Archive for Author 'John Aston', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

My Greatest Defeat

by Will Buxton

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” Easier said than done! Even if it does, extreme experiences leave their mark and take a toll. Racing drivers are always only one step away from crippling disaster. Here twenty of them allow a look behind the PR-polished façade.

Enzo Ferrari – Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automotive Empire

by Luca Dal Monte

Every minute you spend reading this review, Ferrari will sell 100 items with their name on them. Not cars—they, intentionally, hover around the 8000 per year mark—but “stuff,” from socks to books to engines for Maseratis. What is it about Ferrari that so many want to buy into its cachet? 1000 pages offer some answers.

Jim Clark – The Best of the Best

by David Tremayne

We can argue about whether Jim Clark was the greatest Grand Prix driver in history. After all, there are one or two other candidates, possibly even three or four. But we won’t disagree about whether this book is the definitive story of Scotland’s greatest driver.

How to Build a Car

by Adrian Newey

If only really smart people can design race-winning cars then just how smart must someone be whose designs have won over 150 Grands Prix? An unexpectedly gifted writer, Newey reveals the man behind the cliché of the geeky designer in his ivory tower.

The Perfect Car

by Nick Skeens

If volatility of temperament is a measure of competence then Barnard should be counted a genius. And he is, because he really was. The exasperating perfectionist who cut down anyone and anything in his way makes for an intense story.

Brian Redman – Daring Drivers, Deadly Tracks

by Brian Redman, Jim Mullen

A really good biography of a great racer and a hugely decent man who survived his pro years—often barely—with enough good cheer to retire at age 52 and still remain active in historic racing.

What Doesn’t Kill You . . . My Life in Motor Racing

by Johnny Herbert

Today this gifted all-round driver is praised for an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of his sport on his broadcasts for Britain’s Sky Sports F1 channel but this autobiography skips over a few bits in the name of telling a grander story.

Death Drive: There are No Accidents

by Stephen Bayley

If the car is an extension of a celebrity’s personality, then a car crash is . . . well, that’s the question this author, critic, columnist, consultant, broadcaster, curator, and museum director examines.

Bulgin: The Very Best of Russell Bulgin

by Russell Bulgin

Unicorn. Hen’s teeth. Unobtainium. The book, that is. Published posthumously by his colleagues this anthology presents some of the towering—and not just because he was 6’7”—British journalist’s choicest automotive musings.

Silverstone – the Home of British Motor Racing

by Chas Parker

First used in 1947 by a bunch of friends for some off-the-cuff racing—running over a sheep in the pursuit of speed—this former airfield drew only a year later a crowd of 100,000 for its first proper British GP. Here is the whole story, from then to 2013.