The combined appeal of Fangio's deeds on the track and his modest yet undeniable charisma away from it long ago secured the Argentine driver a previously unheard of status - and not just within the confines of the sport and its followers.

Accordingly, an awful lot has already been written about his career. The generalities of his life away from the track are also well-known, however the subtitle of this new effort suggests an attempt to focus on Fangio the man, rather than Fangio the race driver.

So does it succeed? Well, yes and no. There balance between the emphasis on Fangio's public and private life is still skewed heavily toward the man in the spotlight, and it's probably safe to assume that the man himself would not have had it any other way - although it might prove frustrating to historians who can already belt out statistics and accounts of races in their sleep, and want to fill in some of the other gaps. I'm not one of them though, so for me the balance seemed just about right.

In particular, I liked the way that Donaldson dealt with his accounts of Fangio's Grand Prix participations. There is nothing more tedious than lap-by-lap race reports, and Donaldson's approach of allowing each race a few concise paragraphs that summed up the shape of the weekend did a nice job of maintaining the narrative's momentum without compromising on the detail.

Given that a few generations now stand between Fangio's heyday and the present, it's probably no great surprise that this book draws mostly upon existing information, such as race reports and earlier long-out-of-print biographies. But that said, Donaldson's effort is a good example of how such material can be used to pretty good effect.

Donaldson has woven a good yarn. While I have read a reasonable amount about Fangio over the past few years I'd hardly proclaim myself an expert, so I can't speak for the rarity of some of this material. That said, I was especially taken in by Donaldon's account of Fangio's career prior to his move to Europe. The author has dug up a lot of information about both the nature of pre-war racing in South America and Fangio's place in it, a lot of which was new to me. Good stuff.

And it's not short on anecdotes, either. One that particularly grabbed me was the account of his influence on the decision to modify the Circuito Costanera Norte's layout in 1951 to favour the more nimble Alfas rather than the supremely powerful Mercedes-Benz cars - a move made all the more resonant by Fangio's otherwise inscrutable sense of fair play. On this occasion, however, karma got him back when Neubauer invited him to lead the Mercedes assault on the race. Fangio, unable to turn the opportunity down, was forced to accept the offer, and found himself facing a disadvantage of his own making.

Predictably, the Mercedes had a hard time of it, and Fangio went on to finish third in the first race and retire from the second.

"Sometimes when you do something you ought not to have done, you get punished for it," Donaldson reports Fangio as saying. "God needs no whip to punish, as the saying goes. That's what happened to me." (p. 125). Another good example of some of the little gems that are scattered through this book waiting to be unearthed is Fangio's reflections upon his well-publicised kidnapping in the late 1950s.

"There is no doubt that the people in the movement got what they wanted by kidnapping me, but they had no idea how popular this made me in the United States. From Havana, I went to Miami to rest for a few days, and the mayor met me and handed me the keys to the city. Then I was given $1,000 to go to New York and appear on television on The Ed Sullivan Show, along with champion boxer Jack Dempsey. I had won the World Championship five times, and I had raced and won in Florida, but what made me big in the United States was being kidnapped in Cuba - which I thought was a bit strange." (p. 242).

For the Kimi and Fernando generation, this book is the perfect starting point to find out more about somebody whose name you probably know vaguely as one of those guys who raced back when the world was in black and white. Having some historical context adds an extra element of enjoyment to watching the sport today, and 'Fangio' is an excellent way to dip a toe into the water. For the casual racing fan it's a brilliant read and would be the perfect companion on a long flight, while for the more seasoned historian, well, there are certainly less pleasant ways to brush up on your knowledge.