Lauda sits out Melbourne after operation

Niki Lauda

(GMM) Niki Lauda has been forced to sit out the Australian grand prix.

The triple world champion, who attends every round of the world championship as a pundit for German television, reportedly damaged his hip on a recent walk with his dogs.

Austrian Lauda, 60, instead remains in Vienna, where he had a minor operation.

"No-one should be concerned," he told the German Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

"In two or three days everything will be healed."

The injury, however, has not dimmed Lauda's notoriously blunt style, as he showed in his regular column for the Swiss newspaper Blick.

When discussing KERS, the expensive new technology used by some cars and not others, he wrote: "I hope we do not have to bother the fans for the whole year with this theatre."

Bild suggests Lauda will be back in action next weekend in Malaysia.