Amongst all of this chaos over the years, Elvis was a dependable, reliable pair of hands and a great character to be around. Find out what really happens in the heat of a Formula One garage from McLaren's former Number One mechanic. Marc ‘Elvis’ Priestley worked for McLaren Racing as a Formula One mechanic and member of the pitstop crew from 2000-2009. He worked with a distinguished list of drivers including Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen, Jean Alesi, Juan Pablo Montoya, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

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

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. We heard the call across the team radio; there was a split second of free-fall, twenty mechanics charging towards the pitlane, dressed in fire suits, balaclavas, helmets and gloves, emerging from the garage at a pivotal moment; nerves, fear, excitement and pride take over. The noise of the passionate British crowd and the overwhelming scream of passing engines threaten to distract focus; a burst of radio chatter between driver and team as one of the most tactical, choreographed and adrenaline-fuelled procedures moves into action at The Fastest Show on Earth: the Formula One pitstop . Or as I lovingly called it for the best part of a decade, work. unreservedly accessible pdf archives on the Internet. We don't have any document on our server. In the event Meet Marc 'Elvis' Priestley: the former number-one McLaren mechanic, and the brains behind some of Formula One's greatest ever drivers.

In the high octane atmosphere of the Formula One pit lane, the spotlight is most often on the superstar drivers. And yet, without the technical knowledge, competitive determination and outright obsession from his garage of mechanics, no driver could possibly hope to claim a spot on the podium. These are the guys who make every World Champion, and any mistakes can have critical consequences. 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.

The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane [PDF] [EPUB] The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane

Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport, the teams have multi-million-pound budgets, some of the drivers are household names and for those looking in from the outside, it is seen as a high octane exotic sport. I have been an F1 fan since about the age of eight and the team that I have supported since then is McLaren; mostly because I lived in the same town as them. A really interesting read on what it was like to be in the inside of Formula One during when Red Bull had came into the sport and ignited the parties and drunken behaviour. But also an interesting insight into the Mclaren team. 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: Marc 'Elvis' Priestley worked for McLaren Racing as a Formula One mechanic and member of the pitstop crew from 2000-2009. He worked with a distinguished list of drivers including Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen, Jean Alesi, Juan Pablo Montoya, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU.The anecdotes that involve Kimi Raikkonen and the crucial season with Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were the highlights, but the rest of the book is also so enjoyable that you will finish it in a short amount of time with a smile on your face. This book is a celebration of immaturity. I'm mad about racing. I want to know about the cars, the metrics, how the jigsaw of a team produces a win at a Grand Prix event and I thought this author might go some way to explaining this. But the book was misnamed. It was about The Mechanic, the author all right, but less about the F1 pitlane. There was initial confusion on the pit wall. The mechanics and engineers were naturally concerned and wanted to know what it was, so I repeated my not-so-technical description.