Niki Lauda badly hurt

Press, 3 August 1976, Page 36

Niki Lauda badly hurt

NZ PA-Reuter Mannheim Niki Lauda, the world motorracing champion, was fighting for his life in a hospital yesterday after his Ferrari crashed and burned during the West German Grand Prix.

Professor Klaus Peter, head of the intensive care unit to which the 27-year-Old Austrian was taken after yesterday’s crash, said late last night' that Lauda’s condition was “extremely critical.” “Because the mucous membranes and lungs are damaged he has difficulty in breathing,” the professor said.

In addition to internal damage, Lauda sustained severe bums, a broken cheekbone and fractured ribs. The crash occurred when Lauda was on his second lap of the notoriously difficult Neurburgring track. Officials of the Ferrari team said his car lost a rear wheel at high speed. The car ripped through trackside safety fences, rolled back across the track and caught fire.

An American driver, Brett Lunger, in a Surtees and a West Gennan, Harald Ertl, in a Hesketh, had no chance of avoiding Lauda and smashed into the Ferrari.

Both jumped out of their cars and joined the British driver, Guy Edwards and the Italian. Arturo Merzario, in helping to fight the flames and pull the champion from his blazing car. Edwards said “we were trying like hell to get Niki out but we couldn’t get the seat belts undone and the fire was getting hotter and hotter.”

He said Ertl managed to get a fire extinguisher and played the foam on the flames while the other three drivers struggled frantically to extricate Lauda. “Niki was conscious after about 10 seconds and be was screaming 'get me out’,” Edwards said. The British driver said Lauda “was sitting in a sea of flames. It took us nearly

one minute to get him out of there but it seemed like a lifetime. The heat was simply tremendous.” The accident was expected to deal the final blow to at. tempts to keep grand prix racing at the Nuerburgring A number of grand prix drivers. led bv Lauda, have cam. paigned against the track he. ing used for Formula One racing. The race was restarted after the accident and James Hunt, of Britain proved an easy winner in his McLaren.

The mishap appeared to put paid to Lauda’s hopes of being the first driver since Jack Brabham of Australia, in 1960 to win two successive world championships, Lauda had 58 points before the race yesterday and Hunt is now second with 44 Jody Schekter (South Africa) was second in a sixwheeled Tyrrel and Jochen Mass, of ’ West Germany, third in a McLaren.