Book Review: Ken Tyrrell Portrait of a Motor Racing Giant by Christopher Hilton

It has been awhile since the last review from the archives and there are a stack of older books I’ve been meaning to post reviews of including books on Ken Tyrrell, Jim Clark and the Chris Nixon’s “Kings of the Nürburgring“. This season’s launches show a distinct lack of radical looking aero design, unlike Ken Tyrrell and his F1 team in the 70’s and 80’s who were regularly breaking the mould with radical design concepts. Think of the famous 6 wheeler P34 and the X-wing Tyrrell 025. Christopher Hilton in 2002 wrote an excellent book remembering the Tyrrell team “Ken Tyrrell: Portrait of a Motor Racing Giant”.

As with most Christopher Hilton books, he managed to interview Tyrrell’s son, Sir Jackie Stewart & other former F1 drivers and journalists to paint a picture of a highly respected team boss.

Hilton splits the book into 10 chapters – after the prologue, the first chapter provides a backgrounder of Ken Tyrrell’s early days as an amateur race driver and setting up the scene for running a Formula Junior team. The second chapter tells of how Tyrrell running Formula 3 signed up a young Jackie Stewart after a successful test-off against the great Bruce McLaren. Chapter 3 & 4 cover the dominant seasons of the Tyrrell Ford world championships and the loss of Francois Cevert. Chapter 5 is the excellent insight in the Depailler & Scheckter run with the 6 wheeler P34. For Ronnie Peterson fans though, there is little much to read.

Chapter 6 is the start of the slow decline of the team from the podium. Chapter 7 covers 1984 to 1987 with fast charging rookies Stefan Bellof and Jean Alesi announcing their F1 talent with the team. Chapter 8, the decline in race performance and team finances accelerating. Chapters 9 and 10 are a reflection of Ken Tyrrell’s status as an elder on the grid and also memory of his passing. The rear section has the obligatory team statistics.

The photographs included are excellent – many from Sutton Images and Rainer Schlegelmilch.

It’s often forgotten that the current Mercedes AMG team was originally born from the sale of the Tyrrell team to BAR which transitioned to Honda then to Brawn GP. You could argue the Mercedes AMG team now are much more dominant than Tyrrell at their peak but Ken Tyrrell and his engineers were always more willing to push the curve.

This book feels less of a formal biography and more of team book. Being one of the few books on Ken Tyrrell, its worth a read if you’re a fan of team in the 70’s and 80’s.

Wow Factor/Money shot: Chapter 5 – the story of the P34 – birth, launch & race performance.

Suitable for: Tyrrell and F1 history fans