How many parties he went to, how many hire cars he and his friends deliberately smashed up knowing the rental company would not say anything as they wouldn't want to lose a McLaren contract, how many planes he nearly missed because he was out drinking all night, how many stupid hairstyles he had (dreadlocks, forsooth! 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. At first I was pretty sure he only said it as a throw-away joke as we all stood around waiting, becoming more and more frustrated at the situation, but in the end some of the most brilliant engineers in the business began to raise eyebrows and become excited.

The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane - Goodreads

However, these highly skilled engineers don't just fine-tune machinery and crunch data through high-spec computers.

One of the lads was stripped naked, tied securely to a tyre trolley and paraded up and down the pitlane as all comers were invited to contribute something to his dousing. Whether it be parties on luxury yachts in Monaco or elaboratephoto opportunities in gravity-defying aeroplanes, this is a world which thrills on and off thetrack. 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). Whether it be parties on luxury yachts in Monaco or elaborate photo opportunities in gravity-defying aeroplanes, this is a world which thrills on and off the track.

The Mechanic: The Secret - Yumpu The Mechanic: The Secret - Yumpu

He joined them as a mechanic and worked his way up from being the guy to fit a nose cone in a race to become one of the men changing the wheels in the lightning fast 3-second pit stops. I can feel it hammering my bones, my teeth, my muscles, like I’ve jammed my head into the launch pad of a lifting NASA rocket.It’s catchy, always falling from one interestng story to another with a little glimpse of backstage politics of F1 teams. LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. There were episodes of drug- and alcohol-charged recklessness; lavish parties and extravagant spending. At times, I had a ringside seat to some incredible bust-ups between the pair, some of them involving McLaren’s iconic team boss, Ron Dennis.

The Mechanic - Penguin Books UK The Mechanic - Penguin Books UK

If you are still wondering how to get free PDF EPUB of book The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane by Marc ‘Elvis’ Priestley. They would sometimes have to pull a-l night shifts after the drivers had wrecked the car, change engines when the had blown and ensured that their driver had the very best car at their disposal. To compare the data from the car on the racetrack to the one that had worked so well in our wind tunnel, conditions needed to be the same: dry. I’ve seen emerging drivers on humble wages transformed into overnight millionaires, and witnessed Ron Dennis and the team spend fortunes in the pursuit of technical perfection. 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.Getting even the tiniest thing wrong might prevent the driver from taking a win, and so a team’s support crew can be every bit as crucial as the guys behind the wheel.