wikipedia is your friend: Niki Lauda 1976 Nurburgring crash
James Hunt wasn't involved in Lauda's rescue in real life. Arturo Merzario pulled Niki out of his car. Brett Lunger, Guy Edwards and Harald Ertl helped out.
Merzario was the last F1 driver to run his own team; he had his own chassis, with a Cosworth customer engine, and he was his own mechanic. In the team's last F1 season, (1979), Arturo qualified for two of the fourteen Grands Prix he entered.
Merzario was one of the Works Ferrari drivers in 1973, along with Jacky Ickx. The pair were replaced by Clay Regazzoni and Lauda for 1974.
Very few Italians drove for Ferrari after Lorenzo Bandini burned to death at the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix. Other than Merzario in 1972-73, there were Ivan Capelli and Nicola Laurini in one of the 1992 rides, Giancarlo Fisichella and Luca Badoer in 2009, (filling in for an injured Felipe Massa), Gianni Morbidelli for the last race of 1991, after Alain Prost was fired, and Michele Alboreto, who was Ferrari's number one driver for five seasons, (1984-88). Of these, only Merzario and Alboreto drove for Ferrari during Enzo Ferrari's lifetime; the old man didn't want to see another Italian driver die in one of his cars.
What was very common at Ferrari, however, was to have non-Italian drivers who had Italian ancestry drive for the team. These include the Italian-born American Mario Andretti, (11 races in 1971-72 and one in 1982), Regazzoni, (Swiss, 1970-76), Didier Pironi, (French, 1981-82), Jean Alesi, (French, 1991-95), Michael Schumacher's bitch Rubens Barrichello, (Brazilian, 2000-05), and Massa, (Brazilian, 2006-13).
When Michele Alboreto drove for Ferrari, he said he could never ride in a taxi in Italy, because the taxi drivers either tried to show him how fast THEY could drive, or they drove with their head turned towards the back seat while speaking to him.
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