Eoin Yong pays tribute to his friend and fellow author Chris Hilton

Sad to hear that prolific motorsport author Chris Hilton died in a Berlin hotel at the end of November. In addition to motor racing books he was also fascinated with Hitler and the Berlin Olympics in 1936. His book "Hitler's Olympics" is on display in the Berlin museum! He told me he was there researching a new book "How Hitler Hijacked World Sport".

Chris arrived in Formula 1 at the 1981 Canadian GP, commissioned to report the race for a Fleet Street daily paper…and he'd never been to a race in his life! Since then he devoted himself to his new sport, totally researched all aspects of it, and wrote a series of books on drivers from Nuvolari to Senna and Schumacher. Along the way there were books on Le Mans '55, Jacques Villeneuve, Ken Tyrrell, Mika Hakkinen, Murray Walker and many others.

Earlier in November we had discussed Tom Rubython's book on James Hunt and he explained his reason for not wanting to read it. "I took a decision when Senna died that I would not read any of the outpouring of others because I felt it might influence me, and I didn't want to be influenced. It was not arrogance, I assure you, but simply that a lot of people would be going through it all again and again and I didn't want that cluttering what passes for my mind. I wanted to be able to go and find what I wanted to find."

A talented wordsmith and a good mate has gone.

Eoin Young