BOOK REVIEW - HOW SILVERSTONE BECAME ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST CIRCUITS

I first went to a race at Silverstone in 1972, the non-championship Daily Express International Trophy. It was the third I’d ever been to, the previous pair being the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in 1968 and 1970. This time my beloved BRMs led, driven by Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Peter Gethin, but were soon overtaken by Emerson Fittipaldi’s Lotus and Mike Hailwood’s Surtees, which then passed the Brazilian and was running away until the solder in its radiator cap melted and Mike the Bike quit with overheating. Forty years later, when he was demonstrating a Lotus 72 at Interlagos in celebration of the World Championship he’d won all those years before, I mentioned that to Emmo, who demonstrated his utter class by recalling immediately, “Ah, but Mike had me covered that day.”