The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane

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I suppose this is not a suprise, but the way it is written makes it sound like bragging and contains no reflection of the possible critical consequences of for example harrassment and destruction of property. This work hard mentality also meant that they played hard and also drunk hard too and Priestley's book is full of stories about the races and the aftermath after a successful weekend, of hire cars trashed, the continual practical jokes that they played on each other and the drivers. Yes, football clubs have their physios and coaches, and tennis players their psychologists and trainers; golfers use a caddy to strategise their way around the course. It’s bloody big, about two and a half inches across, circular, gold, and has small holes all the way around the outside. His nonchalant approach to life in general also makes for an interesting contrast when pitted against the control freak that was Ron Dennis.

The Mechanic : The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane - Google Books The Mechanic : The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane - Google Books

The relentless pursuit of marginal gains with many late nights and early mornings would break a mere mortal, but Elvis represents the pinnacle of a man’s desire to constantly push to be the greatest version of himself. Join McLaren's former number-one mechanic, Marc 'Elvis' Priestley as he tours the world, revealing some of Formula One's most outrageous secrets and the fiercest rivalries, all fuelled by the determination to win. We’d exclusively hired out the Santa Pod Raceway drag strip in Northamptonshire to test a brand-new front wing on the car in private.That's not to say the F1 crew is just a group of highly skilled technical engineers,tweaking machinery in wind tunnels and crunching data through high-spec computers. I worked with world-class drivers like Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard, but I was also right there as the controversial battle between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso unfolded in 2007. Priestly also worked for McLaren during Spygate and the Lewis and Alonso season which is insane and I loved hearing an insider's experience of that crazy year. The failure was completely unrelated, but it showed just how stressful and chaotic life in F1 could be back then, and what an intense job the mechanics had when looking after such a complicated and technical race car.

The Mechanic - The Secret World of The F1 Pitlane by Marc The Mechanic - The Secret World of The F1 Pitlane by Marc

But halfway through the race my engine blew up, as they sometimes did back then with the extremes we were pushing them to, putting an end to any podium hopes. Other than that it was mostly twenty-somethings doing twenty-something things and enjoying the benefits of the unique environment they were in. And this didn’t disappoint… written by a pit crew mechanic who was in the game for almost a decade - it gave a great inside view of how things run inside a top F1 team (McLaren). If you’re looking for pure sports and stats vibes this might not be your favourite book, but I thought it had a lot of heart and human touch and that’s what made it a step above a generic sports biography for me ! During a career with the McLaren F1 team from 2000 to 2009 I’ve seen plenty of good and bad pitstops.The suspension, as predicted, was fine structurally, even if the balance of the car seemed a little strange. There are lots of fun stories of the mechanics behaving badly, of particular interest is the story about filling Kimi’s gloves with blue dye and Kimi’s subsequent revenge.