As well as seeing him become the only Austrian to ever win their home Grand Prix, Niki Lauda’s 1984 victory in Spielberg played a pivotal role in his World Championship victory, and yet it may never have happened had he not had a self-proclaimed moment of laziness.

With his gearbox failing, Niki pulled over to the left in search of a safe place to retire his MP4/2, when a thought struck him.

“Damn it, it’s a long walk back to the pits from here,” he recalls in his autobiography ‘To Hell And Back’ (published by Stanley Paul). “Why not try coasting on a bit longer? I fiddle around with the gears, find third. It is still working. My first thought is, well, at least you can make the pits in third.”

From here, he discovers that fifth gear is also working. Maybe, just maybe, he can still finish the race and salvage a point.

“In that kind of situation, it is hard to think logically,” he continues. “You are so attuned to driving at the limit that you can’t improvise once you leave the realm of super-fast instincts and reflexes and enter a much more banal world.

“I make no conscious effort to check what possibilities are still left – I simply put my foot down in third, shift up to fourth as the revs come up, get no response, and automatically move up into fifth. Fifth is working. Keep going, I think, maybe you can finish fifth or sixth and pick up at least one championship point.”

There have been 42 Austrian Grands Prix since the race was first held in 1964, but only one of them has been won by an Austrian. Niki had never won the race prior to joining McLaren in 1982, retiring six times, failing to start once and scoring just four times, which included just one podium, in 1977.

But during his title-battle with teammate Alain Prost 40 years ago, the opportunity arose. Lauda had qualified fourth, behind Nelson Piquet, Prost, and Elio de Angelis – the Italian who had dramatically won at Zeltweg in 1982. 

Piquet led the majority of the race, with Prost in tow and Niki in third, but the Frenchman spun off shortly after the halfway marker, promoting Niki to second. In his typical style, Niki had been playing the long game and was racing conservatively, but as fuel-load depleted and the tyres required additional management, he started punching in fastest laps. And by Lap 39, he’d taken the lead from Piquet.

“There is no real danger from Piquet,” Niki recalls. “I have already seen that his rear tyres are on their last legs, so I don’t expect any more trouble from that quarter. All I have to do is bring the car home, the race is run.

“I accelerate out of Bosch Corner in fourth gear, there is a terrific bang, and I lose all power. The engine is still turning but no power is being transferred to the wheels. Differential gone.”

Lauda’s chance to finally win his home Grand Prix looked to have gone up in smoke, with his gearbox seemingly having failed him. Had he not been “too lazy to walk back”, he’d have retired his McLaren on the grass and walked back, rather than discovering that his third and fifth gears still worked.

“I stay in third until the revs are screeching, then bang in fifth. This will cut about five seconds off my lap times by comparison with a healthy gearbox. Piquet is 17 seconds behind me now, so it will take him three or four laps to catch up.”

Lauda, still leading the race, knows there’s little chance of him holding onto first. Piquet, undoubtedly, has the pace to catch up. It was a case of when Piquet would take the lead, not if. And yet, he remained in Niki’s rear-view mirror, some way back. Why?

Niki’s mind is racing. Would he do irreparable damage to his car? And why is Piquet holding back?

“I drive as well as I can without a fourth gear,” he says. “Next lap: 17 second ahead of Piquet. It flashes through my head, of course, Nelson knows the way I drive, he knows that I throttle back in the final stages and don’t give a damn how much lead I have when I cross the line. He probably thinks I’m deliberately driving more slowly, that I’m driving a tactical race, and that there is no point at all putting me under pressure because I’ll only respond immediately and put my foot down again. What is more, his rear tyres are not exactly in the best position to mount a real charge.

“It is extremely difficult to find the right moment to shift from third to fourth. The tension is unbelievable. When is Piquet going to realise that I’m not playing cat and mouse, that I’m really done for? And what if the fifth gear goes because the synchromesh rings abrade? Will bits of the damaged fourth gear get in the works and make a complete salat of the gearbox? I pray that I will make it to the finishing line. And, all the while, Nelson holds back, keeps position, thinking to himself: Niki is playing it cool.

“I can’t recall ever cluttering my mind to that degree during a race. By the end, my head was simply splitting.”

Affectionately known as 'The Rat', many had fallen foul to Niki’s guile and inventiveness. His racing brain was second to none, and Piquet had seemingly assumed that Niki was up to his usual tricks and refused to be caught out by his clever tactics, which could have jeopardised his podium position.

As so, the Austrian was allowed to focus on nursing home his ailing McLaren. Remarkably, he crossed the line in first, with a severely damaged gearbox, to win his home Grand Prix for the first time.

Niki and Piquet met on the podium, where the Brazilian was devastated to discover that Niki’s pace was not a tactic, but an issue with his car.

“Piquet and I walk up to the winner’s rostrum,” Niki recalls. “He asks how things went. Well, I say, my fourth gear was shot. I can tell by his expression how shattered he is that he let his opportunity slip.”

It was a race that decisively swung the advantage back to Lauda, and away from Prost. Before the Austrian Grand Prix, the Frenchman had held a slender 5.5-point advantage over his team-mate. Lauda’s win moved him 3.5 points ahead. He kept his lead for the remaining four races, winning the World Championship by the narrowest margin ever recorded – just half a point.

“Of all the races that decided the world championship in 1984, one way or another the Austrian Grand Prix was my most fortuitous. It was a happy coincidence that it should have happened in Austria of all places.”