Armstrong's book is about fighting back against seemingly overwhelming odds to achieve greatness (in his case, the American survived an extremely grim cancer prognosis and went on to become a multiple winner of the Tour de France). After I put it down I started to wonder about similar books to have come out of racing, and the best example I could come up with was "To Hell and Back" - Niki Lauda's account of his recovery from his blazing shunt at the Nurburgring in 1976.

The Austrian was so badly injured that he was given his last rites while in hospital, but he made a remarkable return to the driver's seat after spending just a couple of months convalescing, and went on to add two further World Championships to the one that he picked up in 1975. And Lauda, of course, would later play a big part in getting Webber into Jaguar Racing. So there's a two degrees of separation deal going on - kind of.

"To Hell and Back" is one of those books that deserves more recognition than it gets. Autobiographies of reasonably contemporary drivers (this came out in 1986) tend to be hit-and-miss affairs, but this book was Lauda at his pragmatic best. Funny, matter of fact, enlightening and acerbic in roughly equal doses, it reminds you just how astute Niki was - and makes you wonder how it all went so wrong when he took the helm at Jaguar. Although it's now out of print, "To Hell and Back" is relatively easy to find if you spend a bit of time lurking around second-hand book shops, and it's usually pretty cheap, too. If you haven't got it, start searching.

Of course, if you can't be bothered looking for an old copy and need a Niki fix now, then you could always check out Alan Henry's latest offering, "Four Seasons At Ferrari: The Lauda Years".

The scope of the book is fairly self-explanatory, and it's a story that Henry is well-positioned to tell. As one of the sport's longest-serving typewriter jockeys, Henry was right there on the scene while the rollercoaster relationship between Lauda and Enzo Ferrari was playing out.

Henry sketches an engaging reconstruction of the 1974-1977 seasons, with a good balance of the author's own observations and quotes from the main players themselves. Particularly interesting was the continuous charting of the development of Ferrari's 312, which is supplemented with some clear shots of the car from various angles with sections of bodywork removed. This is further enhanced by the very funky, very large x-ray drawing of the car that dominated the colour plates in the centre of the volume.

It's rather ironic, though, that some of the most interesting material in the book relates to Lauda's career after he left Ferrari. A good example is his recollections of winning the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix for Brabham at the wheel of the infamous BT46 'fan car':

"I tell you, it was the easiest win I ever scored. You could do anything with that car. I was pressing Mario Andretti very hard for the lead when one of the Tyrrells, Didier Pironi's I think, dropped all its oil over the racing line and the track became very slippery.

"Mario's Lotus was sliding all over the place and my Brabham was just sitting there as if on rails. Then Andretti made a small mistake coming through a corner, I pulled to the inside and just nailed him coming out, no problem at all.

"It was remarkable, but you had to alter your technique to drive it properly. I remember when we were testing at Brands Hatch, on the club circuit, when you came through Clearways you didn't back off to kill the understeer as you would on a normal car. You just booted it even harder, the thing just sat down firmly on the track, you were through the corner and away - it was great!" (p. 161-162)

Generally speaking, it is a difficult book to fault, except for that fact that it's hard to work out the premise behind producing it in the first place - apart from the fact that it is about Ferrari, and Ferrari, one presumes, is a name that helps sell books. It's not as if Lauda's career is not already well documented, and despite his obvious comfort with the subject Henry doesn't seem to add anything new to what is already known about one of the more tumultuous unions in recent Formula One history. It's a story that has been told many times before. As well written as it is, this book seems to do little more than cover the same ground again.