The former Austrian driver Niki Lauda, 64, is a three-time Formula One world champion and the nonexecutive chairman of the Mercedes team. He won the title in 1975 and 1977 driving for Ferrari. In 1976, he was leading the championship when he crashed at the Nürburgring in Germany and was nearly killed, suffering major facial and head burns and damaging his lungs with inhalation of toxic gases. He returned to race again six weeks later, his face still bleeding from the burns and his vision not yet fully restored. He was leading the series when he pulled out of the last race, in Japan, calling the rainy conditions too dangerous, and then watched as his rival James Hunt won the title. He raced at the Brabham team in 1978 and 1979, and then retired from racing. But in 1982, he returned, joining the McLaren team, going on to win his third title in 1984. After he retired for good in 1985, Lauda devoted himself to his own commercial airline, Lauda Air, which he sold to Austrian Airlines in 2000. He returned to Formula One, this time managing the Jaguar team in 2001 and 2002. He has acted as a race commentator on German and Austrian television since 1996, and he started another airline, Niki, in 2003. After selling the airline last year, he joined the Mercedes team as non-executive chairman. He worked with the screenwriter Peter Morgan and the director Ron Howard on “Rush,” their feature film about his life and rivalry with Hunt, which was released worldwide this autumn. He spoke with Brad Spurgeon of the International Herald Tribune at the Korean Grand Prix in Mokpo last Sunday.

Q. How did the “Rush” project come about?



A. Peter Morgan started the idea because he called me in Vienna to ask if I could help to tell him what happened in that particular season. Then Ron Howard came along, and then the actors came. I think [Daniel] Brühl [who plays Lauda] is outstanding. I met him also in Vienna when the whole project was getting serious. And on my first question to him, “What is the difficult part?” he said: “The difficult part is that you are alive, people know you from television, and to play you right is going to be tough.” I think he did an outstanding job playing me, because when I saw him there, and everyone says the same thing, they all think it’s me.

Q. You now have a problem because that is you for the world now, isn’t it?

A. Yes. And Chris Hemsworth [who plays James Hunt] is the same. Because when I saw him for the first time, I saw a picture of when he comes to this hospital scene in the beginning, and I said, “He’s like James!” Absolutely identical — the voice he has. And he has never spoken to James. So he has done a very good job, too. But Daniel, I think, had a more difficult time to study me.

Q. It was an amazing film also because unlike the Prost/Senna documentary, there is no evil person in this one, there is no bad guy. In fact, even the women seem to like Hunt in the beginning for his good looks and then you at the end for your character.