My Racing Life with Porsche 1970-2004

By Norbert Singer & Wilfried Müller, £75, sport-fahrer-zentrale. de, ISBN 978 3 945390 10 8

This new quarto-sized 360-page autobiography of celebrated Porsche racing engineer Norbert Singer reveals that his background was actually in rocket science – but his passion was for motor sport.

He’s entertaining, recalling being hurled in at the deep end when a postal error meant that he only learnt of his employment at Porsche with a day’s notice and was working on the new 917 within 24 hours.

This is the first time that Singer has been able to bypass company politics and talk about stillborn projects. ABS for the 917, Porsche mechanics helping Matra to win Le Mans, bizarre aerodynamic experiments, Indycar – it’s all here, and with greater depth and illustration than ever before.