John Surtees

John Surtees is the only man to have won World Championships on both two wheels and four. When he clinched the 1964 World Drivers' Championship at the wheel of a Formula 1 Ferrari, he already had seven motorcycle titles under his belt, riding for the legendary Italian MV Agusta stable. Enigmatic, publicity-shy and in some quarters controversial, John Surtees has seldom revealed the details of his life - nor of a career that spanned and even triggered some of the most important developments in Grand Prix racing. Now, we are given a full account of the heyday of motorcycling racing and of the emergence of the Grand Prix world we know today. That world was, and is, Surtees' world - his orbit has encompassed the disciplines of mechanic, rider, driver, engineer and constructor. He is part of the Ferrari legend; he knew all the notables from Colin Chapman to Enzo Ferrari and now, still active in the world of racing, he is the team principal of Britain's A1 GP team. Revered in Italy and acclaimed in America he is, in Britain, a pivotal figure in the world of twentieth century sport.
Born in the saddle - he was the son of a Surrey motorcycle rider and dealer - John Surtees was working as a mechanic by the age of 11, won his first race as a teenager and, by the age of 30, was a world champion in two disciplines. Thirty-eight Grand Prix victories followed; so, in 1966, did a near-fatal accident, a sensational decay in his relationship with Ferrari and, in 1970, the forming of his own racing team, which he ran until 1978. No-one else in the racing world has a personal story that so directly echoes - literally - the mechanics of motorsport; from building motorcycles in the 1940s to the brutal economics of running a racing team in the 1970s to, today, his partnership with old friends in A1 Grand Prix.