#really feels like the biggest victory after the McLaren years

[rickybaby]

Daniel was the fastest among the long runners on mediums 👀

#testing times aside #and our delusional conclusions from those #today was a good day #his long stints looked extremely managed and competitive #he is conmfortable in the car which should be a bare minimum but #really feels like the biggest victory after the McLaren years #daniel ricciardo

[sainzfilm]

another request… a mclaren girl who was brought to the team by danny x carlos sainz!!!!!!!!!!

pairing: carlos sainz x mclaren pr!reader

a/n: sometimes i just wish i could work in the f1 world. and by sometimes i mean all the time <3 i hope you like this bb! 💝

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

“And for the first time in Formula 1, Carlos Sainz is victorious, he wins the British Grand Prix!”

Chills went all over your body as you cheered for Carlos’ first victory in his career. He finally fucking did it.

Making your way through the crowd, you stood near the barricade as Carlos took the podium, looking proud of his achievement. Despite being in a sea of people, he smiled at you and sent you a wink, which caused you to blush.

As you walked back to find Daniel to accompany him for his post-race interviews, Carlos followed shortly after and couldn’t help but look at you as you stood beside his friend. Butterflies erupting in his stomach– how could you stand amongst people and still be the most beautiful woman ever?

When Daniel finished his interview, you gave him a quick hug and congratulated him for his efforts on the race, “Good job, Daniel, today was tough.”

“Thank you, Y/N,” He smiled as he patted your back, “Looks like a certain someone wants your attention.”

Turning around with a frown that was immediately replaced with the biggest smile when you spotted a smiling Carlos, you walked towards him and gave him a hug, “I’m so proud of you! Congratulations, smooth operator.”

“Thank you, cariño,” He grinned as he hugged you back, “It feels crazy. I don’t know how I did it!”

“I always knew you could do it,” You smiled as you patted his shoulder gently, “Carlos Sainz, winner of the British Grand Prix. First of many, huh?”

“I could only hope,” He smiled as he put his hand on your back while walking out the paddock, “I really missed you, you know? Feels like I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“I miss you too,” You sighed as you put your hands in your pockets, “I’ve been thinking about leaving though.”

“Leaving? What do you mean?”

“McLaren. I like my job, but Daniel’s leaving next year,” You frowned as you rambled, “I just- I don’t know. Lando’s got his own PR, so where do I go?”

Carlos stopped walking, turning to you and putting his hands on your shoulders, “To me, cariño.”

“Yeah, obviously, you’re my friend. I really appreciate the support.”

“No, not like that,” He chuckled as he smiled at you, a sparkle in his eye, “Come be my PR. Mine’s about to take off next season for God knows what reason. It’s perfect timing.

“You’re not kidding me, right?”

“Ay, of course not,” He replied while clicking his tongue, “You know how much I missed having you around. Besides, if you were with me so often, I think I could win more.”

Rolling your eyes and shaking your head, “You know you don’t have to sugarcoat just so I could take the position.”

“I’m not!” Carlos frowned as he crossed his arms like a kid, “I’m telling the truth.”

Before you could respond, Lando runs up to the two of you and puts his arms around your shoulders and Carlos’, “Hey, hey! What’s up with my two friends?”

“Nothing, just persuading Y/N to come to Ferrari as my PR next year,” Carlos groaned as he stood up straighter.

“What?!” Lando exclaimed as he took his arms away and stood in front of the two of you, “No! She’s a McLaren girl through and through!”

“Please, mate,” Carlos snickered as he shook his head, “Red suits her so much better!”

“You’re wrong,” Lando frowned as he crossed his arms, “She’s gonna be my PR.”

“In your dreams, Lando.”

“Oh god, will the two of you stop it?” You laughed as you brushed your hair back with your fingers, “I’ll go wherever my heart decides for the next season. Okay?”

The two boys grumbled an agreement and nodded before Lando bid his farewell to catch up to George, who passed by.

“So,” Carlos trailed off as he smiled sheepishly, “Can I win your heart?”

Damn it, Carlos. Always so vague with his statements.

“Maybe, red would suit me,” You shrugged as you crossed your arms, “Who knows?”

“Mhm, red would definitely suit you,” Carlos smirked as he took his jacket off and placed it around your shoulders, “See?”

You couldn’t fight the blush that spread on your cheeks as you took in a deep breath of his cologne, “I guess it does.”

“You know what else would suit you?”

Frowning in confusion, you tilted your head and looked at Carlos, “What?”

Carlos smiled as he tapped your nose, “Me.”

bonus scene!

“God, mate, do you always have to be this cheesy?” Charles groaned as he entered Carlos’ driver’s room, “Can’t believe it took you so long to make a move.”

“Ay, shut up, cabrón,” Carlos frowned as he playfully pinched his teammate’s hip quickly before going back to decorating, “It’s her first day here and I want to make sure my girl gets the best welcome.”

Charles laughed as he shook his head, “I’m happy for the two of you, though. New beginnings in both your lives.”

“Hey Car- oh, sorry to interrupt,” You froze in your spot as you held onto your clipboard, “What is all this?”

Carlos and Charles looked at you wide-eyed and smiled awkwardly before throwing confetti over you, “Welcome to Ferrari!”

#sainzfilm drabbles #carlos sainz jr x reader #carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz jr imagine #carlos sainz imagine #f1 driver x reader #f1 imagine #fluff #f1 imagines #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 #drabble #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #carlos sainz #carlos sainz jr #cs55 #ferrari #carlos sainz jr fluff #carlos sainz fluff #carlos sainz jr oneshot #carlos sainz oneshot #carlos sainz jr fanfic #carlos sainz fanfic #carlos sainz drabble #carlos sainz jr drabble

[inchidentally]

'what if the competition between Lando and Oscar turns bad?' between my landoscar post and comments on other SM content it made me want to get weird in notepad again

I'm tagging @481boxboxbaby and @twinkodium who've asked but I'm sorry if someone's asked to be tagged and I missed it! also tagging @huntscunt who's tags put this idea in my little head

(caveat that I'm a casual fan who happens to have been around F1 fans all my life so this is just my not remotely official perspective lol)

just to state I think it's a given that we're all so excited for McLaren's future with these two is that Lando and Oscar feel like generational talents. and they're also very different as drivers and every race is exciting to watch even just for them. also the fact that Oscar was the jolt of competition that Lando needed.

and honestly I'd be more worried about their future harmony if they hadn't already had so many highly competitive and charged moments in their first season together:

Oscar came in at a surprisingly even level with Lando apart from the obvious difference in experience. he's taken risks that have on balance landed decently on the side of ballsy/respectable vs total failure and the time spent as reserve driver hadn't deteriorated any of his ability. so it was fair to worry for a while if Lando would take the competition as motivation or frustration esp after the disparity between him and DR in 2022.

I really liked the sort of respectful if tentative camaraderie Oscar and Lando showed each other when the car was an absolute tractor. but I liked it even more the fact that the turnaround at McLaren by Silverstone saw them both still in such a good place while being very competitive. that was I think the start of us seeing that Oscar wanted to prove himself a real team player and good teammate by starting the habit of showing up consistently for Lando's podiums/qualis.

the pit lane ding-dong in Monza was definitely the biggest test they've had - and that a lot of teammates will ever have - and the whole thing was handled really well all around. Andrea did the right thing of being big bad boss and Lando was quick to say that it was prob down to misjudgement (which is what I always thought) and that they still respect each other the same. I wasn't as active then so I can't remember if Oscar was asked for a response but I do remember my friends/family telling me that it was impressive how that didn't cause any major damage between the drivers since that's a pretty major incident to happen so early in a new partnership.

side note here to say that the ppl around me who've been watching F1 since the 90s overall feel like the hothead in-fighting with teammates seems to be fading/getting less intense with the younger generations. maybe it's because alpha male mentality seems cringe to gen z or because awareness of mental health is way more prevalent. Gasly and Ocon are relatively young drivers but even there the situation is pretty rare and because of hanging onto childhood grudges. I don't get the impression that any of the people around me feel like the Norris/Piastri partnership is likely to blow up or generate bitterness just because they're competing so closely ??

it's fair to say that Oscar has seemed genuinely happy to acknowledge that Lando is the McLaren brand representative and the established fan favorite within the sport as well as the team's fanbase. he's extremely mature for his years and incredibly well-balanced in terms of ambition. he's almost tailor made as a perfect compliment to Lando. EDITED TO ADD: see Oscar's almost lifelong friendship with Logan Sargeant as an example of Oscar having duked it out on track with someone for years while remaining close friends the whole time. and this was Oscar interrupting his own victory radio message to say how awfully he felt for Logan crashing out early. and that this is what Oscar felt about his and Lando's partnership toward the end of the season.

EDITED TO ADD:

Silverstone is a perfect encapsulation of how Lando has felt about Oscar from the very start and this was so beautiful to say.

Lando has measured himself by Lewis Hamilton-level goals since karting. Oscar wants to qualify well and win races. Lando was brought into F1 extremely young coming off of huge expectations and has placed enormous pressure on himself since as early as his second year in F1. Oscar has taken a business-like approach to his career since he was 14 and his calm sense of focus and determination comes from focusing on the race ahead and not letting much else in.

Lando's emotions being driven by his superstar destiny/status and Oscar's ability to have calm perspective even during a race is as solid a foundation as you can get in an F1 partnership honestly. they'll absolutely have the same conflicts that all teammates do and the media and DTS will explode those out of all proportion (both of which I ignore anyway). but I really can't see Oscar suddenly flying off the handle or holding grudges and I can't see Lando becoming a driver who suddenly wants to sustain a bad relationship with his teammate after all these years. Oscar is very clearly not the type to develop a crazy ego and Lando genuinely has more of an insane high self-expectation complex than that big of an ego.

even setting aside the parasocial widely felt agreement that they seem to genuinely like and respect each other, neither of them are alpha types and they're not both superstars jostling for publicity and they didn't come up together with a ton of existing history. idk it's just not on the F1 cards that they become icy or resentful.

so while I know no one can see the future and they're both relatively young and could change I don't really feel apprehensive?? and it's way too early to know if either of them will split from McLaren or when. especially if the car stays competitive with RB and Merc then it's the best place for both of them for the foreseeable (and prob most likely since competitive openings elsewhere look to be scant for the next 5ish? years but pls correct me if that's wrong!).

.

.

side side side note: I personally would not want to see Lando at RB. I know he's itching to try that car but unless RB and Max change drastically before then, Lando would positively shrivel up there. he's a superstar and he needs to be someplace he can be a superstar. it's also why I'm glad Carlos and Daniel moved along bc that's why those friendships are still so strong. we saw what had begun to happen when Lando was eclipsing Daniel and I don't even want to think about Carlos and his family if Carlos was teammates with a dominant Lando.

#mine

[cazzyf1]

My Favourite Quotes from: Niki Lauda Der Weg Zum Triumph by Peter Lanz

I finished reading the second book I got the other day, so here are the typed-up quotes that I liked. This is translated from German to English via google translate, so it's not grammatically correct and might have some mistranslations.

"If he appears to strangers as a cold, calculating man, he is in fact sensitive to moods and registers feelings that others have towards him very quickly and sensitively"

"Accordingly, Niki Lauda was disappointed in the evening when his wife Marlene came from Ibiza in Nelson Piquet's private jet. He said: "I want to drive the best race of the season tomorrow, but the most important thing in Formula 1 is to survive, that's also part of it."<< Marlene Lauda hadn't traveled to races for five years. She dismissed the fuss of the last few months with a catchy sentence: "It's nice when Niki becomes world champion, but what do I have to do with that?" But now she couldn't stand being alone in her house in Santa Eulalia on the race weekend , although she said she was going mad with excitement in the box, she came to Estoril. At the same time, I know that Niki can also become world champion without me. Reinhold Messner also climbs mountains alone. He doesn't need a woman for that. And Niki Lauda said: "I'm happy when she's there, but that doesn't mean I drive faster or slower."

"Second place meant the world title at that moment. Lauda was asked what he felt in those seconds: "Above all, fear that the petrol would not last until the end. It was trembling and praying. Shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon, when everything was finally over, Niki Lauda showed, perhaps for the first time in public, how much he was carried away by the joy and pride of victory. He, who often doesn't change his face after winning a race, got all excited, hugged his wife again and again, shook everyone's hand and even furtively stroked his eyes once or twice... As the champagne was passed onto the podium, Niki Lauda started shaking the magnum like a little boy and splattered the champagne all over the place, so that in the end Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, McLaren boss Ron Dennis and the car's designer John Barnard, standing with Lauda on the podium were completely soaked."

"Marlene Lauda even hugged Alain Prost, and Niki Lauda kept saying: "I'm really sorry for Prost. he was for the biggest challenge for me in the 13 years that I've been driving Formula 1. Now that the war of nerves is over, I can tell you - he's a really good guy. The next day, Niki Lauda brought his wife and children back to Ibiza and flew on to his office in Vienna himself."

"We had met in a café on Vienna's Schwarzenberg place agreed. When Lauda came in, he did not correspond at all to the image that is commonly made of a racing driver. He seemed rather shy and uptight. He wore a light-colored duffle coat, corduroy pants, and Clarks. In contrast to later times, he immediately made an extraordinary effort to appear in the best light. Somehow he seemed very proud that journalists from Germany flew to Vienna especially to talk to him. We then drove to his parents' house on Potzleinsdorferstrasse, where he had a room, and the first thing Niki Lauda did was to call the Levis jeans advertising man to tell him that he was giving an interview. Then he called the Bosch recruiter and rattled off the same litany again. I don't know if he was so proud of being interviewed at the time or if it was a service for his sponsors, in any case he was very accommodating and when the photographer asked him to he gathered all his trophies and draped them around himself on the needle felt floor. We then took a picture of him packing his racing suit and one of him lying on the couch reading a book. nod The room in which he lived was about thirty square meters and furnished in a rather carelessly manner. The wall was covered with veneered cupboards, there was a washbasin and a shower behind a partition and there were a few Reansport books on the shelves between the trophies. Once his mother looked briefly at the door but went right back. Niki Lauda wore his hair quite long back then, it was neatly parted and smooth, not as curly as it is today. He had a signet ring with a black stone on his left ring finger. His demeanor made him look like hundreds of other boys from upper Viennese society. Only his language didn't fit the picture: he spoke a strong dialect, and to this day he has maintained a certain fondness for flowery expletives. Of course, he knows how to speak High German on TV or in radio interviews, but in small circles, rude words come out quite easily. At that time, Niki Lauda collected the newspaper clippings and photos that dealt with his racing career. He probably wouldn't like to admit that today, but at first he was exceedingly proud when there was something about him in the newspaper. He often called sportswriters on the go and told them how the races he had competed in had turned out. Out of gratitude, the Viennese newspapers always wrote a few words about the young Austrian Lauda, ​​even if he was only placed somewhere in the middle. Nothing that Niki Lauda learned today about his early days counts, is 100% correct. But it's not a lie either. Rather, it's a mixture of half-true memories and a role cliché that he's grown into over the last ten years. In any case, it is certain that it all began in 1967. With a car accident." -p27-29

"So Niki Lauda told her (his grandma) the story of the borrowed car and the accident. He must have told the story to Berst dramatically, because when he left his grandmother he was 38,000 shillings richer - a little over five thousand marks. He was able to buy the battered Mini 1300 from Jose Draxler. For Niki Lauda, ​​getting into racing was a means to an end. All sorts of people in the years that followed made terrible accusations against his grandmother for helping him become a racing driver. If N Lauda had a really warm relationship with a family member, it was with the old lady. And when, many years later, he decided to finish racing, it was Marlene Lauda, ​​his wife, who first called grandmother and told her about the decision.

Question: What is your first childhood memory?' Answer: "I always had to go horseback riding when I was eight or nine years old. I was terrified of the stupid horses. I always disappeared to the toilet and hoped that I wouldn't have to ride then. I never knew why my parents sent me to horseback riding. They just wanted it. Out of. Then I remember my nanny. That must have been before. I was always raised by nannies. I remember her kind of uniform, she had a cap like that on her head. She was about thirty years old. Normal looking, not particularly pretty. She existed, but she couldn't replace my parents. I also remember something that happened when I was about seven years old. My father parked a car on a mountain with the handbrake on. And somehow the handbrake disengaged. Anyway discovered I did and ran with my brother. And I held. We screamed like crazy, then my father came." - p33-34

Niki Lauda didn't get along very well with his classmates at school. Although his parents him repeatedly dragged him to dentists and oral surgeons to have his teeth adjusted, he had to put up with the ridicule of the others. They called him rabbit or squirrel because of his protruding teeth, and his mother's pampering concern did the rest to make Niki Lauda appear as half a portion to his peers. He had to go to school in a hat and coat at the slightest breeze, and once he said: When I think back today and myself. and see my brother when we were kids, well, we were pretty sweethearts.” Which means something like sissy. According to his brother Florian, who is four years his junior, he was "terrified". Nothing fascinated the sissy like a car. - p34

"Niki Lauda once said to me: >> Many young men only start racing out of a need to show off or because of complexes. If you are successful and recognize your complexes, you can discard them. I had a tremendous number of complexes. inferiority complex. I was always bray, I'd never pulled a rascal prank. The only thing that didn't fit the picture of the model boy was my bad performance at school. I was particularly bad at religion.” - p35

"I asked him, 'Have you been dealt with harshly? Have you ever been beaten?< Laura: No. Barely. A slap in the face at most. I have one brother who is studying medicine. He's younger than me. He's very different from me, he's a very quiet, dreamy, spiritual idealist. His interests go more into the music.<< Question: 'Then you are a loud, unromantic, realistic person?' Lauda: »I am harder and more stubborn.<<" - p36

Back then, nothing fascinated Niki Lauda more than trucks. When he spoke in a Playboy interview in 1974 about how crazy he was about trucks, that he was almost addicted to driving such a thing, the Steyr works made a truck train available to him for a day. Lauda drove the truck to Zeltweg, onto the race track and did lap after lap. He'd never gotten a truck license, but he was a natural. He was having fun like a little kid, chasing the train around the track at breakneck speed and making the back of the truck swerve. He even considered opening a trucking company in the past because he was so fascinated by trucks. - p37

"Niki Lauda packed. He had a stack of suitcases in front of him and a light canvas bag with leather details. In it he put his racing overalls, crash helmet, head protection, fireproof shoes, high gauntlet gloves and coarse underwear, which in an emergency could keep the fire away from the body for a few seconds. » Where are my swimming trunks?' asked Lauda. It was bitterly cold in Vienna back in January 1972 and the cold was gradually eating through the brick walls, like that that people had to heat up their ovens vigorously in order to to get the apartments tolerably warm. Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda's girlfriend, was rummaging around in a drawer. They were at Lauda's parents' house in Vienna. "Here," Mariella held out the swimming trunks, "there she is." - p43

"act that is second to none. At the time, he would break down the doors of anyone who could help him in any way. His confidence bordered on the insane" - p46

"Once upon a time, in November 1972, a skinny, brunette boy started getting drunk in a Viennese wine bar. This young man, who usually only drank apple juice and milk, drank one glass of wine after the other. He had good reason to. He was broke. He was in debt and had no job. The boy was Niki Lauda. He gambled big and lost. There he was with a horrendous loan and no racing car. Because Max Mosley put him on the street at the end of the 1972 season. A stupid situation for the young man from the best family. He was with a sportswriter at the wine bar to get drunk. "Now I don't know what to advise you either," the journalist was saying. The two were silent for a while. Then they ordered wine again. "I could take a job in an office," said Lauda pensively, "and then slowly pay off my debts. ask them for a contract for touring car races. "You would earn more that way than in the office." "But not enough," said Lauda. He had reached the fourth quarter of white wine. It never occurred to him to ask his father for money, although that would have been the easiest way in the situation. He could have helped him. But Niki Lauda decided that only one person could pull him out of the shit he was in now - Niki Lauda. "Louis Stanley asked for my address at Watkins Glen last month for the American Grand Prix," he said thoughtfully. >>So what?< >>What and?<<< »Did you give it to him?<< Laura shook her head. "Not yet. I don't think Stanley had any honest intention of enlisting me. It was just a joke.' The journalist grabbed his arm and looked at him as if he were looking at a madman refusing a cold beer in the desert after seven thirsty days. "Come on," he said, "come on, you have to use every chance you have now."<< Two days later, an airmail letter from Vienna landed in the attic suite of London's venerable Dorchester Hotel on Hyde Park Corner. express, of course. Sender: Nikolaus Lauda. - p49-51

But before Niki Lauda entered the fashionable Dorchester, he passed the Playboy Club, where the Bunnies were busily running around behind glass facades on the first floor. He stopped for a moment and looked up. The girls looked good enough to eat in their tight suits with bunny tails on their buttocks and long legs. Then Niki Lauda quickly walked the few steps to the hotel. The most expensive English luxury limousines were parked bumper to bumper in front of the driveway. This time, Niki Lauda's heart beat even harder than when he saw the Playboy bunnies in the club. Whenever he sees a nice car, he's completely smitten. An almost sensual desire overcomes him, he wants to touch it, sit in it, look under the hood, drive around with it. That was the case then and it's not much different today. Niki Lauda used to wash his car every free hour. There was something immensely calming about washing the car. - p51

Lauda has a cleanliness tick when it comes to cars. His car must always be sparkling clean, Helmut Marko once gave him a car vacuum cleaner, one of the nicest presents, as he claimed for a long time. P52

"A few days earlier he had borrowed a tuxedo for a party. Lauda, ​​who hated formal attire, was quite glad he had his tuxedo with him. He was blessed. After the aperitif, Louis Stanley said: 'Wonderful what you did today. Very splendid. honest.< Fittipaldi and Stewart, the two world champions, came to congratulate them. The Austrian racing driver Lauda was even a little tipsy. After dinner, Stanley offered Lauda a cigar. Lauda refused. Back then, he only smoked a cigarette once, but only when his sponsor, Marlboro, could see him." - p60

He, who doesn't like discotheques, was persuaded by the nightclub manager Bruno Reichmann to advertise a discotheque called Half Moon in Salzburg. He received five thousand schillings a month and the rumor spread that the bar belonged to Niki Lauda." - p61

Lauda later said: "It never occurred to me that there could be another person in the car. The car had overturned, one ran around with a fire extinguisher and tried to extinguish his car. That's what I thought.<< Only when Lauda's BRM fails on the 52nd lap due to fuel pressure problems does the Viennese slowly realize what a drama he had unknowingly witnessed. He didn't help because he didn't know anything about it and because the mushroom cloud made it impossible for him to see what was happening. Lauda felt dying. He crouched in a corner of the box and didn't want to see anyone. A reporter came by. >Why didn't you stop, man? Wh did you let the poor fellow burn without any help?' Lauda was depressed. “I got a puff of smoke. I didn't know there was another one inside. »God in heaven, why don't you see that?<< >If I come along with 250 things, the route i wet from the foam of the fire extinguishers and the air is fuller Rauch, then I must see that I put my BRM on the stop.<< >But I still don't understand why you don't could see.' Lauda became angry. Hell, he had the poor one Roger Williamson actually not seen. He had chosen a goddamn profession, he felt that at the moment and he was full of self-doubt and blame. But the journalist did not want to hear all this. He wanted to hear something else. So Niki Lauda told him: "I'm not paid to save, but to drive." - p63-4

"I asked Lauda: »An American psychologist found that 600 racing drivers who were examined had an above-average desire for intimate intercourse and a great need to attract attention in women. How do you feel? Lauda replied: "Maybe that's how it is in America. It's different here.<< I quoted Stirling Moss, a former racing driver >>There's always a bunch of girls hanging around the racetrack... the sights and sounds that accompany the drama of a race are a strong attraction for almost all women. During a race a woman is more receptive to an offer than usual.<< Lauda said: >> How does Moss want to be able to judge that if he is not a woman? The women who hang around there go to the races because they want to meet one of those special people. So the receptive women go there.<<" - p70

"In the evening, Niki Lauda went to a discotheque in Madrid with Mariella von Reininghaus. Suddenly the Blue Danube Waltz sounded. Lauda said to his girlfriend: 'Today I felt like someone who always stands at the station and has to watch his train go by. He finally stopped today." - (after his first win) p80

"It snowed. Thick, sticky flakes steadily sank to the ground. Lauda liked skiing. He skied for as long as he could remember and he skied very well. Actually, apart from car racing, skiing was the only thing that actually fascinated him at the time. He watched ski racers on TV and really suffered with them. (Much later he was to develop a close friendship with ski racers. When Franz Klammer finally managed to win the World Cup again in 1981, after many, many defeats, Niki Lauda sat at home in front of the television and cried with joy.) In the winter of 1969 he went on holiday in Ba Gastein. It was very cold then. It seemed as if one's breath froze in front of one's lips. Niki Lauda stood on the slope, jumped, pushed himself, took his sticks under his arms and sped off... suddenly he gave a jolt, he lost his footing, snow flew up, he fell, rolled in an avalanche straight down the slope. When he finally lay still, everything was spinning around him. He rubbed his eyes. A young girl stood next to him and watched him silently. The girl was five foot five at most, fairly thin, and had a delicate bone structure. It had huge amber eyes. Niki Lauda later remembered the girl's first words to the letter: "Can I help you in any way?" That's how he met Mariella von Reininghaus." - p82-3

"Niki Lauda hates being photographed. He doesn't like to pose and when a photographer persuades him to do so, he usually looks at the camera in an angry or artificial manner. He didn't like it either when someone wanted to photograph him in his first apartment of his own. However, since his popularity also increased the demand for personality stories, he had to endure a few private photos for better or for worse." - p84

"Before Mariella von Reininghaus, Niki Lauda only had one close friend" - p86

"Once, in March 1982, he was the guest of honor at the Astro Show. He told me at the time that he didn't believe in astrology, that he only went to the show because he liked the presenter, Elizabeth Teissier, so much. He then actually sat across from Madame Teissier throughout the broadcast, gazing at her as enraptured as a rabbit would gaze at a snake, and yet denying all the things that Teissier claimed to have gleaned from the stars about him. But... somehow everything fascinated him." - p87

"Niki Lauda thought he was going crazy for a moment. The spectators behaved like wild animals. Thousands upon thousands pressed on him from all sides. Someone suddenly gave the order for the new champion to be pulled out of the confusion with mounted police officers. Suddenly,« Niki Lauda later recalled, I was surrounded by ten police officers. The policemen sat on mighty horses. I just saw the buttocks and the dangerous hooves of the horses. And so we walked around. It was almost horrible, and I would have wet my pants for fear." - p97

"It was around this time that Niki Lauda started chasing after the girls like crazy. He got engaged when he was almost 20 years old and before that had hardly had time to gain experience with women. A reporter once asked him, "Can you remember the names of your girlfriends? And Lauda answered to everyone's amazement: "Yes, because there was Mariella and before Mariella there was Ursula Aus - that was it." His dogged determination to raise money and get the cars he was given roadworthy took all his strength. In addition, of was shy and more comfortable in the company of other racers." - p98

When he gained enormous popularity after his first Grand Prix victories, he clearly noticed for the first time how unimportant external appearances are for a man. The women fought for the successful one. And to his surprise, he found that he could win at the girls even against handsome men like Clay Regazzoni, the womanizer with whom he often hung out at the time. And he slowly began to get a taste for social life. He really enjoyed being the star of Munich society. And the glittering, glamorous society found it fabulous when the young star Niki Lauda suddenly turned up in one of the Ine discotheques such as Why not or Josephines in the evening, in crumpled tweed jackets, with an open shirt collar and a rat's tail of young, glamorous skinny, long-haired girl in tow. Suddenly Niki Lauda was in all the gossip columns. - p99

"Niki Lauda was certainly never a compulsive womanizer who tried to compensate for defeats with conquests, but through his successes he suddenly found a taste for life. that had been foreign to him until then. He no longer had to face the embarrassment of being rejected by a woman he spoke to. He was famous and anyway the girls made a move on him. He once said to me: "'If I think about it, I didn't meet the prettiest girls at the race tracks, but often in discos like Why not.'" - p100

"Once she gave a party in honor of Niki Lauda. It was a warm summer night, the guests had to appear in costumes from the 1920s, but Lauda herself didn't think of dressing up and came in the usual tweed jacket. And in the free space in front of Why not there was a vintage car. Of course there were also photographers and they persuaded Niki Lauda to pose for photos. »Come on Niki, get in the car, we need some pretty pictures. Lauda took a seat, disgruntled. He hated posed photos. When he wanted to get out, the photographers asked him to put his arm around a girl. The girl was a certain Iris Grass, a model who had already been associated with all sorts of high-profile men and who once said of her first encounter with Niki Lauda: »We were both in a bad mood and hissed at each other.<< But over time, the mood changed. Niki Lauda: I liked her green eyes. She always looked so sincere. As if she had no idea of ​​anything. So... I don't know... poor actually, pitiful. But pretty. I got myself the same evening arranged to meet her and often went out with her.<«< Whereupon the Bild newspaper reported: »The small, almost frail Austrian racing driver has a fiancée in his hometown of Salzburg, who is also from Adel. is very wealthy and beautiful. But that doesn't stop Niki from calling the beautiful Munich girl Iris from all corners of the world to arrange a meeting. Then the two go to La Cave or Victor's Bistro on Hohenzollernstraße to feast - and then they end up dutifully at Why not. I like him very much, Iris openly admits and is happy when the Formula 1 racing driver flies quickly from Frankfurt, Monza or Copenhagen to Munich for her sake. However, she doesn't quite believe that Niki Lauda only goes out with her, as he does with a deep look into her pretty. green eyes has claimed.<" - p101-2

"He fell head over heels in love with the actress Christine Schuberth, who had made her career naked in the cinema as the 'Mutzenbacherin', and then with another actress, Iris Berben." - p103

"Once, when the relationship between the two was about to break up, Mariella von Reininghau complained »Niki can only develop feelings about his car and about nothing else. Maybe he needs someone who only sees him as the world champion when he wakes up in the morning. Niki Lauda wrote about the nasty arguments: "We were arguing more and more often, and I cheated more and more often in the summer of '75 - I just needed a lot of variety as a counterpoint." On the other hand: "I had been with Mariella for seven years and was actually pretty sure that we would get married someday." - p104

"Whenever a reporter asked him the inevitable question, Mr. Lauda, ​​how do you feel about sex before the race?' What really drains your condition is what's around it. You get to know a woman at a race track, you go out to eat with her, then to a bar, and you don't go to bed until four in the morning. It's different with your wife or girlfriend. You can still sleep twelve hours despite all the sex. I once asked Niki Lauda: »Jackie Stewart was a monk two days before the star when he was a racing driver. He has a very attractive wife, but he wants to go hungry and hot, what do St think? Lauda replied: "I don't know what Jackie Stewart used for his races. I need my arms and legs, nothing else. I don't think sex and racing cars have anything to do with each other. A woman is a woman, a car is a car. I can try to master a machine, but you have to understand a person.<< - p104-5

"James Hunt, the Brit who snatched the world title from Niki Lauda in 1976, is a man that women love. And who loves women. One of his friends once said: »He starts caressing your body, kisses you all over. Really everywhere. And he doesn't care if a race is coming up or not. For a while he had a sticker over his heart: 'Sex is also a Sport.' James Hunt once fell into the hands of Wendy Leigh, an attractive Englishwoman who was writing for the book What Does a Girl Do? wife researched well in bed. Hunt's wife Suzy had just gotten engaged to Richard Burton and the racer was willing to provide information to the reporter. He said, "Sometimes I analyze myself a little and watch myself trying to maneuver a girl into bed. Then I'm always surprised at how devious I do it. I fool people. It's actually fun for me, just like selling something to people. Sometimes you get a woman who refuses to do certain things in bed; perhaps because she has inhibitions or is afraid that she will like it too much afterwards. It's your job to relax her, work on her gently, explain things to her skillfully, and get her to think it's a good idea. Then there are women who pretend to reject something, they play you their number, refuse to go to bed with you just because they want to appear different from who they are. These women are a waste of time. Others resist certain things in bed and want to make an impression. But they make no impression on me. I like a woman who asks for what she wants in bed, and I tell her that too. The real pleasure in bed, what really gets me excited, is when I can please a woman. I like it when the girls come to my bed and have a great time there. if they really enjoy it, that's great for a man and that can be fun. Personally, I like the women who reach orgasm quickly. Because that means she enjoys it, orgasm is the same as feeling pleasure.<< James Hunt - p105-6

Lauda didn't like the superficial party talks. He'd never gotten used to the chatter, and for a brief moment wondered if there wasn't a way to slip away undetected, when suddenly he felt someone watching him. He looked up. A beautiful young woman was quiet to him kicked, sat down and naturally put her hand on his knee. The hand was long, slender, and soft as a feather. >Are you thirsty? Do you want something to drink? whisky, gin, Cognac?< She addressed him as "du" straight away, and she had a voice, heaven, what a fascinating voice. A little hoarse, with a barely noticeable foreign accent. It was only much later that Niki Lauda found out that she was born in South America and that she had been brought up there for a few years. In all honesty, he replied, 'I'd have an appetite for a mineral water.< Oh. She gave him an amused look, got up without a word and brought him a glass of mineral water. - p111

"Marlene Knaus was extraordinarily pretty. She liked to wear her hair up, had a dazzling figure and worked as a model in Munich for a while. From time to time she was also photographed naked. (The photos of Marlene, with her hair pinned up, naked, crouching in a wicker chair, still haunt the editorial offices of daily newspapers to the displeasure of her future husband." - p113

Lemmy Hofer came a short time later. Lauda stood up and took a deep breath, the beautiful Lemmy Hofer from yesterday's party. Marlene Knaus. Curd Jürgens' girlfriend! With a few quick steps he stood in front of her and took her hand. "What are you doing there?" he asked awkwardly. Marlene grinned and Lemmy intervened. 'I spoke to her on the phone this morning. She was bored and we made a date. So I thought, just take her with you.' They sat down next to Niki Lauda. Marlene was silent for a while, then she said cheekily: "I wanted to take a look at Niki Lauda in daylight. That's what she did until Lemmy Hofer said: "Imagine, Niki, that Marlene has her no idea about car racing. She thought you were a Marlene nodded. »Yeah? They all ordered coffee. Lauda looked at Marlene furtively. She had a wonderfully even face. the Hair was back in a bun, her skin suntanned. Her hoarse voice, her closeness... I had seen many beautiful women. They didn't worry me. But this woman was something very special.< How would other men behave in Niki Lauda's situation? They would have used all their charm to impress Marlene Knaus. Lauda not. He turned to his friend Lemmy. »Tell me, what's new in Vienna?<< Lemmy looked at him in amazement for a moment. Then he began to tell. The two of them chatted about old times all afternoon. Marlene listened. She said nothing, no doubt irritated that none of the men took any further notice of her. When she said goodbye, she asked Lauda: "One thing I would like to know... are you always so... so reserved?" Niki Lauda smiled. »Depends.<< He had the feeling that he had won this first round." - p117-8

"Miss Knaus, please." »Miss Knaus isn't here.<< Niki Lauda hesitated for a moment. "When will she come back?" We're not expecting her any time soon.'< 'Where is she?' Miss Knaus is in the hospital. She has severe pneumonia.<< Niki Lauda asked the name of the clinic where Marlene was. Later he told friends with a grin: 'It wasn't nice that Marlene was in the hospital, but it was my big chance. Curd Jürgens was shooting a film in Vienna, but I was there. And I sat at his girlfriend's bedside as often as possible.« He visited Marlene every day. And when the doctor threw him out after a while, he would stand by the window and talk to her. She says, "I thought it was cute. I was in a bad way, but Niki helped me with his visits.<<" - p119

"Where do you want to go, Marlene?<< I would love to take you to an inn and have a schnapps.' Lauda had to laugh. "I'll bring the car here carefully so that the doctors don't notice anything," he said. "You're getting dressed and then we'll take off.' No sooner said than done. Fifteen minutes later they were already behind them in Salzburg. Niki Lauda stopped in a pine forest. "Shall we go for a walk?" "Gladly." Marlene got out. He took her hand. Tall conifers left and right. A narrow path, covered with pine needles. Cicadas chirped. The inn, which they soon reached, looked rather run down Window frames hung askew in the wall. Lauda put his arm around Marlene. They entered. Farmers from the area sat at massive oak tables with smoothly scrubbed tops. The only thing not in the tavern fitted, the jukebox was in the corner. Nobody here knew a racing driver, Niki Lauda, ​​and nobody cared about Curd Jürgens' girlfriend. They sat down at an empty table. Marlene laid her head on his shoulder. The innkeeper joined them. Niki Lauda ordered slivovitz twice. You could see a piece of sky from the window. Clouds came up. A locomotive whistled in the distance. A hit came from the jukebox. The innkeeper brought the schnapps. They drunk. Niki Lauda took Marlene's head in his hands and kissed her she. Shall we have another one, Niki?< »But then we're really drunk.<<< So what? The whole afternoon is ours. They held hands, and Niki Lauda suddenly realized: this is the woman for life! Suddenly he felt as if someone had turned on the light in a dark room. He himself had always resisted marriage, he had said: 'If two people like each other and live together, there is no need for a marriage certificate.' But in a tiny second everything had changed. Niki Lauda felt he had to seal his relationship with Marlene Knaus. She asked him, "What are you thinking about now?" And he answered: 'I remember that I'm always with you want to stay with you Always.” His racing car, the world championship, Mariella, Curd Jürgens… everything was suddenly far, far away. The small village economy became the center of the world for him. He was happy. - p121-2

"There is no doubt that Lauda suffered greatly from public attention in his first year of the World Cup. He had enjoyed being a celebrity in the beginning, but it was already too much for him." - p123

"Another racer, who has since died in an accident, took a particularly good-looking stewardess to his bungalow and began exchanging affections with her in broad daylight. Of course, Lauda and Stuck and a few other racing drivers noticed. They crept up to the bungalow, quietly opened the window and then splashed cold water in the room and on the two naked people." - p128

"Once some one poured milk in Jacky Ickx bed. The sun burns relentlessly hot on the bungalows during the day and when Ickx wanted to go to sleep in the evening, there was a pitiful smell of sour milk. Ickx returned the favor and smeared the windows of Lauda's rental car with honey. Mario Andretti, the American Indianapolis winner, piled up all the sun loungers in the swimming pool one night, a little nervous, and James Hunt was delighted to go naked through the pool scurrying around the garden and scaring the female guests (until all of a sudden he got fed up with the fuss and moved to Sleepy Hollow a few miles away and ended up trying to stay with friends when he didn't like it there either)" - p128-9

"Three years after her first visit to Kyalami, when Marlene Lauda was pregnant and couldn't go with her, she sent her husband a sex doll by post and wrote »so that you don't get any stupid ideas down there«. It was also a birthday present for Lauda. Oddly enough, the puritanical customs of South Africa, who otherwise rigorously confiscate every sex magazine, had nothing against the inflatable doll and Niki Lauda's friends seized it, dressed it in overalls and laid it in the garden." - p129

"Niki Lauda, ​​who was with Mariella a few months earlier von Reininghaus had said, "Hand on heart, I feel married and a ring and a marriage certificate wouldn't change that much either," suddenly moved heaven and earth to get the marriage papers for Marlene and himself. "I wanted to marry her because I wanted to get married," he told me at the time. »It's a feeling - she belongs to you. There's no logical explanation for that.<< If someone spoke to him about Marlene's pregnancy, he got very angry: "When a racing driver is married and has children, he doesn't drive any differently than usual. It's just me driving, not mine wife, not my children. When I race, I turn off everything around me. I don't think about whether my wife is pregnant. It doesn't matter if I have 36 children and five wives, or none at all. Anything else is idiotic. A few days after the race in South Africa, Niki Lauda married Marlene Knaus. So that no one would get wind of the event, they decided to get married in England. But then things didn't work out with the papers, Marlene Knaus doesn't have a birth certificate because it was burned at some point in Venezuela and Niki Lauda couldn't find her parents' marriage certificate. Salzburg was just as out of the question as a place for the wedding, just like Vienna. "People would have been standing in line," said Niki Lauda to his friend Dr. Oertel, who got him the first sponsorship money from the Raiffeisenbank years ago. So Niki Lauda and Marlene Knaus decided to get married in Wiener Neustadt, a good hundred kilometers from Vienna in Lower Austria. No one took care of Lauda there, Dr. Karl-Heinz Oertel was the best man and had to lend Niki Lauda a tie because the groom didn't have one." - p131-2

"A child seemed to complement Niki Lauda's life. It gave him the chance to correct his own messed up childhood. Marlene would make the child feel. to be needed and useful. She surrounded herself with a lot of care, and Niki Lauda didn't tell her that during a first training session on the Jarama race track in Spain had crashed through three fangrines at more than 200 kilometers per hour and had been hit in the skull by a wooden stake. Although he had a headache, he continued testing despite the slight concussion." - p132-3

"She remembered for a moment the first race she had witnessed in South Africa. She had been at the finish tower and when he won she ran down to congratulate him. Hundreds of people pounced on Niki Lauda, ​​everyone wanted something from him, Marlene involuntarily withdrew and just waved at Niki Lauda. On the plane she congratulated him and ordered champagne. He adjusted his seat so that he could sleep comfortably. Before he fell asleep, he asked her, "How did you like the first race you witnessed?" And Marlene answered: >>You're all a bit crazy, I think." - p148

"Around this time Marlene Lauda drove to Salzburg, from the airport she wanted to fly to Cologne with the pilot in Lauda's plane and meet her husband. She was a little confused. In Vienna she had had a very strange dream that would not let her go. It had been Friday night into Saturday night. »I saw, she told Niki Lauda's mother, a car on fire. It was Niki's Ferrari. I saw that very clearly. But only the car was on fire, I didn't see Niki.« Lauda's mother tried to calm Marlene, when that didn't help, she snapped at her. >stop. Don't talk nonsense. Here, take a pill.< Marlene thought about this dream while driving to Salzburg Airport. Of this dream and the race from the Nürburgring... it was 1 p.m." - p154

"Arturo Merzario, the small, skinny Italian, was the first to help Lauda. He was lying behind Lauda in his Wolf Formula 1, stopped immediately, jumped out and ran into the flames. Afterwards, he kept remembering what he witnessed at around two-thirty in the afternoon on August 1st: 'Lauda's screams were terrible. I didn't understand what he was shouting, but I can imagine it.<<" - p156

"When the announcement came through the loudspeakers that Niki Lauda had had a serious accident and that the race would be started again, a few thousand spectators in the finish area started to laugh and shouted and hooted with joy. Huschke von Hanstein gave a first radio interview: "Niki is fine," he said, ser is already flirting with the nurses.<< Then the race started again, but four cars were missing: those of Brett Lunger, Harald Ertl, Chris Amon and Niki Lauda." - p159

"When the ambulance brought Lauda to the hospital on the edge of the rolling hills of the Eifel in Adenau, there was tremendous excitement. A doctor held out a telephone receiver to Lauda: "A call for you, Mr. Laudas," he said. Brazilian radio. They want to do an interview with you.<< It was completely absurd. Lauda lay on the stretcher, got a telephone receiver in his hand and spoke live with a reporter. The conversation was broadcast on the radio across Brazil. But Lauda still doesn't know what he said back then. He was completely gone and has no memory" - p161

"The two nurses who took turns tending to him had soft, friendly voices. Later, when he could see again, he noticed that they were very pretty." - p168

"Once his wife asked him if he would like his parents to visit him. They were in Mannheim, but they didn't want to let them into the intensive care unit without his knowledge. Not yet, Lauda indicated with his wife's hand movements. They communicated by finger pressure or by raising and lowering their hands. Lauda couldn't talk. Marlene Lauda remembered: »I stayed in the hospital, I couldn't go to the hotel. I didn't want to take Valium either. Everyone always gave me Valium. I didn't take any. I collected the pills because, I thought to myself, if anything happens, you'll take them all at once. I already had a whole bunch.<<" - p172

"He really wanted to see himself in the mirror. The doctors forbade it, but when nobody was looking he would sit up and face the glass windows in such a way that he could at least catch a glimpse of his appearance. On Friday the swelling around his eyes receded, he recognized his wife and mother. Whoever wanted to visit him had to strip down to his underwear and put on a sterile gown. He blinked at his mother and croaked, "My God, how do you look?" The green smocks confused him. "You look like Martians," he said." - p173

"One night he got up quietly and crept into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror for a while and said to Marlene, who went to the hospital at five o'clock the next morning. »Now I look like I did at the carnival in Rio. Or one of the leading actors in a horror film.' Marlene Lauda didn't know whether to laugh or comfort him." - p174-4

"They came up with all sorts of tricks to let the transport go smoothly. They issued a bulletin saying that three days later the patient Nikolaus Lauda could be transported from Mannheim to Ludwigshafen by ambulance. In truth, however, they drove to the other clinic the following day in the private car of Prof. Peter, the head of the hospital at the time. It was like a thriller and Niki Lauda had fun doing it. He was given a wide-brimmed hat and a blanket covered his bloated body. And while the reporters were standing in front of the front door, they carried Lauda through the delivery entrance to the doctor's Mercedes." - p174

"Lauda had to record radio commercials for a while, which were broadcast before the races and sounded like this: Narrator: Niki Lauda, ​​who do you fear most when racing in South Africa, Hunt, Scheckter or Fimpaldi? Lauda: None of the three. Only the customs, because they always want to take my Römerquelle away from me, because they think it's a magic potion He was paid 180,000 marks for saying such nonsense." - p191

"He always knew that he could hit some people, yes, that he could hurt some if he stole a disproportionate amount of money from them. He punished people by charging astronomical sums. I remember once having lunch with Niki Lauda in a particularly expensive Munich restaurant. He had brought his wife and two other friends. And then there was an older man who wanted to win Lauda for some business. I noticed that Lauda felt uncomfortable in the man's company. He didn't like him. When it came to paying the very high food bill, Lauda shirked. He also motioned to the rest of us to leave the bill behind. In the end, the businessman had no choice left to pay. And Niki Lauda triumphed" - p200

"Lauda herself characterizes himself differently. He once told me: »I really enjoy a candlelight meal with tender music by Leonard Cohen or Gorden Lightfoot, I love sitting in the middle of a green meadow and looking at the flowers.<<" - 211

"On the other hand, he is brutally open in some respects. When his four-year-old son Lukas once asked him where the severe facial burns came from, he put the child in front of the television and showed the video cassette with the film of the accident. 'You see,' he said, 'I sat inside and burned myself.' Lukas was terribly frightened.

He doesn't mind if children stop and look at him and ask what happened to his face. But he hates being stared at by adults. He once said: “I don't like intrigues and lies, even if I'm not involved myself.” What he fears most is “people's stupidity. Not if they're uneducated, but if they're just stubbornly stupid." - p211

"While the phone rang in the living room, Marlene Lauda sat her son Lucas in his little chair. Niki Lauda had said goodbye to her two days earlier and she had no idea that he was planning to give up racing. She kissed him the usual farewell, then he sat down in his car in the garage, about twenty yards away to the kennel, she walked alongside. She picked up the phone. "Yes, please?" "It's me, Niki." It was silent for a moment. Marlene asked: "Why aren't you at training?" She was a little irritated because her husband called at a very unusual time. Lauda replied: "Look out, you can tell Frau Meier, our housekeeper, that she no longer needs to wash my overalls." At first, Marlene Lauda didn't understand what her husband meant. Then she asked softly and doubtfully: Have you... I mean... have you stopped? 'Yes,' he replied. 'But' she didn't know for a split second what was happening to her... she wanted to scream with joy... but she just said: 'You can't stop suddenly, in the middle of the season... why. "Nothing. I have stopped. I can stop.< Bernie Ecclestone picked up the receiver and said: >Marlene, Niki has gone mad.<< Finally, Niki Lauda calmly said goodbye to his wife. Marlene Lauda later confided to friends: »I thought motionless for a whole hour. Why now? But then I stopped wondering. Because, let's assume it's the kid or something. I think he should keep that to himself.<< Marlene went completely nuts. She phoned her sister in Geneva and immediately yelled: »Niki stopped.<< She said later: »I called my doctor. I had him paged by radio at the clinic. This is the doctor who gave birth to Lucas - he's so nice. I called down at the village inn in the middle of the night and said everyone who is there now can drink whatever they want and as much as they want on my account. I also recently called Curd Jürgens. I was already a little tipsy. He was really happy. Anyone who doesn't know something like that doesn't know what it's like to suddenly no longer have to be afraid for the man. No longer afraid that one day they will carry him away on a stretcher and you stand by and know: So that's it - your life, your marriage.<< p219-20

"In early 1977 he even flew from Austria to California in the Cessna Citation, a jet-powered aircraft. The flight lasted 23 hours. Marlene Lauda played stewardess, served ham sandwiches, pepper sausage, mineral water and hot coffee. When they arrived at the Hotel Holliday Inn in Long Beach, everyone thought that Lauda had gone crazy." - p229

"He called a press conference, invited the journalists onto his plane and flew around Austria with them. He was particularly lovable and, for the first time, did something he had always detested. He also took Marlene and his son Lukas, who was born in April 1979, with him and offered the photographers and journalists the opportunity to take family pictures. When Lukas was born in 1979, Niki Lauda was in Long Beach because the American West Coast Grand Prix was coming up. He heard about the birth of his first son over the phone before flying to Las Vegas with his then-team boss Bernie Ecclestone to see the new racetrack. And it was clear to him that his son should not be marketed. “I've strictly forbidden photography. A reporter who offered to radio him a picture of the newborn to America was dismissed: "I said no photo, and I'll see my son often enough." Of course he was proud to be the father of a boy, but he didn't want children as vehemently as Marlene did. Once he said when his wife still was pregnant: "If it's a boy, he's to be called Lukas Ben. If it's a girl, we've already chosen a name... wait a minute, that was... oh. damn, i forgot. Well, it doesn't matter.<< In December 1980, when Lukas was one and a half years old, he kept having his picture taken with Marlene and Lukas and also said: »My boy is a super child. He's friendly and incredibly open-minded. He drives like a wild tractor. Only in the passenger seat, of course. But if he's not allowed to come along, he'll start crying.<< - p249-50

"I am too sensitive. And maybe too open. At least for my self. There are situations when people hurt me. And that hurts me. That's why I build a wall around me." - p251

"Now he was vulnerable, a man with little cultural sense whose favorite film is Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford, who went to the opera only once in his life, as a child, and almost fell asleep doing it, who doesn't read novels and only thought of business." - p251

"Once, it was a Saturday morning, he came home to Hof near Salzburg. He'd gone out to buy newspapers that morning and forgot to close the garage door. Marlene wasn't at home either, so the house was empty for a good hour. As he stepped into the hallway, he saw a man walking around in it. He had his arms spread wide and was striding toward the spiral staircase that leads from the garage hallway to the living room. room on the first floor. The man moved very stiffly and earnestly. It looked funny looking As if he were a bird ready to fly away at any moment. He didn't pay any attention to Niki Lauda. Lauda said: "Hello, can I help you?" The other man looked at him and replied: "Ah, Mr. Lauda, ​​nice day. Thanks, it's all right... Niki Lauda thought hard, but he had it man actually never seen before. The stranger now began to climb the stairs with outstretched arms. He touched the railing with his fingertips. 'Damn,' he said crossly. Now it was too colorful for Lauda. "Listen," he snapped, "this is my house. What are you doing?< The other stopped, put his arms down and left towards Lauda. He seemed really upset. "But you're being rude, Herr Lauda," he said. 'I'm building a house like yours and I'd like a nice spiral staircase like that too. I saw yours in a newspaper. Now I have to measure whether my closet goes up the stairs. My closet is<< - he spread his arms apart again - »>about that deep.<< Lauda threw him out." - p252-3

"Lauda let in on the edge of his large property Put up a sign that read: »Private property<<. That didn't help. People came anyway. Even after he stopped racing, they kept harassing him. When someone was at the door again at the weekend, Lauda asked: "Why are you following me?" He said: »I would like to look at your house.<< Lauda answered: »What would you say if I came to you one day and sat in front of your apartment door?«< "This is something else. You are Lauda. «< Marlene was getting scared. And Niki Lauda tried to get a gun. Initially, however, he was denied a firearms license, saying that taxi drivers had caused enough mischief with pistols and that no new firearms licenses were being issued in Austria. Lauda said: "But I'm not a taxi driver. It took a while and several interventions before Niki Lauda was able to obtain a pistol, a Walther, and received the gun license number 074894. This bureaucracy also annoyed him. And slowly the desire to leave Austria, at least for a while, germinated in him." - p254

"Niki Lauda generally says that he is a particularly cautious driver (»Everyone claims that they are good drivers. Anyone who cannot do it at least says they drive >quickly<<<), but in truth he accelerates vigorously, wherever it is possible. I had an appointment with him on April 27, 1981 to find out more about the rumors that Niki Lauda wanted to return to Formula 1. He told me that he had just overlooked a speed limit on a German autobahn and had run into a speed camera at over 200 kilometers per hour. The police officers who then stopped him were quite perplexed. They said it was one of the few devices that could measure over 200 kilometers per hour and that he was the very first to drive in there. Then they said they would consider that a test measurement and he should continue driving now. Niki Lauda was in good spirits, he had been lucky and he could just as easily have gotten rid of his driver's license" - p261

"At first, Marlene Lauda did not want to accept the fact that her husband was getting back into the Grand Prix circus. "She cried quite a bit," Lauda put it gently. "For what Niki is up to there," Marlene Lauda said to me on the phone in November 1981, "there's really only one word - crazy! I have the impression that he must have gone completely mad. When I first read about these rumors in the newspaper, I still thought they were inventions by journalists.<< But slowly she began to suspect that there was more to it than that. >>Whenever Niki talked to me about car racing, she teased his voice a little. Good heavens, I thought if there is nothing in the bush!<< Then one day she received certainty. “Niki came home from Egypt. He had had difficult negotiations about his airline and the Fokker charter and I thought he would be tired and taciturn. But he was all high-spirited and funny. He was suspiciously in a good mood. There's more to come, I thought. And indeed. That evening he taught me that he wanted to try again.<< Marlene Lauda now knew that nobody could be strong enough to dissuade Niki Lauda from making such a decision. »Not if he's really determined to do it.<<" - p266

Niki Lauda attracted the most beautiful girls. A number of top-class love affairs were immediately attributed to him. There he hung out in New York's Xenon and in Rome's Bella Blue he hung out with Ileonora Vallone, the beautiful, long-haired daughter of actor Ralf Vallone. The Munich evening newspaper then asked Marlene Lauda if she was jealous and she replied: "I don't take something like that seriously. After all, I've known Niki long enough.« The picture said: »An infidelity can happen spontaneously with him«, says his wife, »but he would never let himself be caught.« And: »Niki Lauda prefers to come five minutes too early than a minute too late. But every two months he gets drunk with friends in the village inn in the Salzkammergut, but in between he calls his wife. I'll be there soon and won't be home until after midnight. He even missed Christmas Eve. He drank with his pilots, didn't get home until ten and fell asleep next to the Christmas tree. >The next morning I looked in the mirror and said to myself: you asshole." - p272-3

"At the end of 1982, the Laudas decided to move to Ibiza for a while. "Marlene and the children are there most of the time anyway," he said. He liquidated his household in Salzburg and had his two mastiffs put to sleep. Marlene had longed for the dogs after the wedding, they were two particularly beautiful, dark dogs, Bagheera and Balu. The dogs slept in a four-poster bed with checkered curtains and were kind-hearted. "But then suddenly," Niki Lauda told the Bild newspaper, "they became jealous of our children." Because the dogs were running around freely, there was always trouble with hikers and hunters. Once Lauda even left Austrian television is looking for his dogs because they like had disappeared from the face of the earth and he was afraid they could be killed by hunters." - p273

Tagging @f1yogurt to read in their own time; lots of information here

#niki lauda #f1 #classic f1 #niki lauda quotes #formula one #formula 1

[suckmyballshoney]

F1 Quarantine Day 7 - Season

I’m being productive today! (what do you mean I’m supposed to follow my online class right now?)

Have a sad Pierre fic, while I panic for what to write for tomorrow

“I hate everything…” Pierre mumbled to himself as he faceplanted the small couch of his room in the motorhome. He turned his head slightly on the side to be able to breathe, then stayed there for what felt like an eternity.

This year had been long, so long! A rollercoaster of emotions, from the most genuine happiness to the darkest sides of his mind. A proper mess that would be associated to his name for the remaining of his life. Now, he was back from the last race, the end of the season, for just a few minutes of calm before the media storm got back at him again. He was tired. No, not strong enough of a word.

He felt drained.

His eyes were fixated on the empty wall opposite to him, only his open bag and his helmet that he threw there when he came in were in sight. The large ‘Red Bull’ drawing on the side of the helmet taunted him once again and he adverted his gaze, looking everywhere but there.

At least, next year there would be no doubt anymore, no Red Bull written on his clothes, remembering the lowest point of his season. Alex was confirmed as Max’s 2020 teammate, Pierre would stay at Toro Rosso – no AlphaTauri, he really had to remember that now – and the chances for that to move again were quite low. And Pierre would find stability again.

At that point, that was all Pierre needed. Stability.

This year had been hectic, he had lost count of the number of times a new event came crashing down on his already unsteady mental state. First, the growing pressure at Red Bull. What should have been the biggest opportunity of his life quickly turned into a disaster. “Measure up to Max”, “measure up to Daniel”, “be better”, “don’t crash”, “we won’t forgive any error” … And at the first mistake, his fate was sealed and his brain couldn’t keep up with the pressure put on his shoulders at every new race. His only comfort had oddly been the presence of his teammate. As the rest of the team tried to push Pierre to keep up with the other to the point that the simple mention of the Dutchman’s name would give him cold shivers, Max had always done his best to stay attentive to Pierre’s struggles and help when he could – Charles called that strategy, Daniel called that Max’s hidden soft side.

Then, the demotion. “Don’t worry, you will finish the season”, fucking liars. His wall at home still remembered that particular phone call when he was told he was going back to Toro Rosso, a large trace imprinted by the violent throw of a glass, now and then he would still find some small shards in the paint. And Max, the little fucker, knew already and didn’t say anything. Oh, Pierre had been furious toward him – as usual, Charles didn’t help for that until Max showed up at his place at the end of the summer break when the two friends were together to apologize and explain. Going back to Italia had been painful, the feeling of failure following him in every corner of the tech centre despite the welcoming smiles of his old team. He and Daniil hadn’t talked at that time, and the next second Pierre was in Spa…

Pierre was in Spa, and then he was at a funeral. Ha, the rest of the year was a happy little dream compared to this, to the grieve and loss of his best friend. He still remembered the evening of that day, he and Charles sprawled silently on the latter’s couch, tear tracks still shining on the Monegasque’s cheeks as they emptied an ice cream pot. Pierre’s brain had shut down earlier in the day, and he had been left with no emotion other than the need to crash in his bed and hide until he no longer wanted to jump out the window. Only Daniel and Max coming with enough ice cream for a regiment – so they wouldn’t lack any – broke through his last resolve and Pierre had ended up crying for three days straight, Charles’s arms surrounding him as he sobbed with him until they fell asleep. Bittersweet memory imprinted in his mind.

The weeks after that were quite blurred in his mind, he had tried his best to put everything aside and not disappoint more than necessary. To his own surprise, despite being completely out of it most of the time, he had managed to salvage his end of season. “Because you’re good at it”, Max would say, “Horner and Marko were just to stupid to get that out of you”. Maybe…

The Brazilian GP was also blurry, but for extremely different reasons! To be honest, he barely remembered his Sunday evening – blame that on Daniel and Kimi and their “victory shots”. Maybe the others were right, maybe he was not that bad at racing in the end. Anthoine would have been proud of him, for sure. And maybe he was proud of himself too, who knows. He didn’t know. However, one thing he knew for sure, is that he was still in the course for the unofficial title of Best of the Rest driver. A consolation prize he would have LOVED to grab. One last fight, against Carlos, to prove his worth, his talent, his capability. To make this year a little more bearable.

Pierre groaned, hiding his face in the cushion again. “Fuck you too, Lance.”

Of course, the last race couldn’t go as planned. Carlos was starting last, Alex was quite far in the points, Pierre’s chances to get that desired sixth place in the Championship were at their highest, and before he could do anything, anything! He was dead last in a damaged car.

Poor Lance had tried to apologize at the end of the race, it was just a simple mistake, one Pierre could do at any point too, but didn’t even have the time to open his mouth that Pierre, usually sweet and caring and posed Pierre, had screamed profanities at him for ruining his race. A miracle no cameras had been there at that point.

Jeez, he had to apologize to Lance now…

He had had to avoid the McLaren drivers after that, Carlos dancing around in the paddock was a painful sight to his teary eyes. The whole year came crashing down on him, and now he found the silence in his room deafening, close to give him a headache.

In conclusion, he was not good enough for the top teams, he couldn’t even blame Max because he was too understanding, so no one else than himself to blame, every time he felt like calling a friend for help he remembered one of his best friends would never pick up the phone now, and despite the highness provided by the Brazilian race, he was the best at nothing. Nothing.

The door opened and closed quietly, the person that came in walking toward the couch without a word. Pierre felt the sofa dip under the weight of the unknown intruder, and when Pierre turned around to yell at them to go away, he found himself looking in the brown eyes of his actual teammate Daniil. They watched each other silently for a few seconds, Daniil impassive as always, Pierre looking more and more confused. Finally, Daniil sighed heavily, lifting a hand to rub it on Pierre’s back.

“I know how it feels.”

That was all Daniil said, and it took Pierre a few more seconds to understand before his eyes went wide and he sat up properly to throw his arms around the Russian man. Another couple of seconds, and Daniil returned the hug, squeezing the younger man against him as Pierre started crying profusely. He was exhausted, upset, angry, he couldn’t keep all that inside, and Daniil really was the one who would understand him the best.

#f1quarantine #f1 #f1 fics #pierre gasly #daniil kvyat #sad :( #also on ao3 #flo writes fics

[astrojmonaf1]

This isn't the F1 we love

History in the making, Unfair Rulings, and Big Disappointments

Formula One is a sport that many define as the closest thing to riding a rocket into outer space because of the downforce generated inside the 800 kg car which is more than the weight of the vehicle itself.

Every time the drivers get behind the wheel, they defy gravity which is very much compared to being inside a Space Shuttle and a modern F1 car can pull more G’s than a Space Shuttle launch. Think about that one for a minute.

This week, Falcon Heavy carried an extraordinary payload, a rocket full of satellites and between them a Solar Sail is known as LightSail 2 the size of a loaf of bread which is the second spacecraft of it's kind with nothing, not one engine but the energy of photons to propel it in orbit and promote space exploration.

Then, NASA on June 27th announced that we are going back to Saturn’s biggest Moon, Titan, to send a helicopter drone named “Dragonfly,” to uncover the fundamental blocks that gave way life to our planet.

That race is no easy feat.

The last time NASA accomplished this was during the Cassini-Huygens Mission, and until this day it remains the farthest aircraft to ever land in the outer Solar System.

Just like Cassini and Huygens, Formula One has a lot of things in common.

A lot of preparation and teams of two, but sometimes not both make it till the end.

This week we saw the youngest podium ever to win in Formula One history at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Amidst back grid positions, penalties for impending drivers and a theatrical ending, and why yes— even a fake document from a pesky fan, because you have to have it all in Formula One, FIA could not taken long to call on their investigation for this year’s winner.

Max Verstappen wheeled banged himself into Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on lap 69 which cost the Monégasque his first win.

The Dutchman had earlier overtaken on Bottas from Mercedes right after saying his hybrid engine was losing power and as if a miracle, recovered.

The Finnish and teammate to Lewis Hamilton for Mercedes was having overheating issues, but kept the pace with the 21-year-old, said “made the most out of it. It was a bit more difficult than we expected, especially with the overheating of the engine, so couldn’t race properly – had to manage all.”

The FIA Regulations clearly state:

Article 27.4. : "At no time may a car be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically, or in a manner which could be deemed potentially dangerous to another driver or any other person.”

It almost seems as if they were quick enough to deliver a penalty against Sebastian Vettel who had nowhere to go when Lewis Hamilton kicked him out of track in Canada, and it showed.

“I had nowhere to go,” Vettel said, to Lewis Hamilton when he was broadcasted through by Sky Sports after the race was over, “Seriously, I had nowhere to go.”

Sebastian Vettel, superpositioned the FINISH order of the signs once he caught up to the two drivers, Leclerc, and Hamilton in Canada.

Yes, stewards, you can fool yourselves but not a man behind the wheel!

The rules stand clear on this one.

And although this year's rules were changed to allow overtaking to increase by 50%, that oversight by the judges caused Vettel the race by 5 seconds which subsequently handed Hamilton first place.

That same discrepancy and too much power in the stewards allowed the Monégasque to lose the track not because he could not win it but because of incompetence from the governing body.

A dramatic end indeed which translates it to another week in Formula One, even if Verstappen was able to break the 1-2 Mercedes partnership, FIA, you had one job, just one, and you messed it up.

What does that mean for the greatest single seat racing sport in the world? The biggest stage in racing that is? It means that even if Honda Racing waited nearly 13 years, for their big break by Verstappen, and Congratulations— for it must feel excellent that you got something handed to you unfairly well, the real winners here are the Fédération.

It means there is a big problem going on with Formula One.

Their penalty process or lack thereof has become a substantiated mess.

FIA forwent their own rulebook when it comes to the violations but happily look away when it pleases their judges.

No wonder why fans have taken it upon themselves into forging fake documents.

They no longer have the ability to trust the governing body, there is no credibility left in the sport after they have blatantly showed to favor certain teams, especially after changing the rulebook to appease them.

Whatever credibility the fans used to have in this organization there is none left, and can you blame them?

The whole system is wrong. Do they know how it works? It is their system after all, but it is broken, and it needs a complete overhaul.

Two hundred and three thousand attendees turned up today in Spielberg, Austria, to celebrate the legend, Niki Lauda, where they saw a Turn named after him. Were he still with us today would he be proud?

This is a massive sport, with millions of fans visiting the circuits and audiences tuning in tandem online and through cable TV, cheering for their favorite teams, from Ferrari to McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes to name a few of the top favorites.

There are currently 20 male drivers in the series.

It isn't an easy feat to get licensed for Formula One; many think that the name helps, that it may be a ticket to get into Ferrari Driver Academy, but that is not true. You have to have talent.

And this year's alumni prove it; it isn't like any other group of drivers in the history of the Federation.

Without a shadow of a doubt, they are the youngest group Formula One has ever put behind the wheel and inside a helmet.

We saw Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, and Lando Norris set some impressive records in Austria this week.

The young British driver from McLaren was poking fun early about keeping the Aussie on check from DRS.

It was a beautiful thing when he was radio’d. ”Like, Forever?” he replied to his team.

Ferrari driver, Charles Leclerc, 21, winning pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix on Saturday, while Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton 5 time World Champion, was given a three-place grid penalty which forced start him in the fifth position on the grid for impending Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen.

He went as far as saying “We’ve been chipping away at it, but right from the get-go we noticed a bit of a deficit to the Ferraris,” Hamilton said.

“We definitely underestimated how fast they would be, I would say, and I think ultimately on the straights.”

“They really kill us on the straights.” because the Monégasque was leaving him in the dust by a margin.

Raikkonen gave a middle finger at the five-time world champion as Lewis overtook him. About the incident he said, "He blocked me, simple as that," Raikkonen said.

It is known that Hamilton can get tricky on those laps and get off the hook with penalties, FIA notwithstanding has looked the other way and handed them to other drivers like Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari's teammate to Charles Leclerc, who after the Canadian Grand Prix was given a five-second penalty, which ultimately cost him the race to Lewis Hamilton.

During the Austrian Grand Prix, his luck had not changed.

The air pressure line to the engine was acting up, and the mechanics had to shield his car from view while Leclerc had to leave him behind to go on the circuit. Vettel had to stay on the vehicle for as long as he could.

“The car was obviously broken so we couldn’t fire it up and go,” he said.

“We fairly quickly made the decision to change, but it’s not so easy to take the bodywork off.”

“We done everything we could be we couldn't get it done in time." he continued.

“There's nothing you can do inside the car. It's nobodies fault, but we need to understand what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again.”

“At that time it's nobodies fault, I knew most likely that if we fixed it, there would be one run, so I tried to focus solely on that.”

“As much of a pain it is, it's good to see that the other car came through and got pole.”

“I'm happy for the team, obviously not happy for my side. We'll have a good day and a good race tomorrow.”

Following Vettel’s comments Mattia Binotto, Ferrari F1 team boss said "It is an engine problem, "We had miscombustion on one cylinder, but it's yet to be understood.” which indicates they will be taking Vettel’s engine back to Maranello, Italy ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

This is Charles Leclerc's second career pole position after qualifying in Bahrain Grand Prix back in March, but missed out due to a cylinder malfunction where he allowed Mercedes AMG F1 Team took a 1-2 victory, Hamilton-Bottas from the overtook him in his last ten laps.

The Monégasque, who was repeatedly proving his driving credentials with speed, in Spielberg, started his driving career, karting at a very young age.

This time, however, was a different story, qualifying to leave the Mercedes in the dust by a margin, with Max Verstappen from Red Bull right behind him following his karting days from 2012.

This time seems as if “Chal Lelerc,“ as he joked on Twitter earlier in the day to the @F1 page when they @ mentioned him “Lelerc“ on a Tweet, was testing a rocket, because he broke the circuits record by 1.03.003 mins in which he evidently pushed himself to the limit, broken the year prior by Alfa Romeo's Kimi Räikkönnen by 1:06.957 mins.

“The car felt amazing actually,” said Leclerc during the FIA conference. “In FP1 I struggled a little bit, but then we did some changes, and from FP2 it was quite good and a big pleasure to drive this car on the limit. It just felt great, and I'm very happy to bring the pole position back home - but tomorrow we need to finish the job.”

Not in vain, he calls this his favorite circuit since in 2017 he won his first cup while he raced for Prema Racing in F2. It's safe to assume that after this loss and the stewards unfairly ruling he will continue to push to get that #1 Championship Title he deserves.

No offense to the winner, Max Verstappen but that ruling was uncalled and the stewards got it wrong.

FIA did give an opening for Ferrari to appeal but Mattia Binotto, Ferrari's Team Boss rejected it “to support the sport.”

“What's Ferrari's opinion and position - we still believe this is a wrong decision, that's our own opinion, we believe that Charles left the entire space, he had no fault, a collision has happened, and he has been pushed and forced off the track,” Binotto continued

“We believe these are clear rules, which we may appreciate or not, and these are exactly the same rules which have been applied in past races.”

“Having said that, we respect fully the decision of the stewards, they are the judge and we need to recognize that, and more than that I think that as a Ferrari fan - and I'm an ultimate Ferrari fan - I think it's time for F1 to turn the page and to look ahead.”

“As we often said, we should leave the drivers free to battle, so we may not be happy of the decision, we are not supporting the decision, but somehow we understand the fact that we need to move forward, and overall I think that's good for the sport and good for F1.”

Binotto may be looking to move forward from this one, but the fans won’t and if by 2021, FIA has not devolved from how their rulebook has immiserated fans worldwide, then, RIP Formula One.

Verstappen won the Austrian Grand Prix by 2.724 seconds, leading Charles Leclerc in Second Place, and Valteri Bottas in Third.

Congratulations on your big win.

By: Jennyffer McCulley June 30th, 2019

📸 : Reuters / Getty / AFP

#charles leclerc #scuderia ferrari #charles 16 #essere ferrari #max verstappen #Honda racing #red bull racing #red bull #leclerc #verstappen #Austrian GP 2019 #Austrian GP #motorsport #prema racing #fia formula 2 #fia formula 1 #karting #f1 history #formula one #Michael schumacher #niki lauda #sebastian vettel #kimi raikkonen #lewis hamilton #valteri bottas #lando norris #FIA #seb5 #Mercedes #mclaren

[meaningofmotorsport]

IndyCar Doubleheader at Texas Review

Genesys 300

Texas in the past has been the scene of some great races, with the high banks promoting close, fast racing, however with the new banking, and significantly the addition of the PJ1 compound, which has permanently scarred the track, the racing has gone downhill! This was evident in the first race of the weekend more than the second, as Dixon dominated and stormed to victory!

After the beatdown he had last year, to start his run of wins, the feeling was that CGR was the favourite here again, and they proved the theories correct! Early on Dixon passed his younger teammate, who himself drove very well given his inexperience on ovals to secure a top 4, to win the race, and Dixon’s only really issue was with traffic, which he managed pretty well! With the lead he has in the championship, as well as the strength of the team around him, it is going to be tough for anyone to beat him! Kanaan’s ability to climb up from the back to 11th, further illustrates the pace the entire organisation has!

Equally as impressive was McLaughlin, in his first ever oval race, finishing second, and although he was helped by strategy, he was not a moving chicane by any means, and was even putting pressure on Dixon. As the year goes on, the Supercars champion could be a contender for wins! Newgarden was also fast today, but an unfortunate collision with Bourdais gave him a penalty, from where he could only fight back to 6th. Whilst you can’t blame Josef much, given how slow Herta was going ahead of him, it is fair to penalise him, when you consider how much it ruined Sebastien’s day, as he was running well!

O’Ward was fast all day, yet was unable to challenge Dixon up front, the pace is clear from the car though, and better was to come in the second race! Rahal and Harvey as we have seen for most of this year, had two quick cars, which almost came to blows late on! It was robust defending by Jack, but he did move first, and gave Rahal some space, so I don’t think a penalty was needed! Rossi, Pagenaud, and Power had average days, collecting some points, hoping for better in the future!

This year has had so much promise for Herta, and the car clearly has pace, yet he was to lose out again, this time due to a wheel bearing failure, which caused the rear right to catch on fire. The only solace this time, is that he wasn’t that near the front when it happened, so whilst some points were lost, it wasn’t tonnes! That being said, the gap to Dixon and Newgarden is already getting very large for him and other drivers, such as Rossi, who need to turn their year around soon!

Xpel 375

Sunday did not produce a turnaround for Rossi, has his poor season so far left him right in the danger zone on the start. As Dixon left it very late to go, it caught out those nearer the back, and took out almost a third of the field! The blame can’t be placed solely on one person, you can see the drivers in front of Fittipaldi went and then slowed down, so he had nowhere to go! The cost for the smaller teams, some of whom lost both cars, could be huge as we move to Indy, and then we need to talk about Rossi’s luck, which has carried on from 2020, he needs a miracle to save his season!

With the field reduced, and some of the exciting drivers out, along with a longer race, the fear was of a worse race than on Saturday, yet that wasn’t to be, as a variety of fast cars, combined with fuel strategy, gave us at least a somewhat interesting end to the weekend!

In the engine department, Chevrolet may not have the power outright, however their fuel consumption is brilliant, and helped them to come on strong in the closing laps. This meant that Arrow McLaren SP, and O’Ward, were finally able to make the most of the pace they have had for a year now, and grab their first win, which was utterly deserving! I think he and Rahal had equal fastest cars, so you can’t say Pato was gifted it, as with the moves he made around the outside of drivers, he was a thrill to watch throughout the race! Incredibly that was the first non-Penske Chevrolet win since 2016, and I believe he and Newgarden are the biggest threats to CGR for this year!

Newgarden made up for his mistakes in the first race, coming home P2, admittedly helped by fuel mileage! He was running around P5, and on pace would have likely finished there, but Penske always make the most of the chances they have! Rahal and Dixon were solid again, stumped by fuel, yet consistent, and looking very good as we look towards the end of May!

Herta managed to finish the race, however the Andretti’s didn’t have the outright pace to challenge for the win at any point in the weekend. Can the team get their season on track for the biggest race of the year? Pagenaud and McLaughlin finished well, the former will still be under pressure until he is able to sign on the dotted line to extend his time with Penske, whereas the latter must be loving life currently, as he settles into his new home!

Power and Ericsson did not finish as well as their teammates had, or compared to the pace they had shown at other points in the weekend. Ed Carpenter Racing had a rather anonymous weekend, which is suppose is better than other teams, yet can’t be pleasing for a team who has won races in the past! What is even more concerning is Dale Coyne’s oval programme, which does not look to be up to scratch whatsoever, at least Grosjean can bring home points on road and street courses!

Andretti Technologies had a second issue with a wheel bearing this weekend, as Harvey retired mid race, and uses Andretti parts on his car! This must be concerning going to Indy, although I am sure they will have it fixed, at the latest by the end of practice for the 500!

As I said at the start, two races at Texas, in its current configuration, was not the smartest move, however it was driven more by politics I believe, than the racing product! Given the difficulties with the track, I don’t think we got away from it too badly. We are now into the Month of May, with the Indy GP coming next, which to be honest could be hit or miss, going off of last year!

-M

#motorsport #indycar #texasgp #xpel375 #genesys300

[katjabaader]

Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Prepares to Defend Le Mans 24 Hours Title

• All four Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GTs to compete at 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours • In 2016 Ford took 1st (#68), 3rd (#69), 4th (#66), and 9th (#67) positions in the Le Mans 24 Hours GTE Pro class, 50 years after a 1-2-3 finish for the Ford GT40 in the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours. • 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Dan Gurney (US) and AJ Foyt (US) taking the second win of what would become a four-year winning streak for Ford at Le Mans

DEARBORN, MI, June 7, 2017 – In 2016 Ford had a new car, a new team and a new challenge: to win at Le Mans 50 years after taking a 1-2-3 victory at the 1966 Le Mans race.

The team delivered an historic victory and since then has become even stronger, winning races all over the world, competing in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

In just 10 days time, the four Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GTs will line up at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the start of the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours and the defence of last year’s victory for the #68 Ford GT.

“The Ford GT represents the very best of Ford and our drive for excellence in all that we do,” said Bill Ford, executive chairman, Ford Motor Company. “To come to Le Mans last year and win the GTE Pro Class was a huge source of pride for all our employees globally. It shows how, when you pull together, you can achieve remarkable things. We are excited to return to Le Mans to defend our title.”

The 2017 race also marks an important anniversary: 50 years since Dan Gurney (US) and AJ Foyt (US) won Le Mans, driving a Ford GT40. This, the second win in a run of four, cemented Ford’s dominance of the world’s biggest sports car race.

“Last year we returned Ford to the world of GT endurance racing, and winning at Le Mans was a very proud moment for Ford, our partners, and all of our fans,” said Raj Nair, executive vice president, and president, North America, Ford Motor Company. “We defend our title this year knowing that to win the Le Mans 24 Hours you have to have incredible commitment. I know our Ford Performance team is ready to take on the challenge and we can’t wait to compete again at this incredible event.”

“Everyone from all four of our car crews are looking forward to being back at Le Mans to defend last year’s win,” said team owner, Chip Ganassi. “It is always nice to compete when you know that you have four quality chances to win an historic event like the Le Mans 24 Hours. We had a fantastic 2016 with the Ford GT and we look to make 2017 even better.”

“It’s clear after the test with the 2017 Balance of Performance (performance restrictions designed to deliver close racing) that we have a lot of work to do before the race,” said Dave Pericak, Ford Performance global director. “Last year was a historic victory and the racing was as close as ever. We can only hope that the racing this year, with new cars from the competition, is as well balanced and will produce the same competitive racing that the fans are hoping for.”

Bourdais out, Kanaan in for Le Mans The only piece of the puzzle that will be missing is Le Mans born Sébastien Bourdais, who is recovering from an accident during qualifying for the Indianapolis 500. It is a blow to the team, especially as Bourdais was in the winning #68 crew in 2016, but Joey Hand (US) and Dirk Müller (GER) have INDYCAR star Tony Kanaan (BRA) to help them fight for the top prize all over again.

“For sure it won’t be the same without Seb at Le Mans,” Hand said. “But we are a strong team and we’re ready for this. I’ve been working out every day to make sure I can physically go the distance and be on my ‘A game’ throughout. Le Mans is tough mentally too, but the strong support I have from my family really helps me with that side of things. I think when your mind is right on everything else, your mind will be right on racing. We were lucky to get time on the Ford Performance simulator and I’ve done some thinking about the rules that are different at Le Mans. Mistakes aren’t an option if you’re going to win, so I want to make sure we’re all buttoned-up.”

The crew of the #69 Ford GT remains as Ryan Briscoe (AUS), Richard Westbrook (GB) and Indianapolis 500 pole sitter, Scott Dixon (NZ). They made it to the podium last year and that has given them a great preview of what success feels like at Le Mans.

“I can’t wait to go back,” Briscoe said. “Last year was such an amazing experience, being part of Ford’s historic comeback. I hope we can be up there competing for the win again. It was the experience of a lifetime to be on the podium last year. The sea of people cheering you on is an incredible sight. Le Mans is an amazing event to be part of. You have so many competitors from all over the world that compete there; lots of different nationalities and cultures but just one goal.”

The #66 Ford GT of Stefan Mücke (GER), Olivier Pla (FRA) and Billy Johnson (US) finished in fourth place last year after having to pit when penalised for a broken number panel light. Despite this, they were just one lap behind the winners at the finish and they are more motivated than ever this time around.

“That penalty cost us what could have been a very good result at Le Mans,” Mücke said. “For the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team it was a great result and it was very special for all of us to be the first people to drive the Ford GT race car at Le Mans. We didn’t get the result we wanted but that’s Le Mans. You need to have a perfectly clean race to win it. Our goal is always to win and this year we have the new World Championship so the double points at Le Mans are very important. It’s 24 hours, it’s a hard fight and you have to make it to the end without any issues. You can’t predict the Le Mans result. We saw last year with Toyota that everything can change on the last lap.”

The 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours was a tough race for the #67 Ford GT crew as the car developed a gearbox problem just before the start, which put paid to any challenge. This year Andy Priaulx (GB), Harry Tincknell (GB) and Pipo Derani (BRA) want to be at the heart of the battle.

“We qualified fourth for the start of last year’s race and we were really happy as we had a good race strategy and our pace looked good,” Tincknell said. “Unfortunately we had a gearbox issue on the way to the grid that we had to fix in the pits, and that lost us 40 minutes. That put us out of contention so our race was a fact-finding, data-gathering mission after that. We were really fast and we learned a lot so hopefully all of that knowledge will help us this year. Le Mans is the biggest race in the world and it scores double points for the World Championship so it’s super important. Our goal is to win of course, but we also need to be the top scoring WEC car.” USEFUL INFORMATION

Le Mans participations for the Ford GT drivers:

Stefan Mücke -– 10 times (2007-2016) Olivier Pla -– 9 times (2008-2016) Richard Westbrook -– 6 times (2010-2014, 2016) Dirk Müller -– 5 times (1999-2000, 2010-2011, 2016) Andy Priaulx -– 3 times (2010-2011, 2016) Harry Tincknell -– 3 times (2014-2016) Ryan Briscoe -– 3 times (2013, 2015-2016) Joey Hand –- 2 times (2011, 2016) Pipo Derani –- 2 times (2015-2016) Scott Dixon –- 1 time (2016) Billy Johnson -– 1 time (2016) Tony Kanaan – Le Mans rookie Which Ford GT is that? The Four Ford GTs will run at Le Mans in the same red, white and blue livery. In order to help the commentators and viewers differentiate between the cars they will all run brightly coloured windscreen strips, wing mirrors and an LED light strip down the middle of the windscreen using the following colours:

• #66 GREEN • #67 BLUE • #68 RED • #69 YELLOW

New for this year and especially striking at night, the wing mirrors will be coated in electroluminescent paint that will glow in each car’s unique colour, making each car easily identifiable at all times while adding almost no weight. Did you know? • When Dan Gurney decided to spray the Champagne he was given on the podium after his 1967 victory he started the tradition that continues all over the world today. • It was Bruce McLaren who told Chris Amon to “Go Like Hell!” in 1966.

Ford’s Le Mans results in the 1960s 1966 1st Bruce McLaren (NZ) / Chris Amon (NZ) 2nd Ken Miles (GB) / Denis Hulme (NZ) 3rd Ronnie Bucknum (US) / Dick Hutcherson (US)

1967 1st Dan Gurney (US) / AJ Foyt (US)

1968 1st Pedro Rodriguez (MEX) / Lucien Bianchi (BEL)

1969 1st Jacky Ickx (BEL) / Jackie Oliver (GB) 3rd David Hobbs (GB) / Mike Hailwood (GB)

from Der Kostenlose Depot-Konto Vergleich https://depotkontovergleich.wordpress.com/2017/06/07/ford-chip-ganassi-racing-prepares-to-defend-le-mans-24-hours-title/

[depotkontovergleich]

Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Prepares to Defend Le Mans 24 Hours Title

• All four Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GTs to compete at 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours • In 2016 Ford took 1st (#68), 3rd (#69), 4th (#66), and 9th (#67) positions in the Le Mans 24 Hours GTE Pro class, 50 years after a 1-2-3 finish for the Ford GT40 in the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours. • 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Dan Gurney (US) and AJ Foyt (US) taking the second win of what would become a four-year winning streak for Ford at Le Mans

DEARBORN, MI, June 7, 2017 – In 2016 Ford had a new car, a new team and a new challenge: to win at Le Mans 50 years after taking a 1-2-3 victory at the 1966 Le Mans race.

The team delivered an historic victory and since then has become even stronger, winning races all over the world, competing in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

In just 10 days time, the four Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GTs will line up at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the start of the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours and the defence of last year’s victory for the #68 Ford GT.

“The Ford GT represents the very best of Ford and our drive for excellence in all that we do,” said Bill Ford, executive chairman, Ford Motor Company. “To come to Le Mans last year and win the GTE Pro Class was a huge source of pride for all our employees globally. It shows how, when you pull together, you can achieve remarkable things. We are excited to return to Le Mans to defend our title.”

The 2017 race also marks an important anniversary: 50 years since Dan Gurney (US) and AJ Foyt (US) won Le Mans, driving a Ford GT40. This, the second win in a run of four, cemented Ford’s dominance of the world’s biggest sports car race.

“Last year we returned Ford to the world of GT endurance racing, and winning at Le Mans was a very proud moment for Ford, our partners, and all of our fans,” said Raj Nair, executive vice president, and president, North America, Ford Motor Company. “We defend our title this year knowing that to win the Le Mans 24 Hours you have to have incredible commitment. I know our Ford Performance team is ready to take on the challenge and we can’t wait to compete again at this incredible event.”

“Everyone from all four of our car crews are looking forward to being back at Le Mans to defend last year’s win,” said team owner, Chip Ganassi. “It is always nice to compete when you know that you have four quality chances to win an historic event like the Le Mans 24 Hours. We had a fantastic 2016 with the Ford GT and we look to make 2017 even better.”

“It’s clear after the test with the 2017 Balance of Performance (performance restrictions designed to deliver close racing) that we have a lot of work to do before the race,” said Dave Pericak, Ford Performance global director. “Last year was a historic victory and the racing was as close as ever. We can only hope that the racing this year, with new cars from the competition, is as well balanced and will produce the same competitive racing that the fans are hoping for.”

Bourdais out, Kanaan in for Le Mans The only piece of the puzzle that will be missing is Le Mans born Sébastien Bourdais, who is recovering from an accident during qualifying for the Indianapolis 500. It is a blow to the team, especially as Bourdais was in the winning #68 crew in 2016, but Joey Hand (US) and Dirk Müller (GER) have INDYCAR star Tony Kanaan (BRA) to help them fight for the top prize all over again.

“For sure it won’t be the same without Seb at Le Mans,” Hand said. “But we are a strong team and we’re ready for this. I’ve been working out every day to make sure I can physically go the distance and be on my ‘A game’ throughout. Le Mans is tough mentally too, but the strong support I have from my family really helps me with that side of things. I think when your mind is right on everything else, your mind will be right on racing. We were lucky to get time on the Ford Performance simulator and I’ve done some thinking about the rules that are different at Le Mans. Mistakes aren’t an option if you’re going to win, so I want to make sure we’re all buttoned-up.”

The crew of the #69 Ford GT remains as Ryan Briscoe (AUS), Richard Westbrook (GB) and Indianapolis 500 pole sitter, Scott Dixon (NZ). They made it to the podium last year and that has given them a great preview of what success feels like at Le Mans.

“I can’t wait to go back,” Briscoe said. “Last year was such an amazing experience, being part of Ford’s historic comeback. I hope we can be up there competing for the win again. It was the experience of a lifetime to be on the podium last year. The sea of people cheering you on is an incredible sight. Le Mans is an amazing event to be part of. You have so many competitors from all over the world that compete there; lots of different nationalities and cultures but just one goal.”

The #66 Ford GT of Stefan Mücke (GER), Olivier Pla (FRA) and Billy Johnson (US) finished in fourth place last year after having to pit when penalised for a broken number panel light. Despite this, they were just one lap behind the winners at the finish and they are more motivated than ever this time around.

“That penalty cost us what could have been a very good result at Le Mans,” Mücke said. “For the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team it was a great result and it was very special for all of us to be the first people to drive the Ford GT race car at Le Mans. We didn’t get the result we wanted but that’s Le Mans. You need to have a perfectly clean race to win it. Our goal is always to win and this year we have the new World Championship so the double points at Le Mans are very important. It’s 24 hours, it’s a hard fight and you have to make it to the end without any issues. You can’t predict the Le Mans result. We saw last year with Toyota that everything can change on the last lap.”

The 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours was a tough race for the #67 Ford GT crew as the car developed a gearbox problem just before the start, which put paid to any challenge. This year Andy Priaulx (GB), Harry Tincknell (GB) and Pipo Derani (BRA) want to be at the heart of the battle.

“We qualified fourth for the start of last year’s race and we were really happy as we had a good race strategy and our pace looked good,” Tincknell said. “Unfortunately we had a gearbox issue on the way to the grid that we had to fix in the pits, and that lost us 40 minutes. That put us out of contention so our race was a fact-finding, data-gathering mission after that. We were really fast and we learned a lot so hopefully all of that knowledge will help us this year. Le Mans is the biggest race in the world and it scores double points for the World Championship so it’s super important. Our goal is to win of course, but we also need to be the top scoring WEC car.” USEFUL INFORMATION

Le Mans participations for the Ford GT drivers:

Stefan Mücke -– 10 times (2007-2016) Olivier Pla -– 9 times (2008-2016) Richard Westbrook -– 6 times (2010-2014, 2016) Dirk Müller -– 5 times (1999-2000, 2010-2011, 2016) Andy Priaulx -– 3 times (2010-2011, 2016) Harry Tincknell -– 3 times (2014-2016) Ryan Briscoe -– 3 times (2013, 2015-2016) Joey Hand –- 2 times (2011, 2016) Pipo Derani –- 2 times (2015-2016) Scott Dixon –- 1 time (2016) Billy Johnson -– 1 time (2016) Tony Kanaan – Le Mans rookie Which Ford GT is that? The Four Ford GTs will run at Le Mans in the same red, white and blue livery. In order to help the commentators and viewers differentiate between the cars they will all run brightly coloured windscreen strips, wing mirrors and an LED light strip down the middle of the windscreen using the following colours:

• #66 GREEN • #67 BLUE • #68 RED • #69 YELLOW

New for this year and especially striking at night, the wing mirrors will be coated in electroluminescent paint that will glow in each car’s unique colour, making each car easily identifiable at all times while adding almost no weight. Did you know? • When Dan Gurney decided to spray the Champagne he was given on the podium after his 1967 victory he started the tradition that continues all over the world today. • It was Bruce McLaren who told Chris Amon to “Go Like Hell!” in 1966.

Ford’s Le Mans results in the 1960s 1966 1st Bruce McLaren (NZ) / Chris Amon (NZ) 2nd Ken Miles (GB) / Denis Hulme (NZ) 3rd Ronnie Bucknum (US) / Dick Hutcherson (US)

1967 1st Dan Gurney (US) / AJ Foyt (US)

1968 1st Pedro Rodriguez (MEX) / Lucien Bianchi (BEL)

1969 1st Jacky Ickx (BEL) / Jackie Oliver (GB) 3rd David Hobbs (GB) / Mike Hailwood (GB)

[inchidentally]

Just had a random thought.

I know a lot can happen in this sport but I was thinking about how as Lando and Oscar are very talented and more or less the same age they could be part of the grid potentially for more than a decade (this expecting not damaging injuries, a dramatic loss of performance level, or a lack of motivation to carry on)

Which means we could see their relationship going through a lot of different scenarios: rival teams, battles on track without the 'teammate respect', maybe even teaming up again after some time in different teams, one fighting for victories and the other for points...

Can you see them being close while being in different teams or do you think the base of their relationship is just being teammates and they will only hang out occasionally in Grand Prix weekends and that's it?

I personally think their bond is a work in progress and if they separated ways right now they would just get along and be nice to each other, but the more years they spend together at McLaren, the stronger their relationship will be.

this is such a good ask that I feel bad not having more to add to it bc I honestly agree with you on a lot of it!

I think the biggest thing that a lot of us are picking up on with Oscar and Lando is that they deliberately chose to not go the whole bromance angle… but that they also genuinely like each other so it was never due to coldness or being stand-offish. at first I think a lot of us assumed Oscar was just super nervous and that Lando was picking up a lot of the slack in terms of media work. folks who knew more about Oscar from F2 and F3 had more of a leg up bc they knew a lot more about Oscar's genuine personality.

it became clear sometime around spring? that Oscar's eyes tracking Lando and the soft smile on his face was genuinely that he Thinks Lando is Neat and Wants to be Around Him. I think that's also when it was clear that we were seeing overall a different Lando who was a little quieter and a lot more chill. Lando has no poker face to speak of and so it all suddenly made sense for me that not only were they not awkward around each other but they had just formed a super chill and comfortable friendship. do I think that as of winter break they've formed a friendship that transcends F1? truly I don't think they had the time for that and it's why I'm like you and so glad they've got two more years for sure. 2023 was such a boring season EXCEPT for McLaren so I feel like what Lando and Oscar developed very strongly was a bond of pushing each other (in a healthy way, as Oscar said) and sticking together no matter what. and it worked! the parallel of them accidentally coming together in Monza in the pit lane but then driving back to the pits together in Qatar and Japan is like. F1 teammate poetry.

I've said before that I feel like Oscar is a really natural fit for Lando's Quadrant/gaming friendships. I know we tease the hell out of Oscar for his fanboying over Lando before the McLaren seat (like, YEARS before lol) but I for real think it's bc he saw someone he would want to be friends with. not so much that they're similar but because Lando's humor and confidence and lack of filter is something Oscar clearly likes and he openly respects how Lando has dealt with his career and his ambition.

and Lando's said as much about what Oscar has brought to him as a teammate, that Oscar's calm and focus has been good for him and Oscar's talent has pushed Lando to a banner year for him. which let's remember just how much success in F1 has meant to Lando his entire life… it is possibly the biggest compliment he could pay Oscar to say that he's played a role in making Lando better !! and close to that is the fact that Oscar going out of his way to play a supporting role to Lando and hold up the fact that Lando deserves respect and acknowledgement for his status and experience in F1 and McLaren has like, genuinely made Lando happy. for someone who can plunge to the kinds of depths that Lando can, seeing Oscar waiting to celebrate him after every race or knowing that Oscar stands in the crowd with the rest of the team for Lando's many podiums this season… just imagine what that means to a guy who shown so much loyalty to his team as Lando. that his new teammate is matching that level of loyalty to Lando and to McLaren in his rookie season??

idk I feel like for two guys who have given up so much to be where they are (I know they're super privileged but they also missed out on a LOT of good formative stuff and left their families early) would a bromance or common interests feel more significant than forming such a deep amount of respect for each other in just one season? it's very sweet seeing Lando meet up with Carlos and Daniel in down time during the season and I'm not taking anything away from that. but Lando is in F1 for F1 - not for bromances and he doesn't carry those F1 friendships over to his other work or his other relationships. Lando's a very very serious guy under all his fun and jokey sides and even when reporters push the bromances angle he's quick to remind them that he's there to race and on track those buddies disappear into mere obstacles to him winning.

tl;dr I feel like we're going to learn a lot about Lando and Oscar's relationship in the next season but for me I'm spending so much of my time still bursting at the seams for how quiet and sweet and significant things have been for them this past season that I'm not even going to worry too much about what the future brings!

#inchreplies #landoscar lore