MovieChat Forums > Rush (2013) Discussion > Was Niki Lauda ASD or Suffered Asperger ...

Was Niki Lauda ASD or Suffered Asperger Syndrome?

posted 8 years ago by dakowill11
10 replies | jump to latest

So I saw this film was scheduled to be broadcast on television the other night and thought to check out its trailer. I didn't find the trailer appealing, but chose to record it anyway. And I'm glad I did! I thought to watch the first 5 minutes of it and ended up watching the entire film to its end. Ron Howard is definitely a great director!

My question, however, is throughout the film Niki Lauda came across as ASD. I don't know if he was in real life or if that was the intention of the writers and/or director. But, my reason for this was his poor social interactions and skills (e.g. Clay Regazzoni calls him an *beep* and instructs him to find his own friends); his obsessive compulsive attention to rules and regulations (e.g. He is the cause for James Hunts disqualification in the Spanish Grand Prix due to the McLaren racing car being a fraction too wide); His repetitive referral to statistics and refusal to race if the risk of dying is greater than 20%; His genius with racing car engines (e.g. He modified the Ferrari racing car even better than the Ferrari engineers).

In any event, it a thrill to watch!

[–] wielderofspoons 8 years ago

I doubt an Asperger's sufferer would've married a good-looking woman like Lauda did.

His attention to rules and statistics was just commitment to the sport.

[–] Gavinryder-192-939466 8 years ago

Please explain why someone with Asperger Syndrome would not be able to marry a good looking woman?
Or are you a bigot?

[–] wielderofspoons 8 years ago

Because Asperger's is a condition that limits abilities of social interaction, which would make starting a romantic relationship difficult, particularly in the case of a good-looking woman who's going to have plenty of others to choose from.

Of course it wouldn't make it impossible, just unlikely.

[–] actionkamen (23176) 8 years ago

Lauda was a world champion. A very talented and successful people like him is very interesting to most women (or men for that matter), pretty or not.

[–] ATG6 (3000) 5 years ago

yeah, you don't need Grade A social skills to attract women when you're a rich race car driver.

[–] gravejanus 8 years ago

I doubt they would let somebody with asperger drive an over-expensive race-car at 300mph, though....

[–] rollora 8 years ago

Like that was diagnosed back in the 70s....

1) No, Lauda doesn't have Aspergers, and I wonder why you would think that. He is just an arrogant *beep*
2) yes, he is like that in Real life too. Met him several times.
3) his behavior is very typical for that people from vienna, especially of a specific district. That is why Austrian ppl don't see the Vienneese ppl as typical Austrians cause they are ashamed of behavior as this. This behavior shows not only in words and face to face conversations, you can usually also observe it when driving. They don't keep any distance, cut you off, give you the finger, don't use the turn signal overall are reckless and bad drivers. Especially when winter comes, they drive like they have never driven a car before...

[–] Otter (24464) 7 years ago

Not all nerds or socially awkward people have Asperger's, and the film made Lauda come across as a geeky but fairly normal who somehow ended up in car racing rather than computer programming.

I don't know enough about him to understand how someone with a talent for mathematics and engineering became a race car driver rather than, well, an engineer, but he did. The movie wasn't terribly historically accurate, I heard that Hunt and Lauda were friends rather than the enemies the movie made them out to be. And yeah, if Lauda had friends as well as a wife, maybe he wasn't all that socially hopeless, just very different from the other race car drivers.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Yeah... Lauda is also Austrian... Can't expect him to be as emotional and wear his heart on his sleave like Hunt...

F1 is to some extent a percision sport... so it's not surprising to see someone woeking at that high a level have such an approach to racing...

It's very odd how people have fetishised Aspergers... As if every introverted, percise, or even unlikable person is somehow afflicted...

[–] Otter (24464) 7 years ago

Oh, I wouldn't say that people have "fetishized" Aspergers'... it just offers some easy explanations for things people have difficulty understanding. So it becomes a convenient explanation for anything about anyone with certain personality traits, like Lauda.

He wasn't an unusual kind of person, just unusual for his profession.