Niki Lauda has a severe accident that almost claims his life at the German Grand Prix at Nürburgring.

Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda was an Austrian racing driver, motorsport executive and aviation entrepreneur, who competed in Formula One from 1971 to 1979 and from 1982 to 1985. Lauda won three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles and—at the time of his retirement—held the record for most podium finishes (54); he remains the only driver to have won a World Drivers' Championship with both Ferrari and McLaren, and won 25 Grands Prix across 13 seasons.

The 1976 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at the Nürburgring on 1 August 1976. It was the scene of reigning world champion Niki Lauda's near-fatal accident, and the last Formula One race to be held on the 22.835-kilometre (14.189 mi) Nordschleife section of the track. The 14-lap race was the tenth round of the 1976 Formula One season and was won by James Hunt.

The Nürburgring is a 150,000-person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long Nordschleife configuration, built in the 1920s, around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. The north loop is 20.830 km (12.943 mi) long and contains more than 300 metres of elevation change from its lowest to highest points. Scottish racing driver Jackie Stewart nicknamed the track "the Green Hell".

August 1 is the 213th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 152 days remain until the end of the year.