The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me Read Online Free PDF

engine. It sparked into life and beat an eager pace, rumbling faster than any car I had ever heard. The sound alone was enough to splash adrenalin through my veins. I was at the edge of the unknown. The responsive throttle, the direct steering, the beating engine, the slick gearbox … Al were built with a single purpose: speed.
    My first laps were shonky; I missed gears and adjusted to the precision of the controls. Once I built up some speed the steering became intense and darty. When I ran over a bump the floor actual y hit my backside, I was sitting that close to the ground. The sense of speed in a straight was pale by comparison to the corners.
    The belts dug into my shoulders as I sped through the turns like a cruise missile, albeit a largely unguided one. I pushed the envelope a little further with every lap.
    I overcooked it several times and spun at Copse, the fastest corner. The wal was close to the track and I sensed danger until the car miraculously pointed itself in the right direction. I pushed on.
    The session ended in a flash, a mil ion years too early. I reluctantly pul ed into the pits and spotted Dad in the distance next to one of the Ray Ban-toting instructors. In spite of numerous No Smoking signs, he had a Marlboro 100 glued to his bottom lip and was clapping his four-fingered hand. He’d lost the little digit rescuing a horse.
    My times equal ed the track record for the car. Ray Ban man was tel ing my dad he should real y get me into a race. The old man was clearly sold on this plan al along. We had to convince my mother, but I figured another trip around the country lanes should do the trick.
    From that moment on, my sole ambition, my obsession was to race. The life I lost as a pilot was reincarnated as a racing driver. Every day from then until this morning my eyes opened to the same living dream. I wanted to be a Formula 1 champion. Nothing else mattered.
    The traditional route to Formula 1, or to any top category in motor sport, was to compete in go-karts from the third trimester. I’d grown up competing in pretty much every other way, as a swimmer, on skis and getting out of scrapes at school. I had the kil er instinct to win, but no experience of motor racing, and it was a major disadvantage. Not that I saw it that way.
    I duly obtained a racing licence at Silverstone and found myself looking down at aggressive short people. Karting, with its performance so closely linked to weight, had weeded out the big ones.
    I joined the bottom rung of the racing ladder: Formula First. It was derided as a championship for nutters and the scene of too many crashes. It was the cheapest form of single-seater racing and the best way to go about winning my way to Formula 1. Piece of cake.
    The other drivers wore colourful helmet designs and important looking racing overal s plastered with sponsors. Dad suggested I start out with something simple based on the Union Jack. In the end I opted for an al -black race suit, black gloves, black boots and a black Simpson Bandit helmet with a black-tinted visor
    …
    From the first day I began testing the car, every waking thought revolved around a single subject: driving fast. With no prior racing experience, I learnt the trade by word of mouth, from books about great drivers like Ayrton Senna and Gil es Vil eneuve, magazine articles and television. Mostly, I learned the hard way by just doing it. And shit happened.

    One bit of training saved my life many times over. I attended a skid control course, which had nothing to do with brown underpants. The instructor, Brian Svenson, was a former wrestler known as ‘The Nature Boy’. He had no neck but gave plenty of it as he talked me through his Ford Mondeo, fitted with a rig that could lift the front or rear wheels off the ground to make them slide.
    Every time I turned the steering, the rear would spin sideways as if it was on ice. My hands flayed at the wheel like a chimpanzee working the til at McDonald’s. Fingernails