Andreas Nikolaus 'Niki' Lauda, Austria 1949-02-22

F1 Career: Austria 1971 - Australia 1985

Races Race Wins Pole Positions Podiums Fastest Laps Total Points

171 25 24 53 24 420,5

Percent Wins Percent Poles Percent Podiums Percent Fast.Lap Points per Race

14,62% 14,04% 30,99% 14,04% 2,46p

DriverChampion 1984 McLaren 1977 Ferrari 1975 Ferrari

After a couple of seasons in F3 and sports cars Lauda took a bank loan to finance a season of Formula 2 and a one-off drive in his home GP in 1971. He had another mortgage to pay for his March drive 1972 and a pay-as-you-race deal with BRM 1973. Niki retired and built up his airline business between 1979-1982. F1 expert for RTL since 1988. His son Mathias has driven in F3000 2004, GP2 2005 and DTM 2006-2009 Niki has bought a "ticket" for a space flight in 2011 with ’SpaceShip Two'. Niki won the world championship 1984 in a McLaren despite never sitting on pole in any of the season's 16 races In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Lauda holds a commercial pilot's license and from time to time acts as a captain on the flights of his airline. 2012 Niki left his position as the Non-Executive Director of the Air Berlin Board of Directors, to focus on his new role at the Mercedes AMG F1 Team.