Description
Author: Mike Hawthorn, Hardbound, 239 Pages, ISBN: B0013KCI38, , 1959 - Second-Hand book in excellent unread condition !
Three days after the manuscript of this book was delivered to the publishers Mike Hawthorn was killed on the Guildford bypass.
The following description of its contents was written before the tragedy and has been left unaltered.
In October, 1958, Mike Hawthorn became the first British World Champion in the history of Grand Prix racing. It was the culmination of a year-long duel with Stirling Moss for the supreme title—the closest fought duel since the title was instituted. Throughout the year they were running neck and neck, Moss in the green Vanwall and Hawthorn in the flaming red Ferrari, first one, then the other, a few points ahead. The championship lay in the balance right up to the last race, the Moroccan Grand Prix, when Hawthorn finally carried it off.
In this book Hawthorn tells the story of a momentous year of motor racing, a year of record speeds, of even fiercer rivalry between the Ferrari team, with Musso, Collins and Hawthorn, and the Vanwalls, driven by Moss, Brooks and Lewis-Evans, with the challenging B.R.M. of Behra, fighting ill-luck, and the tiny Coopers, driven with great verve by both Moss and Trintignant, occasionally snatching an unexpected victory from their giant rivals. The year also saw the tragic deaths in the Ferrari team of Musso, the Italian champion, and Hawthorn's great friend, Peter Collins, leaving the team sadly depleted.
Hawthorn has described it all, the glamour and excitement, the inevitable tragedies which serve to remind one that motor racing is also dangerous, the people, drivers and mechanics, designers and organizers, the tremendous esprit-de-corps that binds the variegated world of motor-sport together and, dominating this year, his own ding-dong battle with Moss for the championship.
With many action photographs
