DVD Review: Lauda – The Untold Story

I regret not having previously watched the 2014 documentary film “Lauda – The Untold Story” until after Niki Lauda’s recent passing. I had only relied on Niki’s previous books like “To Hell & Back” and “Second Time Around” to get a better understanding of Niki’s unfortunate 1976 accident at the Nurburgring.

Directed by Hannes Michael Schalle – this film features lots of archival footage and interviews that shed more light on Niki’s accident. The film itself is divided into 5 chapters with the early chapters being more unique and interesting to F1 history fans.

The opening chapter is almost an archival documentary of the Nurburgring track and past races there as the lead up to the 1976 accident. There is super footage of the old Silver Arrows on track with  interviews of the younger and old Niki and his fellow European drivers on the grid – Jochen Mass, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Harold Ertl, etc. The chapters dealing with the accident, Niki’s hospitalisation and near death condition, the media interviews, his legendary surprise return at Imola are all quite riveting. Thrown in interviews with live players at the scene including Ferrari’s team boss at the time – Daniele Audetto, Niki’s doctors and his brother make it more compelling. Despite much of the older footage and interviews being in Austrian with English subtitles – F1 history fans will appreciate the authentic time warp.

The later chapters in the film on the safety developments in F1 is almost a direct overlap with the more recent F1 documentary 1: Life on the Limit which also features  interview commentary by Sir Jackie Stewart. The interviews with the modern drivers like Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton probably would be more suited to 1:Life on the Limit.

The real Niki Lauda story takes up only 45min of the main feature film. Although not intended to be biography, the title suggests that it might be – so its a shame it doesn’t feature more of Niki’s post-accident career at Brabham and McLaren.

The higlight of this film has got to be Niki sitting in the uncowled 312T2 chassis and doing run through the cockpit, gearshift and flat V12 engine – just awesome!