Pironi

'PIRONI' UP FOR TOP RAC AWARD

'PIRONI' UP FOR TOP RAC AWARD

Congratulations are due to David Sedgwick, as Pironi: The Champion That Never Was is nominated for RAC Book of the Year.

Now in their fifth year, the Royal Automobile Club Motoring Book Awards are recognised as the most prestigious to be bestowed in the automotive publishing industry. The annual awards will take place on Wednesday 31 October at the Club’s historic Pall Mall clubhouse, amongst many distinguished industry guests.

The 2018 shortlist of contenders includes works on racing driver biographies, marque histories and general motoring to legends in engineering and vehicle design.

The six titles shortlisted for Motoring Book of the Year Award are:

  • Pironi: The Champion That Never Was by David Sedgwick, published by Pitch Publishing
  • Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics and the Making of an Automotive Empire by Luca Dal Monte, published by David Bull Publishing
  • Donald Healey’s 8C Triumph Dolomite, by Jonathan Wood, published by Jonathan Wood
  • Drive: The Definitive History of Motoring by Giles Chapman, published by Dorling Kindersley 
  • Adrian Newey: How to Build a Car, by Adrian Newey, published by Harper Collins
  • Hobbo: Motor-Racer, Motor-Mouth, The autobiography of David Hobbs by David Hobbs with Andrew Marriott, published by Evro Publishing

Pironi: The Champion that Never Was relates the remarkable story of motor racing’s ‘forgotten man’, ex-Ferrari F1 driver and offshore powerboat racer, Didier Pironi. The book charts an incredible journey which took the young Parisian to the heights of triumph and the depths of despair. 

Read Pironi and you will discover:

  • Why young Didier was expelled from some of Paris’s most exclusive schools
  • How and why the teenage Didier came close to being shot and possibly killed by the Paris police
  • How a strange premonition made by a soothsayer correctly forecasted Didier’s future life
  • Why Didier came close to death at the end of his heroic drive in the 1978 Le Mans race
  • Why Didier took the biggest gamble of his career by entering the 1977 Monaco F3 race
  • What happened when Didier infamously overtook his team-mate Gilles Villeneuve on the last lap of the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix
  • What happened when Didier met Veronique Jannot, one of France’s most famous actresses
  • How Didier was prevented from making a sensational return to Formula 1 for Mclaren in 1987
  • Why the Colibri powerboat crew were so nervous of taking part in the ill-fated 1987 Needles race
  • The reasons why some members of the French media refer to Didier’s story as ‘The Pironi Curse’

Click here for more information, or to read a sample from Pironi: The Champion that Never Was