Lauda washed hands of ugly trophies

04 July 2015 11:01

Niki Lauda agrees with reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton when it comes to "ugly" trophies handed out to Formula One race winners, revealing he traded his silverware for free car washes for life at his local garage.

Earlier this week, Mercedes driver Hamilton was highly critical of the trophy he was presented with after winning last year's British Grand Prix. A nd the two-time world champion revealed he is still irked by what he describes as the ''terrible'' silverware awarded to the podium finishers in motor racing's elite category.

Hamilton, who holds a 10-point lead over Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg ahead of Sunday's British Grand Prix, said on Tuesday: ''Last year they gave me this plastic thing and I'm like, 'this is not the trophy, it's like a GP2 trophy not the Formula One trophy'.

''The gold one they use to present is really special, and it would be great if each country had a real trophy like that with character that grew over the years because of the history.

''The last one in Austria was wooden, and the base was like lead - I mean what? It is supposed to be silver. We just need to make better trophies. It is shocking how bad the trophies are.

''At the beginning of my Formula One career they were really good, but now they are just terrible, man. They are so bad.''

Mercedes' non-executive chairman Lauda, who won three world championships during his 171-race career, told BBC Radio 5 Live: "I binned them all, you're absolutely right because in my time they were, most of them ugly and for me, useless.

"Therefore I binned them right away because I had the memory in my head anyway and not in the trophy and in this point of view, Lewis is right because the trophy should have a certain value when you look at them, that you like them.

"Most of them you don't like them, even when you get them."

When asked what he did with them, the 66-year-old Austrian admitted he handed them to a local petrol station in exchange for free use of the car wash.

He added: "The guy was very pleased when he saw my first trophy and then I gave it to him as a friend and then I said, 'If you can give me a free car wash for the rest of my life you can have all of them', and that is what I did.

"They were still there until three years ago and then a friend of mine saw them. The guy died unfortunately and his son was running the petrol station but they were so demolished and terribly kept there that a friend of mine took them away, polished them and then my kids took them and put them on eBay.

"Now I have to pay for the car wash."

Source: PA