1984 Austrian Grand Prix review for Motor Sport Magazine

Matthew Lamb [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

Home advantage is an odd thing in motorsport. Nigel Mansell used to say - likely with typical melodrama - that the inspiration of his home crowd would gain him half a second per lap. Alain Prost too could barely stop winning his home round.

But there are others for who nothing it seems ever goes right in their own land. And the recently departed Niki Lauda, when he was entering his native Austrian Grand Prix in 1984, was one such. Thirteen years after making his F1 debut there, at the magnificent Osterreichring, his best home result was a distant second.

Yet that time things came right for him. It wasn't entirely straightforward, nor indeed entirely luck. Rather it owed much to Lauda's legendary cunning and racecraft - in more senses than you might think.

In my latest classic grand prix retro review for Motor Sport Magazine's website, I tell the extraordinary tale of this race. You can have a read here: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/history/f1/never-underestimate-niki-lauda-1984-austrian-f1-grand-prix

Plus you can check out my previous classic grand prix articles for Motor Sport here, here and here.