Verstappen, Bottas, Leclerc Among Others Pay Tribute to Late Niki Lauda

Published 05/21/2019, 4:07 AM EDT

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Tragedy struck the motor racing world when Formula One legend Niki Lauda passed away earlier today. The Austrian had been battling with illness for a fairly long time and he even had surgery performed. However, the 3-time World Champion, Niki Lauda, lost his battle with life and died at the age of 70.

Niki Lauda was also very wise and often had several quotes about life and motor racing. One of those was about the time he left Formula One and later returned. He said, “I was not interested at all in Formula One when I left; I was very busy with my airline. But slowly I started missing the adrenaline rush and the driving of such fantastic cars at the limit. In reality this urge never disappears when you’re a top driver, because I think we’re a different breed of people, we need to take chances, we need to push ourselves to the limit all the time, that sort of thing. It stays with you, although you can kill it by losing motivation or other things in your life, but it never leaves you forever.”

When Niki Lauda died, he left behind a fantastic legacy and a family of two sons with his first wife Marlene Knaus, a son and a daughter from his current wife Birgit Wetzinger, and a son from an extra-marital affair.

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Niki Lauda is best known for coming back from a horrific crash at the original Nurburgring circuit, known as the Nordschleife. He was also known for his rivalry with late British driver, James Hunt. In fact, their rivalry was immortalised on the big screen in an F1 movie called Rush.

Earlier this year, Niki Lauda underwent a successful lung transplant and looked like he was recovering well. Sadly, more complications arose recently and this time, he could not fight back. A number of racing personalities took to Twitter to pay tribute to the Austrian legend, all led by the Mercedes F1 team.

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Written by:

Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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