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John Surtees is the only man to have won World
Championships on two and four wheels. This large
format book tells the Surtees story in 300 photographs.
Chapter introductions and detailed captions carry the
reader between photographs to make this a book that
you can pick up, open at any page and find yourself
drawn into the world of this remarkable man.
There are two forewords, by Valentino Rossi and
Sebastian Vettel. Both of these modern day champions
have a great respect for Surtees and his achievements.
Surtees worked hard for his success. In six months in
1955, he competed in 86 motorcycle races, including the
250, 350 and 500 cc German GP races and the 250 cc
Italian GP. On August 11 he won the 250 cc Ulster GP,
his first World Championship win. Amazingly, he
accomplished all of this while working full time as an
apprentice at the Vincent motorcycle factory!
In 1956 Surtees was leading the MV Agusta works team in the 500 and 350 cc World
Championships. He won the 500 title but crashed out of the final 350 race of the year and
missed that one. 1957 was a development year but 1958, 1959 and 1960 saw Surtees win
both titles to bring his total tally to seven.
For those three years, Count Agusta banned Surtees from racing other bikes than MV,
which pushed him into car racing. His first car race in March 1960 saw him finish second to
Jim Clark at Goodwood and by the end of the year he had retired from the lead in the
Portuguese F1 GP. Some apprenticeship!
Two years with the Bowmaker team followed, the second with the Lola-Climax V8 that was
quick but needed more development and better engines
from Coventry-Climax. After some success with the Lola
in the 1963 Tasman Series, Surtees joined Ferrari, which
led to his historic World Championship in 1964.
Management chaos within Ferrari led to no F1 wins in
1965 and a parting of the ways after one win in 1966.
A switch to the under-rated Cooper team led to second
in the World Championship behind Jack Brabham. Later
in the year Team Surtees took the 1966 Can-Am title
with John in the Lola T70.
Surtees continued to race with Honda, BRM and others
before forming his own F1 team. All this and more is
covered in the book through to the setting up of the
Henry Surtees Foundation after John's son was killed in
a freak accident at Brands Hatch.
Bob Campbell
Book Reviews:
John Surtees: My Incredible Life on Two
and Four Wheels