Top British rally driver, Mark Fisher, has found himself at the centre of a police and FIA investigation following a number of shocking admissions made by him in his recently published autobiography, "Why Formula 1 Is Gay."
Fisher, who has competed at the very highest level of the sport, is currently believed to be assisting police with their enquiries in relation to the alleged kidnap and false imprisonment of Gethyn Davis, who was believed to have voluntarily acted as Fisher's co-driver for the last five years.
However, in Fisher's book, he appears to admit that Davis was actually held prisoner by him, strapped into the car against his will and then subjected to terrifying high speed runs of up to 140mph on insanely narrow, bumpy and rock strewn roads for Fisher's own sadistic entertainment.
At a press conference to promote the launch of the book in Cardiff earlier today, Fisher issued an apology to his co-driver for the years of terror he had inflicted on him, saying that he was genuinely remorseful and that he now wanted to make amends and to help the police and the FIA stamp out what he described as a "cruel standard practice" for rally drivers.
"All the top drivers kidnap their co-drivers", he said. "I mean, you don't think anyone would be crazy enough to be a co-driver voluntarily, do you? We all just love scaring the shit out of passengers and kidnapping them was the only way we could get them into the car." He went on to explain that pace notes, the system whereby the co-driver supposedly describes the road ahead to the driver, were a complete sham and had merely been invented by drivers as a subterfuge to provide an excuse for their victims to be in the car. "There isn't any such thing as pace notes", he explained. "It's all just gibberish. I mean, 50 5 left and stop 2 right half minus braking into K right 90 maybe and absolute crest 500. What the hell am I supposed to make of that when I'm going flat out sideways at 90 miles an hour?" he said.
Fisher went on to claim that some co-drivers occasionally became so distressed while racing that they were too scared to even read the pace notes provided to them. He backed up his claim by showing an onboard video of Finnish world rally star Kuni Lahtinnen and his co-driver Peri Harvinsson during the Irish round of the World Rally Championship in 2009. A translation of the co-driver's "pace notes" revealed that he was simply shouting the words, "Oh shit" over and over again, occasionally interspersed with other phrases including, "Watch out for that cat" and, "Slow down, you mad bastard."
Police have declined to comment on what action they intend to take in this matter but have indicated that certain noises coming from the yard of the police station, including turbo charged engine revs, tyre squeals and whoops of joy relate to "examination of evidence" in connection with an ongoing investigation.