In the 1970s Team Managers were paid a fraction of what they get today. Caldwell considers how the team is more important than the drivers.

I had the misfortune of being born five years too early or having quit too soon because it wasn’t long after I left that they began to realise that the most important person in the team was my style of person. Now, my style of person – the Technical Director if you like – changes hands for as much as the drivers do. People now get paid millions of pounds a year to do what I used to do for £10,000.

I was the most important person in the team, for certain. The driver is important but not anywhere near as important as the people that run the team. No matter how good the driver is, if he’s in a crap team, he’s a crap driver. The team makes all the difference. I always used to say if you lined up the Ferrari team, all 600 of them, you could machine gun the whole lot apart from the three or four guys who run the team. The two drivers: shoot them, no problem because by the next race the management will have hired two hot-shots from a lesser team. The driver is good for publicity but he’s not make or break.

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1981 Making Lists
• 1981 Signing on
• 1981 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing