Five years ago today, Formula 1 and the motorsport family at large mourned the loss of the great Niki Lauda.
The F1 legend, three-time world champion and Mercedes non-executive chairman had passed away peacefully at a private clinic in Switzerland at the age of 70 after losing his battle to fully recover from a lung transplant undergone during the previous summer.
Niki - whose lone red star still adorns the bodywork of Mercedes' cars - is still sorely missed by the Brackley squad and by team boss Toto Wolff in particular, especially during its present challenging times.
"Niki’s missed all those years because Niki always simplified things to really what mattered," Wolff said recently.
"I’m having to think what would he have said, and how would he have positioned [things], and the two of us worked well together in that sense that sometimes oversimplification can lead you straight to the results."
