Book Review: The Mechanic by Marc ‘Elvis’ Priestley

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a F1 book that I couldn’t put down and powered through in less than a weekend. Although it was published in 2018, I only recently managed to pick up a copy of former McLaren mechanic (now F1 pundit) Marc Priestley’s book ‘The Mechanic’ and surprisingly found it to be an engrossing read. Although BenettonF1 mechanic Steve Matchett was an early pioneer with his book “The Mechanic’s Tale” back in 2000, there hasn’t been many F1 books published by team pit-crew as most books are from more recognised team bosses, engineers and designers.

At 241 pages, this paperback is structured in 21 short chapters. David Coulthard pens a very innocent foreword that doesn’t really prepare you for some of the twists and shocks in the book.

The book traces Marc Priestley’s journey from junior mechanic for McLaren test & T-car to a member of Kimi Raikkonen’s car crew during his 2003-2006 McLaren stint, then overseeing both sides of the Hamilton & Alonso garage during the tumultuous 2007 season and then to celebrate world championship victory in 2008 with Lewis Hamilton. Sprinkled in between are lots of stories of garage antics, Ron Dennis & MTC HQ insights, wild partying and Kimi’s blue hands are fun to read.

Photos although all in colour are very basic gallery across 8 pages in the centrespread.

I have to confess I wasn’t expecting much before picking up “The Mechanic” but was pleasantly surprised that I couldn’t put it down. Stylistically it may be a little LADbible like but it’s storytelling will definitely appeal to Kimi, Lewis and Fernando era fans. Especially Kimi fans. Although the book recounts Marc Priestley’s time as a mechanic with these 3 world champs, a lot of his observations of them back then would seem to be still relevant now.

Much of the appeal of this book is the uncensored manner of narrative and the reveals – it’s a somewhat fresh change from many of the driver autobiographies that have only offered small morsels of controversy or politely danced around a topic.

Hard core F1 engineering fans might be a little disappointed that the book doesn’t deal too deeply into the technical details of a F1 mechanic working on a McLaren F1 car or about any challenging car break-fixes. Still, this is a book that you can add to your F1 reading list…

Wow Factor: Kimi stories

Suitable for: McLaren, Kimi and Lewis fans