When Massimo Burbi, watching television aged 8, saw Patrick Tambay win the 1983 San Marino Grand Prix, he became a fan. More than 30 years later, he has collaborated with his childhood hero as a labour of love to create this book. Nowadays he runs his own engineering design studio in Tuscany, Italy.

The Cahier Archive is the only photographic collection covering the history of the Formula One Championship to have remained in the hands of its original authors. Two photographers have built this archive: Bernard Cahier and his son Paul-Henri, giving the collection two very different styles. Bernard was a reporter and had the gift to make people truly live events through his pictures. Paul-Henri, on the other hand, has always leaned towards an artistic approach to photography. The common ground of their photos though, is that they always go beyond the illustrative dimension.