert because he could think, he could feel that his body was giving up. On the Tuesday, so two days after the shunt, his doctors agreed that they did not expect him to live much longer. So a priest was called to give him the last rights and that happened. And that was the turning point, wasn't it Richard? Yes, it was and that's a very Nikki Lauda story. He said later that a weak person would have responded to being given the last rights by just giving up and dying on the spot. Nikki was not that weak person. And so he also had advice for priests. You shouldn't do that, he said. They should come in and say, "You're looking wonderful today and give you some encouragement." But he didn't need that because he was Nikki Lauda. And anyway, let's go on because this is an extraordinary stage of the story. In his autobiography, which I'm sure you've read Richard. Yes, very, very good it is. Nikki recounted having flashbacks, transported back to what had happened to him in the summer of 1976. He recalled the feeling of falling into a big black hole, summer sorting into a huge void. Perhaps surprisingly he described that as a beautiful feeling. He wrote that he remembered thinking that he couldn't give into this beautiful feeling of slipping into this big black hole and how hearing conversations between the doctors and his wife, his first wife Marlene helped him to will himself to stay alive. And gradually thanks to the vacuum pumping and the multiple blood transfusions. And also thanks to his own sheer bloody-minded determination, his oxygen levels stabilized. The next day, the Wednesday, he could breathe unadid. And on the first day, and look, we're just talking about only four days after his terrible crash. And just two days after he had been given the last rights by a priest, the pipes were removed from his throat so that he could speak. And what's more, not only did he speak, but he got out of his hospital bed and instead sat up on a chair. And the next day, Friday, he began walking and talking. And what he was talking about was, can you guess? What he was talking about was, not am I going to live or is my life going to be normal again, but when am I going to get back into a Formula One Ferrari and go racing again? Amazing. Absolutely astonishing. Well, that's a Formula One driver for you. Yeah. And a very special one. Yes. And it was at this point that he had to deal with his other injuries, the visual ones. As well as the burns, his head and neck were swollen like a balloon. His eyes were just slits. And most of his right ear was missing, as we've said. After they'd stabilised his lungs and his breathing, there were painful skin grafts. The most radical was when the surgeons actually took skin from his thigh to graft onto his forehead. But his face would be forever disfigured. And in another person that might completely transform their personality or wreck them psychologically, but Nikki was incredibly strong-willed and resilient. He knew he looked bad, but he decided early on that he couldn't do anything about it. When he was in hospital, the newspapers speculated on how badly he'd been disfigured and a photographer even broke into his hospital room to take photos. Built the German tabloid ran a headline, "My God, where is his face?" And there was a follow-up. Nikki Lauda has survived, but how can a man exist without a face? So people were being given these awful images of what he might look like if they ever saw him again. Built not always the most sympathetic of reporting. Possibly not. And when he had reconstructed surgery to his face, he chose to limit it to replacing the eyelids and restoring their functionality and not to worry about the rest of his appearance. But by this stage, as you say, Matt, incredibly, Nikki had already started to focus on returning to racing. "Lying in bed, ruminating about the ring would have finished me," he said. And there's a lot to be said about those in recovery having a goal to chase. It gave him a focus and a motivation to get better. It did, but I don't think that many people have the inner resolve or in reserves to do it in the way that Nikki did, but I accept the point. It certainly a goal gives you a focus. Anyway, it wasn't just Nikki because there were two other key people in his recovery. His first wife, Marlene, who we've mentioned, who Nikki said showed fortitude that he didn't know could exist in a human being. And that's serious praise from someone like Nikki. Yeah, they hadn't been married very long, I think, at that point. I think you're right. So, he would have realised that for her, suddenly, to have her perfectly normal, except for being a racing driver, has been transformed into this extraordinary looking, at the time, wreck of a human, must have been shattering, but she bore it too. She bore it and supported him. So that was one of the two people, and the other one was a man called Villy Dungal. Now, Villy Dungal was a fitness guru who'd made his name working with the Austrian ski jumping team in the 1960s. And when Nikki persuaded his doctors to let him continue his recovery at home, he was joined there by Villy Dungal. Dungal looked after every aspect of loud as recovery, from what he ate to how much exercise he did, to how much rest he got, etc, etc. I remember reading in the motorsport press at the time about the legend that was Villy Dungal. All top-class sport stars have such people working with them nowadays, but 50 years ago, it was, well, if not unheard of, then certainly very, very rare. But it worked for Nikki, because Villy prepared him not only physically, but also mentally, psychologically, emotionally, for his return to the cockpit. One of the tests he devised to check whether or not his patient, Nikki, was ready to race again, was that he rolled sheets of newspaper into balls, then set them a light. And through them at Nikki, he wanted to see if Nikki could deal with that challenge rationally, or whether the sight and smell of a flaming ball being hurled at him would cause him to lose control. Extraordinary. Extraordinary. Not really scientific by today's standards. But how brilliant. Brilliant. And of course, of course, Nikki did indeed deal with the challenge rationally. And when he did that, Villy knew his patient was going to be okay. Yes, and at this point, Nikki was also being driven by anger when he came home from hospital. He was shown footage of the accident taken by a teenage boy with an 8-millimeter home movie camera. And it was clear when he saw it to Nikki that something looked to have broken at the back of the car. So, you know, he was reassured that it wasn't his error, that he was also dismayed when Ferrari refused to rule out driver error. They actually said that the time marks on the track proved that there had been no mechanical failure. Which was not actually proof? It's not proof, no, I think they were. I mean, they didn't. They weren't very hard. The Audetta, the Ferrari team manager, wasn't very hard-lined about it. He was just kind of inspecting Audetta. Yeah, just speculating on possible causes. But they certainly didn't rule out driver error. And of course, that didn't help the relationship between the driver and the team. Which was a bit of a strange relationship anyway. A bit like Ferrari's with Fangio, his champion in 1956, you'll remember. And so Ferrari didn't like Fangio because he sent his business manager to negotiate his contract rather than just accept whatever Ferrari happened to offer. The old man claimed that he distrusted Nikki because he wouldn't look him in the eye. He called him a great and intelligent driver in his memoirs and admired his professional approach to the job. But you could tell he didn't love him in the way that he'd once loved Tatsy on the Ferrari and would later love Jules Villeneuve. Yes, he wins. And so Ferrari said to Nikki, but he races like an accountant. He's cold. It's never thrilling. Well, I don't know about that. Yeah, I don't know about that. But look, we're talking about another very unusual man in Sof Ferrari. A very unusual man, yes, who'd been racing driver himself, but Nikki had helped drag that team up from pretty bad state. So he could have been a bit more generous. He could. He could. The Italian press, who were usually on Ferrari's side, had already criticised Nikki personally earlier in the season after he was injured when he overturned a farm tractor and cracked some ribs. And now in his absence, they were campaigning for a young Italian called Maurizio Flamini, you probably remember him, man. Yes, but he hasn't really become a global superstar. No, he was doing quite well in Formula 2, but they wanted to stick him in loudest seat in the Scuderia Ferrari. And so wasn't having that. But And he did start looking for a replacement. And immediately after the accident, he told Danielio Detto that he managed to contact Emerson Fittipoli, who declined the offer. "Do you know why he refused the offer?" Well, one fact to me have been that he and Nikki were very good friends and he didn't want to take his friends. Which they certainly were. Yeah, and he didn't want to take his friends seat in a time of distress. But the other would have been apparently he said to Detto Farari, said that if he took a seat at Farari and left Copa Suca, his Brazilian team, he'd get killed at home. Wow. Because it was the first year of Copa Suca. Well, the first year that Emerson was driving with his brother Wilson. That's right. And it was their project. Yes, there we are. And so Farari then told Detto to contact Ronnie Peterson, who is Nikki's old March team mate. And arrangements were made for Peterson to test a Farari at Fiorano. Fittipoldi told Lauderd about that one and Nikki hit the roof and Peterson's test was promptly cancelled. It's one of those what might have been because Peterson in a flat 12 Farari in the late 70s, he might have been very successful. Yeah, well, he'd already raced the 312Ps. The Farari, we can't have that. Sports got, yeah. In endurance racing, very successfully. Anyway, Nikki was furious at what he saw as at best, like a faith in his ability to recover and at worst as a betrayal. He wrote what I really needed from the team was a sense of composure, a feeling of continuity and trust. Well, he didn't get it. So Matt was he entitled to feel aggrieved or were Farari who just assumed like everyone else that Lauderd would never race again, simply reacting to the situation in the best way they could. I'd say it was the right decision. The old man had a team to run. Yes, I mean, look, hindsight is a great thing. At that time, if anyone had said that they expected Nikki Lauderd to race in the Italian Grand Prix, the 1976 Italian Grand Prix and to score points in it, they'd have been laughed at. You'd have been called mad. And yes, Enzo Farari had a Formula 1 team to run and a Formula 1 World Championship to win, which his cars were. One driver was leading and his cars were leading the constructors. And James Hunt and McLaren were going great guns, of course, while Nikki was in hospital. And you don't defend a slim world championship point-sleeved with only one driver, especially as that one driver, Claire Egasoni, Nikki's teammate, you know, was occasionally very good, but too often mediocre, and simply wasn't in the same class as either Lauderd or Hunt. Yeah, a perfect number two. Yes, good on his day could sort of stay in. It'd rather like Hunt's teammate, Yoko Mas. Yeah, actually, at the time. And loved by the team and the fans. Exactly, exactly. And by the journalists and held in high regard now, you know, by those who love Formula 1 history and motor racing history. Anyway, so Ferrari ended up signing Carlos Reuterman, whom I mentioned in passing half an hour or so ago. Now, Reuterman had won Grand Prix for Bernie Eccleston's Brabham team in 1974 and 1975, and he'd marked himself out as a star in so doing. But in 1976, he was struggling in a Brabham, not powered by the Cosworth which had powered the cars in '74 and '75 that he'd had success in. But by the then heavy and then unreliable Alfa Romeo flat 12 engine, and Carlos was looking for a way out. Carlos, Moody, often introspective. Yeah, wasn't enjoying it at Brabham. So when the car, when the offer came from Ferrari, he jumped at the chance. He didn't even finish the season at Brabham. His last race for the team was Zenford. I think you were looking to say something about Carlos Reuterman knowing very well Richard that he's my childhood hero. Yeah, well, I think. Carlos Reuterman looked more like a Ferrari Grand Prix driver than any man who ever lived. I always remember going to the Monaco Grand Prix in I think '73 and reading the program notes in French. And, you know, they were going through little profiles of the drivers. They got to Reuterman and the description was, "Physic, do sedeptor, do cinema." You know, the look of a matinee in other words. And that's what he was. I mean, you just looked like that, didn't he? If he'd been a bit less Moody, he would have been one of the greatest drivers who ever lived. But anyway, he seemed a real natural fit for Ferrari. He did not. Yes. That matinee idle point is made often by, again, Nigel Robach, who always called him the racing driver from central casting. That's absolutely right. A very robust phrase. Anyway, louder was incensed when he heard that Reuterman had been signed. But, and this is interesting, I think, paradoxically, Nikki being Nikki, Carlos' arrival actually served as motivation for him. He decided that he was absolutely determined to return at all costs and sooner rather than later. So, yes, Reuterman's arrival actually hastened loud as return. I mean, Nikki had originally been aiming to come back for the Canadian Grand Prix at Mossport in early October. But spurred on to accelerate his recuperation by the specter of Reuterman taking over his car, he vowed to make his comeback at Monza instead. I don't think he wanted Reuterman driving his car without him there as well. Insofarari, nonetheless, felt he needed proof that such a sudden return for Nikki wasn't absolute madness, so he demanded that louder show that he was not only fit enough, but also fast enough, two different things. So, and let's just remember this is only even now 38 days after his no-begring accident. He, Nikki, reported to Maronello, by the way, having flown himself in its own jet to Bologna, Bologna Airport. Anyway, Adeto, the team manager, remembers that greeting louder was like seeing a ghost. Because Nikki was wearing headbandage, encrusted with blood, he couldn't close his eyes, remember. His race suit was very baggy because, although he and Ville Dungal had been training together in a gym, he'd still lost a hell of a lot of weight. But even so, despite all of that, Nikki climbed into his car and drove 60 laps at Fiorano. Okay, not a long circuit, so perhaps 40 laps at the longer circuit, but still a proper stint, 60 laps. And by the end, he was getting close to the lap record. And you can just imagine him thinking, "I am going to show them." I am going to show them. So Farari had no choice, really, but to reluctantly agree to enter a third car for Monza. So he had Regga-Zoni, Reutman and now Louder. And actually Louder insisted on it, reminding Farari and Adeto that he had a contract, which there was now no earthly reason why they shouldn't honor. He was in. He was back. And in a three car team, which of course is another difference between today and 50 years ago, then if you wanted to enter three cars, or four, or five, or six, all you had to do was square it with Bernie. You know, rather than Farari, you know, he would have done it. Well can I imagine Bernie's not going to say no to another Farari at Monza. Absolutely not. And that feels like a good time for our final ad break. So it was official. Nicky Louder was to make a remarkable comeback at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Friday practice would take place just 40 days after his monumental accident at the Nürburgring. So Richard, do you think that would be allowed today? After all, he still had head wounds that weren't fully healed. Yeah, no, I don't think so. Villy Dungard got his body back to pretty well full fitness so that he could run and he could do strenuous gym sessions. His tear ducts were damaged and he couldn't link properly, which wouldn't be much of a help if you were trying to drive a Grand Prix car. He was in serious pain when the skin grafts rubbed against his balaclava and his helmet lining. But those were different times. What doesn't change is the racing driver's powers of recovery. You can think back to 1933 when Rudy Caracciola smashed his leg up Monaco and was back 12 months later and took the 1935 European Championships, then the equivalent of the World Championship, with the right leg two inches shorter than the left. And the sterling moss in 1960 breaking both his legs and crushing three vertebrae in a crash at Spa and then racing in a Grand Prix eight weeks later. And in terms of physical recovery, I think Nikki's comeback at Monza was probably the most remarkable. Probably it was. Anyway, between Nurburgring and Monza, as I said, I'm going to be back. say, Formula One had of course been continuing. In Lauders absence Ferrari didn't take part in the Austrian Grand Prix at the Auster-Eichring, which was won by the way by John Watson, then and now Penske's sole Formula One Grand Prix victory. And here's an Anorak fact, I mean the Penske stat is an Anorak fact, but here's another one. The 1976 Austrian Grand Prix is the most recent round of the Formula One World Championship in which Scuderia Ferrari has taken no part. Did you know that? You probably did. I think you did. I think you did. Officially the decision to miss the race was described by the team as a mark of respect for Lauders. I can imagine Lauders saying, "Total bullshit!" And I don't believe that for a minute. Rather, most people even at the time, most people thought it was a cynical move on Enzo Ferrari's part to try to get the race cancelled. To limit McLaren's and Hunts chances of closing the gap in the World Championship chase. I also think it was a protest, wasn't it? Ferrari were protesting against what had happened in Spain earlier in the season. When the Hunts McLaren had been disqualified for having a wing that was two wide. Two wide. And then was reinstated. And that's what, you know, Ferrari said, that's what they were protesting against by not. Enzo Ferrari had the hump about that, of course. Anyway, Lauders believe it or not had only missed two Grand Prix, the Austrian and the Dutch. The Austrian was won by Watson in the Penske, and the Dutch was won by Hunt in the McLaren brilliantly, I may say so. So James was catching Nicky in the driver's World Championship standings, but even so far from feeling supported by Ferrari as he battled against the odds to get his, to defend his World Championship lead. Lauders felt almost tormented by the team. Indeed, he reckoned the Monza organizers were going out of their way to make things difficult for him. For example, he was forced to take an extra medical on the Thursday at Monza, and he suspected the influence of Enzo Ferrari there. Richard, you know more about Enzo Ferrari than I do by some margin. Was that just paranoia on Nicky's part or, or do you recognise the sometimes malevolent touch of the old man? I'm not sure malevolence is the right word, Matt, but the old man always liked to feel that he was in complete control of the team of the drivers as well as the cars. And he probably preferred to be racing at Monza with just Reutemann and Reggotsoni, and without the distraction of Lauders return to action. But I'd also say I think, you know, the Monza authorities were perfectly within their rights to insist given the circumstances that Lauders had an extra medical examination. You know, this a bloke who couldn't blink his eyelids. Yeah, I guess. I guess. I'm just, I'm always looking for undercurrents. And there were always undercurrents. There were. Yeah, especially with Ferrari. And let's not forget, it wasn't only a physical issue for Lauders, he was appearing in public for the first time. So he had to deal psychologically, mentally emotionally with the morbid curiosity of the Tiffosi who wanted to stare at his injuries and disfigurements and certainly had no hesitation in doing so when they saw him. Well, let's face it, most people like staring at injuries and disfigurements, then it's not just the Tiffosi. No, I guess, I guess. Anyway, Nicky gave a great quote about that to David Benson, the journalist at the Daily Express at the time. He said, "A lot of people say I'm crazy to go back to racing so quickly." "Are you nuts?" He probably said. "A lot of people say I'm crazy to go back to racing so quickly. They say that a man with a face that's not like that of a human being, but like a dead man's skull should give up. People who think like that would probably be very happy to be ill and to stay at home and not to have to go out to work. That's not my attitude to life. I can't enjoy life unless I'm active unless I have something to do and look forward to. I must work." That sums up Nicky's attitude, doesn't it Richard? Yes, it does. And what it showed as you suggested earlier, Matt, is that how sometimes courage isn't the absence of fear, but the ability to acknowledge being scared and to face it, to deal with it and to overcome it. And Nicky could be forgiven for being a bit cynical. The only person to interview him before the race at Monzer was Ian Woolridge of the Daily Mail, who found out where he was staying in a small hotel with his wife trying to keep out of the way, but Woolridge found his way there. And he confronted Nicky outside the hotel and said, "Can I interview you, Mr. Lauda?" And Lauda said, "You have four minutes." So he did. And Woolridge wrote a very Waldridge in peace afterwards. Very good. But he did say it was like interviewing a fried chicken. Well, which is not very charming. He didn't write that. He wrote it in the paper. He wrote it in the most describing his injuries. He said it was like interviewing a fried chicken. Well, yeah. Anyway, back to the track. And on the first day of practice, it rained, not good news. That was the last thing Nicky needed. And he admitted quite candidly in his autobiography that he was rigid with fear and did as few laps as possible and not very quickly. And at the end of day one, he was 19th and slowest of the three Ferrari's behind Reutemann and Reggit Sony, which would not have gone out and noticed that Maranella knows, certainly. And there's a great section in the autobiography where he talks about it. He said, "I'd employed my standard tactics, objective review of emotions, establish causes, dismiss any illogical or irrelevant items, and I was well primed mentally. I'd also shrugged off the nerve-agring shunt, or at least I thought I had. I said to myself, you could drive before, so you can do it exactly the same way now. And since nothing has changed, there's nothing to be worried about." Great, but in the event, it didn't work out that way. When I climbed into the cockpit at Monza, fear hit me so hard that all my self-motivation theories flew out the window. Diarrhea, heart pounding, throwing up. I made it back to the peace and quiet of the hotel and went over the situation in my mind, trying to identify what I'd done wrong. Well, louder decided that what he'd done wrong was attempt to drive as fast as before. So the next day he put himself under less pressure. He decided to start off by driving more slowly and build up speed. He ended up fifth, the fastest of all the Ferrari's, a truly incredible feat in the circumstances. Absolutely incredible. I mean, that quote in the autobiography about, you know, diarrhea, heart pounding, throwing up, you know, a man in extremist, in crisis. And yet he managed to rise above it somehow. Anyway, there was other good things going on for louder in that sense because his great rival, Hunt, who'd been dominating, has been pole position after pole position and a lot of race wins, qualified only ninth before, before having his time deleted, even that ninth best time deleted, causing him to be sent to the back of the grid for so called fuel irregularities. But let's be clear. I mean, maybe you're going to accuse me of cynicism here, but let me just lay it out as I see it. This was Monza in the 1970s and Ferrari were in trouble. So can we really accept at face value that the two teams that had won the last two Grand Prix, Penske at the Eurstereykring and McLaren at Zanvort were suddenly and mysteriously the only two teams whose fuel when tested gave octane readings above the permitted rating. I don't think so. You are an old cynic. Well, the findings of those surveys are on the public record. You can go and listen to this bit. And this is, by the way, yet another anorak fact, I think, two weeks after the teams had departed Monza, the FIA, or to be absolutely pedantic, the CSI, which was then a subcommittee of the FIA, she pushfully admitted that its methods of analysing fuel were inadequate. Okay, banged to rights. Banged to rights. And to be frank, the teams had suspected that much at the time. Indeed, the only reason why, as far as I understand it, the only reason or the main reason or one of the reasons why McLaren and Penske hadn't protested the Monza organizers decision to relegate their cars to the back of the grid was so as not to embarrass their fuel suppliers and sponsors, Texaco in McLaren's case and Sonoco in Penske's. I mean, already Formula One was quite a commercial operation. But you could use whatever petrol you wanted. As long as the rule at the time was the octane rating had to be within the range sold at pumps in the country the Grand Prix was taking place in. There you are. I mean, there's a rule for you. What a rule. What a rule. Anyway, the upshot was that Hunt started the 1976 Italian Grand Prix in 24th place. His McLaren team made mass in 25th place and Pensky's Watson in 26th place. Just imagine Richard, just imagine how today's keyboard warriors would react on social media to that unholy shambles if it were happened today. What do you reckon? I think it would be wonderful. Yeah, bonfire of the social media, it would be great. Anyway, despite his heroics in qualifying, it still wasn't known by anybody, whether Louder could handle the rigors of a full-grown predestines, which meant 52 laps of monzer, 187 miles or 301 kilometers. The weather on Brace Day was grey, but luckily it was dry. Louder was received by the fans as he made his way to the grid with an extraordinary display of respect. I read a description by someone who said he wasn't cheered, he was applauded by the entire 80,000. Interesting, the plaudence of difference. Very. Yes, it was admiration and respect. While Burrell James Hunt was booed and whistleed as you have to expect if you're an arrival of Ferrari and you're turning up at Monzer. But then Nicky made a terrible start for an extraordinary reason. He wasn't aware, nobody at Ferrari had told him, so he claimed, that the starting system had been changed. It was the big change in, for me, the one starts in the modern era, from the dropping of the national flag following a 10 second board that told you there were 10 seconds to go. To the lights, green then red, the sort of thing we have today, 50 years later. Anyway, amazing. Nicky didn't know that. He took the start without it and he said, I wasn't even in gear when these lights didn't have their thing. So he dropped straight down to 12th and that put him in heavy traffic in the midfield and he admitted later to being scared again by that. But he settled down and gradually, well, quite quickly actually, he climbed the order. 10th on lap 3, 8th on lap 7, 6th on lap 14. And at the end of the race after an hour and a half, he swept across the finish line in fourth place and the Tiffosi were beside themselves with joy. Ronny Peterson won and Clay Ragot Sony, Nicky's teammate was second, but Lauda was the story and the whole of the story. Reuterman was only 9th. Hunt retired from the race, but he was extremely magnanimous afterwards towards his chief rival. This is what he said. Nicky's race really spoke for itself to virtually step out of the grave and six weeks later come fourth in a Grand Prix. Was an amazing achievement. Yes, let's be clear. Lauda's performance at Monza in 1976 was and remains one of the greatest and former on history. That's my view. I rate it that highly. He'd been at death's door only a few weeks before. No one had given him an earthly chance of making it back as early as Monza. At recent, as recently, you know, as a fortnight before, he Julie did make it back to Monza. Yet he qualified, as you say, Richard, he qualified fifth ahead of his two teammates, Reuterman 7th and Regga Sony 9th and in pain, he raced a fourth. Now, if you'll let me, I'm going to read you the last paragraph of Pete Lyons' Auto Course Race Report and the reason I'm going to read it is that it's in my view almost mesmerisingly good. Typical of Lyons, who was a wonderful writer, wonderful, a wonderful observer of the formula ones. Lyrical, beautiful prose, as you will hear. Now, in previous paragraphs, Lyons had written critically, I mean, I'm talking about in previous paragraphs of the same report. He'd written critically of the way the organizers had nobled McLaren and Penske and how the general vibe at Monza had therefore become unpleasant, exacerbated by the gearing Tiffosi. Yet now, as the end of the race true near and it became clear that Ronnie Peterson, whom everyone loved, was going to win it for March, his only win for March. Despite, by the way, Liorid Overseer that Ronnie Super-Sweed was controlling as only he could, the mood changed. So that's the background and the lead up to Lyons' final paragraph and this is how he described it. This is how he wrote it. So it goes like this. A quarter of a minute behind Ronnie Peterson, there was another man coping even more magnificently. Yet now, Nicky Louder, for it was he, saw the needle on his oil gauge dropping. Three laps from the end, the young man who was but six weeks past seeing a priest, give him the last rights, had the fastest lap of the race on the official clocks. It was only then that Peterson finally took that from him. But nothing that Jodie Schechter in fifth could do was going to take fourth place from him. And although his slackening Ferrari was only a tenth of a second to the good at the checkered flag, it was as good as need be. It was said later that when Nicky took off his helmet in the pits after the race, his balaclava was soaked in blood where his part healed burns had opened up. As the first of the fence jumping crow met the last of the pits bound cars, the outro d'Romón Nacional de Monser was filled with a completely different atmosphere. Something had been released, discharged amidst the thunder of one of the very best races seen in a very troubled year. The derisery banners were still there and they were still waving furiously, but the bite had gone out of their message. From a number of stand points, the right man, no, the right men had won. I mean Richard, isn't that great? Fabulous. And by the way, brilliant brilliant writer as you say Pete Lyons. For an American. Yes, but really stirring stuff. Isn't it? Sturring stuff. Difficult to read with dry eyes, if I'm really honest. Anyway, do you think any other driver before or since would have been able to do what Lauda did at Monser in the United States? Yeah, I did thinking about that. And I would say maybe Tatsyone Vallari, who sometimes finished races towards the end of his career, coughing blood, and tried to finish races in cars, which the wheels had fallen off. And once came into the pits, waving the steering wheel. Did Tatsyone Vallari come off? Yes. There's a great photograph of that. Fabulous. So maybe Nivallari, but it is what Lauda did was unique. And I think his, what have a great deal to do with it was his unusual powers of self examination. And some would call his approach calculating at others would call it clever. We can probably all think of one or two great champions who also had an objective attitude to racing, might have been called calculating, and who'd have been too sensible to do what Niki did at Monser. What was special about him is that he let himself override what his own objectivity was telling him and behave like the sort of driver who's motivated by passion and glory. The sort of driver, Enso Ferrari thought Lauda wasn't well put well put. He wasn't that robotic computer. He was made of flesh and blood. Yeah. He just did have that fantastic capacity also to work things out. Exactly. Anyway, he would not go on to win that year's world championship. Hunt won the two North American races, Mossport in Canada, and Watkins-Glennie in the United States, quite brilliantly by the way to his credit. Lauda was only eighth at Mossport, dropping from fifth when a rear suspension link worked loose near the end, but he managed third at the Glen. And then came Fuji, which probably deserves a podcast of its own. Anyway, suffice to say that in absolutely torrential rain, four drivers with drew in the opening laps, considering the standing water with the grave risk of aquaplaining it presented a hazard too far. The four were Larry Perkins, Carlos Parche, Emerson Filippaldi, and Nikki Lauda. In withdrawing with James Hunt leading, Lauda knew that he was probably giving the world championship away. But here was a man who had come too close to death too recently to risk it again over something as trifling as, you know, a sporting baubl. And moreover, he would win it twice more. The next year in 1977, and again, having apparently retired and come back in 1984, making three world championships in all. Richard, I'm going to ask you, can you think of a sporting comeback greater than Lauda's twin sporting comebacks? The first from his deathbed to Monza, and the second from retirement to yet more world championship glory? Yeah, maybe the second one. The first, the deathbed one is harder to find, parallel. Yeah. I think Muhammad Ali stripped of his World Heavyweight Championship and losing four years of his career simply for refusing to fight in Vietnam. and then coming back to regain his title by knocking out George Foreman in the rumble in the jungle. And that was pretty good, isn't it? - It's a comeback score. - Pretty good. - No deathbeds, but a great comeback. And then Tiger Woods end during endless bouts of back surgery, awful, before returning to win his first major for 11 years at the 2019 US Masters. But again, not quite the same drama as the site of a disfigured louder in a bloodied banner clavicle. When we're talking about comebacks, we should probably mention Mike Halewood in the TT. Oh goodness, yes, I'm sure that's right. That was a serious comeback as well. Anyway, we could be here all day talking about comebacks. Yep. And before we wrap up, we should probably talk about the lasting consequences of Nikki's crash in his comeback. The 14-mile, Norge Leifer was never raced on in F1 again, much to the regret of many fans, including this one, I have to say. And perhaps even one or two drivers. The louder's relationship with Ferrari was damaged beyond repair. He stayed on in 1977 and won a second championship, but he was booed at Monza by the same Italian fans who'd applauded him the year before, because they knew already by then he'd be leaving the Bernie Eccostan's Brabham team in 1978. Yep. Mac, do you think louder was the same driver after the crash? I think he was different, but just as good. He played the percentage game. Put it this way. In my long career, not quite as long as yours, dear boy, but in my long career, in which I've attended hundreds of former one-grompery and watched hundreds more on TV, as of course you have too. I don't think I've ever seen a driver who was better able to judge when to drive absolutely flat out with zero margin and when instead a steady run would net as near as damage just as many world championship points as driving absolutely flat out would. And by the way, if anybody's thinking that I didn't watch louder, I did. In fact, the very first Grand Prix either went to was Brands Hatch 1974, which he led, but didn't win, Jodie Shekter won. Anyway, as a result, Nikki began to eliminate mistakes brilliantly. No, in the latter part of his career, he didn't always put his car on the pole. But by flag-fall, he was almost always near the front or there or thereabouts. In fact, I think Alan Prost learned a lot from him in that regard when they were the Clarence team. And Nikki just beat him to a title by being clever. In '84, yes. But the profusor, as Alan Prost became known, perhaps learned some of the profusor-ish stuff from louder. I'm sure that's right. Anyway, even so, when Nikki really wanted to, or if he felt doing so would net a reward that justified the risk, he could still show everyone just how damn quick he was. I'm thinking of his second place at Monaco in 1978 in a Brabham Alpha, charging back through the field from sixth after a late unscheduled pit stop. His fastest race lap was faster that day than his quality lap the day before had been. And it was two seconds quicker, two seconds at Monaco, two seconds quicker than anyone else's fastest race lap. Not a bad anorect factor finish on his. Two seconds at Monaco. Oh, no. Anyway, that feels like the perfect time to say and colossally. That's history. Thanks for joining us for this episode. We really hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. Absolutely. And if you'd like to share your thoughts on Nikki Loud as Monza come back and where it fits into the sporting pantheon, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us on podcasts at the hyphen race.com, or via social media, and I'm @TheBishF1 and Richard is @RWilliams1947. And remember, if you'd like to listen to these episodes at free, why not join the Race Members Club? You can find the details in the description of this episode. And before we sign off, I'm once again duty bound to remind you that we also now have some and colossally, that's history merchandise. Merch, I gather it's called, available to buy from the race shop. So if you want to let the world know about your taste in podcasts and support us on the show at the same time, why not buy yourself a t-shirt or a notebook? Again, there's a link in the description. We'll be back again next week to reexamine another slice of motorsport history. But until then, it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from him. And colossally, that's history. The Athletic.