Clearly a troubled individual, his curious mixture of insecurities, ego and stupidity had combined to form a dangerous cocktail. Through his extraordinary duplicity, the ultimate vanity project was unwittingly financed by funds embezzled from his employer.

Leaving the obligatory driver change until the last moment permissible under the regulations, he then had to watch in frustration as his hard work was undone and Munroe slipped down the field to an eventual fifth place.Despite more than thirteen years working in this industry, I was unaware of many of the stories featured. The elite who recognised it as the ultimate supercar of the time included celebrities such as Elton John, George Harrison and Rowan Atkinson. Biography: Crispian Besley is a first-time author with a life-long interest in cars and a passion for motor racing.

Within a couple of weeks Goodwin was formally signed up as lead driver, replacing Lockie for reasons that were never made clear. The next outing for the AM Racing McLaren F1 GTR was back at Silverstone, this time for the biggest British GT Championship event of the season, as one of the support races for the British Grand Prix on 11th July. There’s no doubt that Crispian’s book is a tough read, sometimes depressing, often crushing our idols; people and sportsmen we looked up to. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Judge Josh Lait was not sympathetic and said when summing up: ‘This was a serious and continued breach of trust carried out over a substantial period, executed by false documentation.

With it all seeming so easy, the regularity with which he sent phoney invoices to his employers spiralled out of control. Indeed, his abiding memory of the team patron was watching him leave the Silverstone paddock as pillion passenger on the back of a motorcycle and disappear into the sunset. When Goodwin flew in from America, where he had been racing at Sebring, and topped the official pre-season testing sessions at Silverstone, spirits were high and Spires said: ‘It couldn’t have gone better. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH).

In defence of his 36-year-old client, Peter Warne told the court: ‘Munroe describes himself, or his creation, as “a monster which he could not stop”. As the champagne flowed at the Veuve Clicquot-supported event, the slightly chubby accounts manager from Wokingham revelled in all the attention he received from the numerous photographers and journalists, but in reality he looked almost as out of place in those surroundings as he did on a race circuit.

Behind the wheel at Silverstone, however, was not Lockie but Chris Goodwin, who coincidentally had raced the very same chassis for its previous owners in the 1997 FIA GT Championship and had been drafted in for this session. He made up the lost time before handing over to Munroe, who brought the car home a disappointing sixth, nearly two laps down on the winner. Indeed, the only recognition he ever seemed to receive over the course of two seasons with the F355 came at Croft, North Yorkshire, when the race commentator lavished inordinate attention on his car just because its red-and-white harlequin livery looked similar to nearby Sunderland football club’s team strip.