Confession time: I’m not much interested in F1 drivers’ wages, their social media blunders or their ‘mental challenges for the forthcoming season’. I am interested in the racing, and especially the machinery they’re in charge of. As one-time technical editor at Haynes of much-missed manuals memory (and he wrote three on race cars), Steve Rendle is well placed to show us what is underneath all those sponsor stickers, to back up the informed insight that Mark Hughes gives us.

Using generous graphics (many by Giorgio Piola) and well-chosen photos, the book takes us through the physical components from suspension shim to entire monocoques, as well as the less visible elements – aerodynamics, hydraulics, the incredible balancing act the ERS does between harvesting and applying energy.

Just to prove how far we’ve come from the conventional car, Rendle points out that the right-hand pedal is no longer a throttle but has become a “torque control pedal”…

Formula 1 Technology: The Engineering Explained

Steve Rendle

Evro Publishing, £55

ISBN 9781910505731

Much information is from cars as recent as 2022, but Rendel also looks back to past technologies to explain those exhaust-blown diffusers, the twin-rack steering that pre-dated DAS, how an inerter works and McLaren’s 2010 F-duct – still my favourite rules gap exploiter in a field packed with them. There’s even some unraced tech – I’m still struggling to get my head round Honda’s still-born2009 seamless-shift mechanism. (However, that reminded me that Mercedes had a sequential gearbox around 1905 – before it patented the gate gearchange.)

I thought I knew a bit about F1 tech thanks to our Mark among others, but with a whole book at his disposal Rendle has educated me to the canny link (now banned) between steering lock and ride height, blown hubs and the existence of the medical warning light which alerts marshals attending an accident if it’s been a threateningly high-g crash. There are even sections on support equipment and on designing the car and that tricky line between the daunting regulatory restrictions.

Detailed yet clearly explained, the book frankly took me so deep inside today’s F1 cars I practically had to clean carbon dust from my fingernails afterward

Geoff Lees: From mechanic to F1

Geoff Lees

Getting into F1 is easier if you have a wealthy dad. Jeff Lees didn’t. Though he finally made it to Tyrrell and Lotus seats, he battled from the very beginning, and in this unglossy self-publication he tells his own story with engaging frankness and cheery resignation. He was undoubtedly quick, and if only fate had been kinder…

It’s a switchback tale. Faced with giving up racing at the end of ’77 because he couldn’t afford F2, he got a call out of the blue saying, “Please race my F1 Ensign.” Lucky chances like that, plus dogged determination, steered his career into F1, hardly successful, and into Can-Am and Le Mans, and while you end up thinking “what bad luck this guy had”, he instead is thrilled to have driven even once for Lotus – even though Chapman’s promise of a works season evaporated. But he’s rightly proud of his record in sports cars, Including a heartbreaking Le Mans DNF within an hour of victory.

Mike Thackwell’s foreword calls him “grossly underrated”. A shame Lees feels his success in Japan and two Macau GP victories are unsung, but there’s no whingeing; he battled his way into racing because he loved it, and clearly relishes his memories. GC

Amazon, £22

ISBN 9798365927551

Forty six: The Birth of Porsche motorsport

Various

A large and lavish celebration of the 356 Porsche which was the make’s first competition car, entering Le Mans in 1951 and winning its class – of two finishers. But that was the start of big things for Porsche. Chassis 063 competed in the Liège-Rome-Liège rally and set records at Montlhéry, and its latest owner has assembled a staggering amount of documentation and photography to cover this and its later US activities, its rediscovery and restoration. GC

Dalton Watson, £125

ISBN 9781956309010