Mathias Lauda
Born : January 30 1981
Biography Mathias Lauda
Being the son of a former Formula 1 legend may open doors, but on the other hand, it makes comparisons to your father quite obvious. And that’s exactly what happened to Mathias Lauda, the son of Niki Lauda. It was after Mathias finished school and got his driving licence at 18 that he realised his desire for speed. “If I go fast on the streets, everybody else becomes unsafe. So I made a decision, at age 20, to become a race car driver.”
Mathias Lauda’s career started, in contradiction to what one could expect, not in karting but in the one-seater series Formula Nissan 2000. Mathias continued to race open-wheelers in 2003, driving for the Vergani team in the World Series Light. Next year, Lauda raced in the International Formula 3000 with the Scuderia Coloni team but picked points in just two races, eventually finishing 13th overall.
GP2 Series and A1 Grand Prix
The beginning of his career has not been a glorious one. However, he progressed to the GP2 Series in 2005, still as a member of Scuderia Coloni. His only year in the competition was really poor. Lauda scored only once, finishing 6th in Monaco, before taking the 21st place in the championship.
Lauda also represented Austria in the A1 Grand Prix. Unfortunately, the results were again below the expectations. He was able to earn points in only four out of 22 races and eventually finished 19th in the final standings.
Switch to the sports cars
After having pretty disappointing results in formula racing, Mathias Lauda decided to focus on the sports cars in 2006. He spent four years in the German-based DTM championship as a member of the Mercedes’ teams Persson Motorsport and Mucke Motorsport.
This change wasn’t good for the Austrian. In his rookie season in the series, he failed to pick a single point. The season of 2007 was Lauda’s best in DTM after he scored four points before finishing 15h overall. In each of the following two years, Lauda earned only a point and somehow disappointed left the series.
Short spell in various championships
Lauda wasn’t particularly active during 2010. He made a one-off appearance in Porsche Supercup but in 2011, he raced full-time with Konrad Motorsport. He did relatively well after he failed to score points in only one race, but on the other side, he had just one top-10 finish before finishing 12th in the Drivers’ Championship.
In 2012, Lauda had more duties. The main one was competing in the FIA GT1 World Championship, driving a Vitaphone Racing BMW. After a relatively unconvincing start of the season, he did much better in the second half of the campaign and even scored one podium finish in one round in Slovakia. With 56 points in his books, Mathias finished 12th overall.
The same year with the same team Lauda also participated in four rounds of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup. He was 3rd in the races at Nurburgring and in 24 Hours of Spa, while at the end of the year, the Austrian pilot was 11th.
Return after a one-year break
After taking a break in 2013, Lauda returned to racing in 2014. The next stop in his career was NASCAR Whelen Euro Series in which he did pretty well. He scored one race win driving a Chevrolet before finishing 9th in the championship. The same year he also appeared in two rounds of ADAC GT Masters but without too much success. Since 2015, Mathias’ main occupation is racing in the LMGTE-Am class of the FIA World Endurance Championship. As a member of Aston Martin Racing, driving car #98 alongside Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana. Lauda finished 3rd in the championship after winning the races at Silverstone, Spa, and Bahrain.
FIA WEC GTE Am champion in 2017
While driving the same car with the same co-drivers in 2016, Lauda again finished 3rd overall in the FIA WEC LMGTE-Am class. They won five out of nine races, but retiring from three races proved to be decisive in their unsuccessful try to win the title.
The same crew stayed in the #98 Aston Martin Vantage in the 2017 FIA WEC season. This time, Lauda and his teammates have won four races but also added three more podiums, finishing the season with a dominant win in the GTE Am class.
In 2018, Mathias stayed with AMR, continuing to share the #98 Vantage with Pedro Lamy and Paul dalla Lana. They started the FIA WEC super-season with the GTE Am class victory at Spa. At Le Mans, they didn’t finish the race. Later in the season, they were on a podium at Fuji and finished 8th in the points.
Outside FIA WEC, he made a debut at Daytona 24 Hours in January 2018, driving a Ferrari 488 GT3 for Spirit of Race team, and then returned to Daytona in January 2019 with the same team.Mathias didn’t rejoin Aston Martin Racing for the 2019-2020 FIA WEC season but rejoined the team for Daytona 24 Hours in January 2020.
Pictures courtesy unknown and GP2 series
