The director planning a film about the 1976 F1 title fight between Niki Lauda and eventual champion James Hunt has been revealed as Ron Howard - the man best known for playing Richie Cunningham in the hit TV show Happy Days and for winning an Oscar as director of A Beautiful Mind.

A new script has been written by Peter Morgan following the events of the 1976 campaꦿign, which featured Lauda's horrific accident at the Nordschleife and saw Hunt take the title after a rain-hit finale at Fuji - which Lauda pulled out of oveඣr safety concerns as heavy rain fell.

Howard is now set to start work on the film, which has been given a working title of Rush, with 🐼the focus being on the relationship between🅘 rivals Lauda and Hunt as the title fight developed.

"I got sent the script by Peter and I liked it very much - it blew me away, in fact," Howard was quited by The National. "It's a great story, it's a remarkable story and, as all F1 fans know, it nearly ended tragically when Niki 💝Lauda crashed into the barriers while travelling real fast and his car burst into flames.

"Amazingly, he survived but he was clearly in a bad way, but even more amazingly he missed just two races and returned for the Grand🐻 Prix in Italy.

"It's a European film and so the budget's going to be set accordingly. But I think it will still work with American audiences. Even though Nascar is king in the States, a lot of 𝔉people love F1 and even more people l▨ike a good story and this is just that."