A lot of this can be put down to Chapman's deft touch in cultivating his own legend - by appropriating the credit for ideas and developments that sometimes should have seen someone else at the very least share the credit, he was virtually rewriting history as it happened - and leaving an awful mess for historians to clear up in the years that followed. But there was also the less savoury side of Chapman's personality, a trait that came to the fore most famously at the end of his life with the DeLorean affair.

Neither of these points are intended to detract from Chapman's achievements. It is a simple fact that very few other men have had such an impact upon motorsport, particularly in Britain. He was a designer and innovator blessed with extraordinary vision where the Lotus racing programme was concerned, and it is no accident that at the peak of Lotus's success, the team's works was as fertile a breeding ground for exceptional engineers and designers as it was for world-beating race cars.

Pinning down the darker side of one of the Grand Prix world's most fascinating and charismatic characters is not an easy task, but Mike Lawrence is probably one of the best-equipped authors to take a swing at it.

Lawrence, a writer and academic who is as comfortable delving into the finer points of Shakespeare as he is the mysteries of F1 history, has rightly won acclaim for some superb previous work, such as his brilliant account of the March team. As well as being a meticulously careful researcher, Lawrence has a great ability to describe his subject's shortcomings honestly and fairly, avoiding the traps of becoming either an apologist or a character assassin.

Not surprisingly, such a skill comes in handy when dealing with a subject such as Chapman, and it is this element that provides that backbone of the book. A good example is the way Lawrence tackles the issue of Chapman's drug-taking: "There was an aspect of Colin's life that had no clear-cut start. Bob Dance tells this story: 'Colin and I had one thing in common in that we both suffered from hay fever, Colin suffered terribly. I had a gearbox to prepare overnight and I was suffering. Colin sympathised and brought me one of his special pills. I finished the gearbox all right, but later, I felt dreadful. All I know is that the pills were not intended for hay fever.'

Amphetamines, barbiturates and the like were not tightly controlled prescriptions at the time. Ron Hickman says: 'Colin was completely open about his use of uppers and downers. His use was brought on not only by the incredibly long days he worked, and the broken sleep, but also by his often crossing 20 time zones in a few days. I recall his telling us how he went to his doctor to insist that he needed these things in order to keep up with it all, and I'd say most of us were more understanding than horrified.'

Stirling Moss is on record as saying that he was helped to win the 1955 Mille Miglia by Fangio, who gave Stirling one of his 'special pills', which kept him wide awake for 48 hours. Neither Moss nor Fangio could be described as 'dope crazed'. So far as many of these drugs were concerned, it was an age of innocence. There were over-the-counter cough medicines at the time which contained morphine, and if you planted in your garden the most popular brand of seed for pet birds, you could raise marijuana and millet. One cannot escape the feeling, however, that for someone like Colin, predisposed to being overweight and with a frenetic lifestyle, popping uppers and downers might eventually put an unsustainable strain on the heart. Colin was a bundle of energy to begin with: Colin on speed was awesome." (p. 145).

This passage serves to further highlight another couple of aspects that contribute to the book's appeal - One is Lawrence's playful sense of humour, which makes reading the book all the more pleasurable (I kind of likes his description of Chapman's house, Ketteringham Hall: "It is one of those brooding, over-decorated piles where you can imagine a coach and four arriving at night and an eerie servant saying, 'The master asked me to bid you welcome. Ha ha ha!'" (p. 152).

The other is his effort to look beyond merely recounting what happened, and to look for the whys, hows, and what ifs. Rare is the revelation that is not supported by some further contextual information, and frequently these are also developed to provide an additional reinforcement of some element of Chapman's character. The following passage, for instance, starts out by exploring a particular aspect of Lotus's racing operations, and in doing so, paints some additional colour into the overall portrait of Chapman's personality.

"This was the last time that Lotus went racing outside of Formula One in Colin's lifetime. Why is it that the 1972 foray into Formula Three and the 1973 Texaco Star efforts were so feeble? The fact is that the entire culture had changed. Lotus had become a corporation with road cars at its centre. Team Lotus was a separate organisation, it was located apart from the main operation, and while Lotus had once been driven by racing, and the racer's mentality, it had become a mainstream company with Formula One as Colin's hobby. It was about the only hobby Colin had, apart from flying and driving fast. Lots of things would take his interest for a while, his mind was always receptive, but nobody can recall him having an interest that most people would call a leisure pursuit." (p. 196).

As good as this book is - and it is very good indeed - it does have its faults. Describing the company's move to Norfolk, Lawrence writes: "With the move, the story becomes more serious - bland even." (p. 155). It certainly does. While the first two-thirds of the book are an inspired piece of work, Lawrence's enthusiasm seems to wane a little in the later stages. Some of the spark that drives the earlier chapters disappears, and it sometimes seems that the author is being pushed on somewhat by a sense of duty lurking in the back of his mind. There is nothing to fault in the actual content - Lawrence's research remains watertight, and by and large the tale is told as comprehensively as ever, although I'd like to have seen Lotus accountant Fred Bushell granted a slightly higher profile, given both his importance in keeping the company afloat in difficult times, and his role in the DeLorean debacle.

Nevertheless, these criticisms do not detract much from the overall value of this book - and it is indeed an important contribution to the Chapman literature that already exists. Unimpeded by both the strong sense of loyalty to an old friend and the concerns about legal matters that led Jabby Crombac to deftly sidestep some of the more controversial elements of Chapman in his otherwise brilliant biography of a few years ago, Lawrence's book goes a long way toward plugging some big gaps in one of the more fascinating episodes of racing history. Indeed, Crombac's book and this one complement each other beautifully, and if you have the pair of them sitting side-by-side on your bookshelf then you probably have as close to a definitive account of Chapman's life as you're ever likely to see.

SPECIAL NOTE

It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that this review would mark the 100th installment of the book review column on Atlas F1. The 'Bookworm's Critique' had fairly straightforward origins - while traveling in the UK, I bought a particular book about Ferrari to read on the train from London to York - and hated it so much that I wanted to make sure that nobody else wasted their money!

I was a regular visitor to Atlas F1 at the time, and decided to contact the editor, Biranit Goren, on the off-chance that she might want a book review for the site, just for something different. I was rather surprised when she said yes, and even more surprised when she asked for another one. Never once on that train trip to York did I entertain the merest possibility that I'd end up writing 100 of these things … or that they'd play a part in my eventually becoming a full-time motorsport journalist. It's kind of weird the way the world works sometimes.

I don't want to embark upon one of those half-hour speeches that actors embark upon when they receive some trinket for some forgettable flick that they featured in, but I would like to thank all the people that have written to me since the column began. I've had the good fortune to be contacted by a number of the authors whose books I have reviewed (although this gets a little uncomfortable if I didn't like the book), and have also received a lot of emails from readers keen to tell me how helpful (or otherwise) they found a particular critique. All comments, supportive or otherwise, are taken on board so keep them coming!

There are a few plans in the works to broaden the scope of the column over the coming months. Traditionally, we've restricted the review to books that are currently in print and easily obtainable. These titles will still remain a priority, but from time to time I hope to revisit a long-out-of-print classic. A few books are already waiting in the wings, including 'Jim Clark: At The Wheel', 'John Surtees - Eight Days in August', and 'Niki Lauda: To Hell And Back', and more will follow - governed, essentially, by what I am able to get my hands on.

I'm also hoping to supplement selected reviews with mini-interviews with the authors, particularly for the out-of-print titles. Again, this will be subject to the laws of practicality, but with a little planning and a sprinkling of luck, who knows what could happen.

So thanks again, and I hope you all stick around for the next 100. The ride's not over yet!

Mark