Jon Saltinstall grew up not far from Donington Park, where he witnessed his first motor race at the recently reopened circuit when aged 13, after winning tickets in a local newspaper competition. Already fascinated by the sport, which he had followed ever since he knew it existed, and enthused by watching the 1973 British Grand Prix on TV, he was by then a confirmed Ferrari fan and took particular interest in the rise of the Italian team’s young Austrian driver, Niki Lauda. Thanks to his uncle, whose job with a magazine wholesaler helpfully provided him with ‘unsaleable’ copies of Autosport, he obsessively pursued his interest in the sport.
While following a career in banking, Jon continued to expand his hobby as an amateur motorsport historian. His admiration for Lauda led him to embark on writing the book he wanted to read. Nine years of research and writing followed, and the result, Niki Lauda: His Competition History (Evro Publishing, 2019) was shortlisted for the RAC Motoring Book of the Year Award in 2020. His second book, Jacky Ickx: His Authorised Competition History (Evro Publishing, 2022), was written with the collaboration of its notoriously self-effacing subject and won the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Suzuki Award for the Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy in 2023.
Married with two grown-up children and two granddaughters, he lives in Leicestershire.
