Niki Lauda

He married Marlene Knaus in 1976 but the couple divorced in 1991. Their two sons are Mathias, a racing driver and Lukas who became manager of Mathias.

He has a son Christoph out of an extra-marital affair.

In 2008 he married his second wife Birgit Wetzinger, who was a flight attendant in his airline. He is thirty years older than Birgit who bore him twin children, a boy, Max and a girl, Mia in September 2009. When his transplanted kidney from his brother failed, Birgit donated her own to Lauda.

He was born on February 22, 1949, in Vienna in the family of wealthy industrialists having a chain of paper factories. He was the grandson of businessman Hans Lauda.

He could not display much potential at school and though his parents wanted him pursue business, he was determined to become a racing driver.

He manufactured a false school diploma to show his parents and convinced them to shell out money and bought his car, a VW. His very first day out with the car saw him crashing a Mini Cooper resulting in swapping his car with the wreck along with a burden of a debt of £1750.

He later swapped the wreck after necessary repairs with the 1300cc Mini Cooper S of Fritz Baumgartner, a local racing driver and was left with a debt of £650.

On April 15, 1968, his journey as a racing driver began when he participated in a motor race excelling the hills at Mühlbacken. He secured third position in the first heat and emerged first in the second heat, completing the race with an overall second position.

Though his family disapproved his choice of a racing career, his determination was unstoppable and that saw him taking twelve more starts in 1968 - three in the Cooper and the other nine in a Porsche 911.

He received a factory ride in the ‘Formula Vee’ team of ‘Austro-Kaimann’ in 1969 and participated in thirteen ‘Formula V’ races securing two wins.

He participated for Francis McNamara in ‘Formula 3’ race in 1970. With his Porsche 908, he achieved victory at the ‘Martha Grand National’ race held at Österreichring and also at the Diepholz airfield race.

In order to obtain a contract as a ‘Formula Two’ driver with the emerging ‘March’ team in 1971, Lauda took a bank loan of £30,000 against a life insurance policy. His relation with his family over his career became strained and distant with time.