The Unfair Advantage (Driving) Paperback – Illustrated, 31 Mar. 2005

This is a real insight into the ups & downs of a racing team, albeit one with a large budget. I have a collection of over 50 motorsport related books and this is by my bedside always. It's the only one I repeatedly re-read and offers an honest view of Mark's abilities and occasional failings. Would he have succeeded without Roger Penske's money, I don't know.I can recommend this to any serious motorsport fan as a must have book.

This book shows how the motorsport evolved in time. It shows how important it is to have a good setup and the playing with the limits of the regulations.

Let me cut to the chase: if you're a fan of motorsports, "The Unfair Advantage" is a must-have.Mark Donohue was one of the first racing drivers to really put a lot of scientific effort into the development of the cars he raced (thanks to his engineering studies); he was also one of the most successful (and underrated) drivers of his time, winning, and often dominating, in nearly every category he participated in. In this book he recollects his racing career in exquisite detail, from the early days of self-funded amateur racing, right up to the Penske-funded professional races in Can-Am, Trans-Am and USAC (and, briefly, Formula One). What's especially impressive is that Donohue is capable of being emotional and entertaining even whilst describing the most in-depth technical aspects of developing and setting up racing cars.The color pictures added to this 2000 edition are also excellent, and take you on a trip down memory lane in the 70s.All in all, this book is wonderful, and it rightfully belongs in the library of every motorsport lover.

Mark Donohue was probably one of the finest racing driver/engineers ever. He developed a number of cars to the peak of competitiveness and raced them with the greatest, in every almost every kind of racing. Although Europeans will associate him most with taming the brutal Can-Am Porsches, and with his tragic death in practice for the '75 Austrian GP, this book covers his whole career - right from SCCA amateur racing via his involvement with Penske in SCCA Pro, Trans Am, Can-Am, endurance racing, Indycars and much more.In this long and engaging memoir he discusses the cars, the races and the people he was involved with in his highly successful career. There are a lot of insights into the way Penske went racing over 30 years ago, as well as into Porsche, Ferrari and Ford's programmes. Donohue the character comes through to some extent; although this is rather more a racing and technical memoir than a personal one it's clear that he was definitely an intelligent and honourable sportsman and a deep-thinker.The book ends with Donohue's decision to come out of retirement and tackle F1 full-time, a decision that was to lead to his death a few months after publication.This new edition reproduces the original (hence the very "Seventies" cover and typography!) and adds excellent colour illustrations, quotes from friends of Donohue's, and a detailed summary of his career.It's a marvellous insight into how racing moved from black art to applied engineering, crisply and entertainingly written by one of the first exponents of rigorous testing and development programmes.