Book review: Niki Lauda The Rebel by Pierre Menard and Jacques Vassal

As we return to Zandvoort this weekend for the highly anticipated Dutch GP, it’s a reminder of the last GP won by the late great multiple world champion Niki Lauda for McLaren in his retirement year back in 1985. There have been lots of Niki Lauda books published although most are non-English and released when he was actually still driving. Most Lauda books have been narrative heavy though (which is common to most F1 books in the late 70s and early 80s), even including Niki’s own autobiographic books such as “To Hell and Back” and “Second Time Around“. There haven’t been many Lauda photobook biographies released which makes “Niki Lauda – The Rebel” by Pierre Menard and Jacques Vassal a very appealing book for both F1 and Lauda fans. Published in 2004, this book is part of the “Formula 1 Legends” series which included biographies on Senna, Prost, Moss and Fangio but was also supposed to cover other F1 champions including Schumacher, Mansell, Villeneuve, Piquet and Brabham. It is a shame the series  was never completed as all the books in this series are very good.

This book follows the same structure as the other Formula 1 Legends books – it’s essentially chronological with each chapter covering a key season including race photos, car profile drawings with technical specifications, season narration and some inset interview sections with various people who worked with Niki. Career statistic tables and career cars are summarised in the rear chapter.

The authors managed to also include interviews with Ferrari team mate Clay Regazzoni, McLaren team mate John Watson, fellow drivers Pierre Beltoise and Patrick Tambay, Michelin boss Pierre Dupasquier, Ferrari engineer Mauro Forghieri and his March team boss Max Mosley. All heavy hitters in their own right.

Niki drove some iconic cars for different teams  – the coffee table front winged March 711, Ferrari 312B3, 312T, 312T2, Brabham BT46 fan car and the McLaren MP4-2. They are all profiled in the book much to the delight of F1 history fans.

The photography is primarily from the LAT photographic archives (which are all excellent BTW), but there is the occasional personal B&W photo mainly from Niki’s younger days included, for example Niki sitting on lawnmower in his parent’s garden.

Having been published in 2004, the book obviously doesn’t cover Niki’s career with the Mercedes AMG team (it does include his brief consultancy with Jaguar) but it doesn’t really matter – if you’re after a comprehensive English photobook of Niki’s racing career, this one is highly recommended.

Wow Factor/Money shot: Maiden 1972 season Niki racing in the March

Suitable for: Lauda fans