Book Review: Jochen Rindt – The Story of a World Champion by Heinz Prüller

On the Formula 1 official website, Sebastian Vettel nominated Jochen Rindt as one driver for his all dream team. The only posthumous F1 world champion, Rindt is a driver that features heavily in the stories of Jackie Stewart, Team Lotus and also in several of Rainer Schlegelmilch’s photo books. The only Jochen Rindt book I have in my own personal library is a copy of his biography written by Rindt’s journalist friend Heinz Pruller complete with yellowed pages aged with the smell of a 1972 printed hardcover.

I have to admit, while the book takes the usual path of following Rindt’s early racing career, meeting his future wife, graduating from Cooper, Brabham to Lotus – I find the book for some reason is a little flat. Given Rindt death was one of the sports major black marks, the drama leading into Monza at the fateful 1970 Italian GP seemed underdone. In fact, you get more of an appreciation of Jackie Stewart and Colin Chapman in this book than Jochen Rindt. Curiously, the recent film 1: Life on the Limit probably manages best to evoke the tragedy of Rindt’s accident of his insistence of removing the Lotus 49 rear wing for a shot a pole position.

As a Brabham fan, I think the chapter on Rindt’s time racing with Jack Brabham’s team reveals that age’s sense of respect and privateer engineering.

Photography is solely a collection of black & white photos and while there are some race pictures of Rindt in the Lotus 49, most of the photos are largely off track and personal photos.

Unsurprisingly, Sir Jackie Stewart writes the book’s introduction but it’s probably the longest forward for a F1 book I’ve ever read.

I think some of the roller coaster emotion you would expect to read from a world champion’s biography is lost in this book. It is however, still a good book to read if you’re a fan of the Stewart-Brabham era.

Wow factor/money shot: Maybe the insights to Rindt’s earlier career days.

Suitable for: 60’s era fans