John Watson on Niki Lauda: My Greatest Rival
Team-mates at Brabham and McLaren, this was a psychological squaring up with the Austrian sure he was number one. But results swung the pecking order
Whilst Lauda usually had the upper hand, he was forced to support Watson in '82 title challenge
DPPI
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
My rivalry with Niki at Brabham in 1978 and McLaren in 1982 to ’83 was not so much about the racing, more how adroit he was within the team, his ability to swing the lead in his favour. I always knew I was as fast as him, and more creative as a racer, but he was very good at getting people around him. I believed the sport was about two guys going toe to toe, the quickest being number one, but Formula 1 is far more complex than that, and Niki was there to race for himself. He brought Parmalat money to Brabham, he was twice a world champion, and that gave him leverage in the team.
He was clever in the way he went about his business – races are often won before the cars get to the grid. At Monaco in ’78 I qualified second, using three sets of tyres, but Niki had used four and was held up by traffic on his last run, so Bernie told the guys to put my fourth set on Niki’s car. He qualified third and finished second so the dynamic in the team had changed.
I liked Niki; he was good company, we got on well, so what happened at Paul Ricard in July came as a shock. I was on pole, Niki third, and Bernie asked me, if I was leading on the last lap would I move over for Niki?
