Niki Lauda leaves Air Berlin for Mercedes

Niki Lauda takes his role as non-executive chairman of Mercedes very seriously. As such, he has decided to leave the board of directors of the airline Air Berlin to have more time to advise the F1 team.

Niki Lauda was appointed to his current position at the same time as the announcement of Lewis Hamilton’s arrival. The triple world champion is said to have played a crucial role in convincing the 2008 world champion to leave his long-time team McLaren in favor of Mercedes, which could appear as a significant risk given the respective results of the two teams.

As a shrewd businessman, Niki Lauda never gave up on his business ventures, particularly his airline Niki. With this company, he reached an agreement in July 2010 with the German company Air Berlin, stipulating that the latter would increase its share from 24% to 49.9% of its capital. This strengthening allowed Niki Lauda to negotiate joining the board of directors of Air Berlin at the end of 2011.

December 2011 also marks the time when the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Aabar decided to acquire just under 30% of Air Berlin’s capital, allowing it to gain a foothold on the European continent through Germany’s second-largest airline. Moreover, Aabar also has a history in F1 and with Mercedes, as it has been a shareholder in both Daimler and the F1 team, although it exited the capital last November.

In the meantime, in September 2012, Niki Lauda established a personal partnership with Aabar to become its ambassador. This resulted in their logo appearing on his famous cap. Now that Norbert Haug has been ousted from the management of Mercedes Motorsport, the Austrian will have more influence within the team to bring it back to the heights known in 2009 under the name Brawn GP.

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr