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megansmith23's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
Really interesting insight into F1 - great perspective on the sport!
veraw's review against another edition
3.0
While I did enjoy the book, I expected it to focus more on the technical side of F1 and not the drunken activities and ‘cool’ hairstyles Priestley had.
xkvstw's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed getting an insight in the F1 mechanics' lives. A well written fast paced book.
friedatweehuysen's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
I've loved F1 for nearly 40 years. I'm so glad that these mechanics are filling in a gap I've been well aware I've not known about.
I've been aware of Elvis from Twitter and enjoy his informed opinion. So I came into the book very keen to hear more. The inside stories are really fascinating for me, and I adored it.
I've been aware of Elvis from Twitter and enjoy his informed opinion. So I came into the book very keen to hear more. The inside stories are really fascinating for me, and I adored it.
villyidol's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
3.75
This was much better than I expected it to be.
Marc Priestly was a mechanic at McLaren from 2000 to 2009, before he left the team to pursue a career in media, working for the BBC and Sky Sports among others and writing articles for magazines like Autosport and F1 Racing.
To be honest, I didn't read this book because I wanted to learn about the life of a mechanic, but rather because my favorite driver at the time, Kimi Räikkönen, was at the peak of his career during his McLaren years, which happen to intersect nicely with Priestley's time at the team. Plus there's the controversial 2007 season which saw a fierce rivalry between the two McLaren drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, spiral out of control and McLaren having to pay a record penalty of $100 Million because of Spygate. Those were rather interesting times. And Priestley was there for all of it.
Turns out that in fact Kimi, Ron Dennis, Alonso and Hamilton are the most interesting characters in this. However, I came to appreciate, and I guess hadn't really thought about it previously, how much pressure to perform is on the mechanics also in this high performance business. Plus, pit stops are terrifying from a mechanic's perspective. I also learned that there was quite a bit of camaraderie between the McLaren and Renault mechanics, even while the two teams were fighting for the championship in 2005. That was surprising. Other than that it was mostly twenty-somethings doing twenty-something things and enjoying the benefits of the unique environment they were in. Frankly, a lot of it is quite silly.
Ron Dennis' rather special personality (I always found him fascinating) was the much more interesting aspect of this book in the early chapters. Some parts of this reminded me of reading about Steve Jobs, another interesting character. And then Kimi arrived at the team and the book became immense fun.
It confirmed a lot of thoughts I'd had about Kimi Räikkönen's early career and how he approached work at McLaren. Which is to say, he showed up, drove fast (or was fast asleep somewhere when there was no driving to be done) and afterwards went partying with the boys. That his personality didn't change one bit when he became a star in Formula 1, that conformity never became part of his vocabulary even with all the pressure from sponsors and the huge sums of money that different parties invested into F1*, that he never got caught up in all the politics and personal agendas and that in a sport of such fine margins he managed to just have fun and, frankly, be a bit lazy and still very succesful kind of makes him stand out among the modern world championship winning drivers. Or all drivers since the turn of the century really. He's a throwback to the old days, when everything was less serious, albeit - in this particular case - much more dangerous. His nonchalant approach to life in general also makes for an interesting contrast when pitted against the control freak that was Ron Dennis. If there was one thing I wished for from this book, then it would be to have gotten a bit more about the struggle that two such contrasting personalities must have meant for each other. Although, one of them probably didn't care.
<img src="https://www.grandprix247.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/hug-me.jpg" width="400" height="265" alt="description"/>
Kimi was clearly also much loved by the mechanics, as he was just one of the guys and they had a lot of fun together. Some of the pranks were quite ridiculous and I couldn't help but laugh. Then came 2007 though. Enter Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Kimi had left for Ferrari that year and oh, how the atmosphere changed within the team. Now there were some big egos to be dealt with.
Marc Priestly was a mechanic at McLaren from 2000 to 2009, before he left the team to pursue a career in media, working for the BBC and Sky Sports among others and writing articles for magazines like Autosport and F1 Racing.
To be honest, I didn't read this book because I wanted to learn about the life of a mechanic, but rather because my favorite driver at the time, Kimi Räikkönen, was at the peak of his career during his McLaren years, which happen to intersect nicely with Priestley's time at the team. Plus there's the controversial 2007 season which saw a fierce rivalry between the two McLaren drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, spiral out of control and McLaren having to pay a record penalty of $100 Million because of Spygate. Those were rather interesting times. And Priestley was there for all of it.
Turns out that in fact Kimi, Ron Dennis, Alonso and Hamilton are the most interesting characters in this. However, I came to appreciate, and I guess hadn't really thought about it previously, how much pressure to perform is on the mechanics also in this high performance business. Plus, pit stops are terrifying from a mechanic's perspective. I also learned that there was quite a bit of camaraderie between the McLaren and Renault mechanics, even while the two teams were fighting for the championship in 2005. That was surprising. Other than that it was mostly twenty-somethings doing twenty-something things and enjoying the benefits of the unique environment they were in. Frankly, a lot of it is quite silly.
Ron Dennis' rather special personality (I always found him fascinating) was the much more interesting aspect of this book in the early chapters. Some parts of this reminded me of reading about Steve Jobs, another interesting character. And then Kimi arrived at the team and the book became immense fun.
It confirmed a lot of thoughts I'd had about Kimi Räikkönen's early career and how he approached work at McLaren. Which is to say, he showed up, drove fast (or was fast asleep somewhere when there was no driving to be done) and afterwards went partying with the boys. That his personality didn't change one bit when he became a star in Formula 1, that conformity never became part of his vocabulary even with all the pressure from sponsors and the huge sums of money that different parties invested into F1*, that he never got caught up in all the politics and personal agendas and that in a sport of such fine margins he managed to just have fun and, frankly, be a bit lazy and still very succesful kind of makes him stand out among the modern world championship winning drivers. Or all drivers since the turn of the century really. He's a throwback to the old days, when everything was less serious, albeit - in this particular case - much more dangerous. His nonchalant approach to life in general also makes for an interesting contrast when pitted against the control freak that was Ron Dennis. If there was one thing I wished for from this book, then it would be to have gotten a bit more about the struggle that two such contrasting personalities must have meant for each other. Although, one of them probably didn't care.
<img src="https://www.grandprix247.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/hug-me.jpg" width="400" height="265" alt="description"/>
Kimi was clearly also much loved by the mechanics, as he was just one of the guys and they had a lot of fun together. Some of the pranks were quite ridiculous and I couldn't help but laugh. Then came 2007 though. Enter Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Kimi had left for Ferrari that year and oh, how the atmosphere changed within the team. Now there were some big egos to be dealt with.
With Kimi, though, there’s never been an ego, let alone an inflated one, and the celebrity lifestyle just wasn’t his way.
Ultimately, with two all time great drivers like Alonso and Hamilton battling it out for supremacy and with their respective characters at the time, things became toxic. Seen from the outside, Alonso looked like the bad guy to me back then. But there also was something a bit off about Hamilton. He just appeared fake to me. In the end that's confirmed by this book too. Although I do think that Hamilton in particular has grown quite a bit as a person since then. After all he was only 22 years of age. But boy, those McLaren guys missed Kimi for sure. I guess you could call it poetic justice that the two McLaren drivers were squabbling so much with each other that in the end Kimi snatched the title from under their noses in 2007. And after all the battles, the good times, the successes on track as well as the disappointment of not quite getting it over the line at McLaren, old friends hadn't forgotten each other.
There was a reflection of the season in the way we all partied that night. Fernando disappeared, never to be seen again. Lewis gathered together his own ever growing entourage in an exclusive private VIP area, none of us from the team were invited. Instead we dragged the night away with the new Formula 1 World Champion somewhere in Sao Paulo. I say somewhere because I really can't remember much about it. I do remember we ended up at Kimi's hotel, the sun rising, none of us able to stand or talk, but it was so nice to finally be able to share part of that incredible achievement with him. I couldn't help but feel that even though he was no longer driving for us, in our own inimitable chaotic McLaren way we'd made a substantial contribution to his world championship season and a tiny part of me had to have a laugh about that.
Then in 2008 McLaren finally won another championship, with Lewis Hamilton at the wheel. And that was quite the dramatic season as well. But I think at this point it has become clear that I was mostly here for the Kimi stories. And I have not been disappointed.
On the whole, 3.75 stars. It was fun.
*There was one instance when he actually bent to the will of the team. After he had been found, passed out on a rubber dolphin, in front of a night club on Gran Canaria, the team felt a public apology was required. Kimi ultimately relented but still did it the Kimi-way:
"I'm sorry," he began. “I had a few drinks. I was dancing. Why was I riding an inflatable dolphin? Because why not?”
Oh, Ron must have loved that.
<img src="https://cdn-1.motorsport.com/static/img/archive/autosport/gallery/102_1000669/s8/1000669.jpg" width="400" height="267" alt="description"/>
<i>Buddy read with <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/nataliya_x">Nataliya</a>, who enjoyed this more than I thought she would.</i>
kavinay's review against another edition
3.0
While Priestley is an able writer and this is an entertaining read, there's not really that much "secret" in this book for F1 fans.
Pit crew antics and all aren't all that fascinating. The nuts and bolts insight of testing, improvement and strategy of the mechanical side of F1 are not really touched on at all. If you're interested in the analytical and technical side of the sport, this is probably not the book you're looking for.
Pit crew antics and all aren't all that fascinating. The nuts and bolts insight of testing, improvement and strategy of the mechanical side of F1 are not really touched on at all. If you're interested in the analytical and technical side of the sport, this is probably not the book you're looking for.
soapmuel's review against another edition
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.25