Rush to Glory: FORMULA 1 Racing's Greatest Rivalry by Tom Rubython

Lauda’s 1975 championship win and was entirely responsible for the team’s renaissance after years in the Formula One wilderness.
    But Montezemolo was a talented young man in a very big hurry. Running the Ferrari Formula One team, as glamorous as it was, was a small job, and he was eager to move on to bigger things. Lauda had total respect for Montezemolo and pleaded with him not to leave. But the ambitious Italian saw Formula One as a backwater and had higher ambitions within the top management at Fiat Group, which owned Ferrari. As soon as he could, he quietly left after appointing a new team manager, Daniele Audetto. But Audetto was a very strange choice and seemed to have been decided upon more by Montezemolo’s personal friendship with him than by his ability to do the job.
    Audetto, who had a rally background, had previously managed some of Fiat’s motor sporting activities. Montezemolo was a close friend, and they had driven rally cars together in their youth. Their driving careers ended when Audetto was seriously injured in an accident that also prompted Montezemolo to retire from the sport. After Audetto recovered from the accident, he graduated from Bocconi University, and Montezemolo helped him get a job at Fiat.
    Lauda had approved the appointment of Audetto on Montezemolo’s advice, but it soon became apparent that although the 33-year-old Audetto was four years older than Montezemolo, he was too young and inexperienced and seemed immediately out of his depth. Audetto grated on Lauda straightaway, and Lauda described him to a friend as a “fraught personality.”
    The problems did not really start, however, until they got to Brazil. Lauda said later that Audetto’s personality changed before his eyes. As he perfectly described: “Slowly he realized, mostly through the Italian press, who treated him with great respect, what an unbelievably important job it is to be racing team leader for Ferrari; he was quite overcome by his own importance.”
    In São Paulo the invitations flooded in from Brazil’s great and good. Audetto loved socializing and wanted to go out every night and take Lauda, whom he saw as his employee, with him. Audetto treated Lauda as a trophy, and the driver thought this was ridiculous. Lauda resisted the invitations and flattery, and soon a split appeared.
    After that, the relationship deteriorated rapidly as Audetto discovered what a difficult job he had taken on. There were additional complications.
    Montezemolo’s departure had left a power vacuum in the team, into which stepped a newly energized Enzo Ferrari. It was not something Audetto had anticipated, nor was it something he was equipped to handle. Audetto likened the job to being a referee trying to keep order among Ferrari’s feuding factions, all of whom came out to play once Montezemolo was gone.
    The result was typical Italian chaos where order had previously reigned. As Lauda observed ruefully, “The loss of Luca is a great blow to me.”
    It also seemed clear that Audetto preferred Ferrari’s number two, the Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni, to Lauda. Whereas Lauda was dismissive of Audetto and what he believed were his pompous airs and graces, Regazzoni played up to him. The 37-year-old Regazzoni secretly harbored grudges against the younger Lauda that dated back to 1973, when they had driven together in the BRM team. When they both moved to Ferrari in 1974, Regazzoni had been number one driver, but he had been completely outdriven by Lauda in 1975 and was relegated to number two status. It rankled, and when Audetto arrived, the older man saw it as his chance to push Lauda aside.
    Regazzoni assiduously went about the task of undermining Lauda. Lauda believed that he pandered to Audetto’s vanity. As Lauda recalled, “Audetto was naturally closer to Regazzoni than he was to me, partly because they spoke the same language but also because of Clay’s more enthusiastic social life.”
    During the weekend, Lauda coped with