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A review by villyidol
Formula One: The Champions: 70 Years of Legendary F1 Drivers by Maurice Hamilton
adventurous
informative
fast-paced
3.25
A book about the 33 Formula 1 World Champions at the time (this was written before Max Verstappen became the 34th driver to win the title).
I only picked this up because I wanted to read the chapters about Kimi Räikkönen (brief, but good), Jim Clark (disappointing) and Ayrton Senna (okay, with a few nice passages). But I ended up reading at least 80% of it, so I decided to add and rate the book after all.
It's a short book. One only gets between 6 and 10 pages per driver, which includes some space for (nice) pictures. So, one shouldn't expect to get much more than a basic idea what kind of a person and driver the respective champion was.
The foreword was written by Bernie Ecclestone, who (gasp) chose Alain Prost as the greatest of them all. But Bernie being Bernie, a day later it could have well been Fangio. And then the week after maybe it was Senna. Well, at least he picked someone that is in the conversation. This is a question that is impossible to answer anyway.
Who had been the best of them all also isn't a question the book even tries to answer. In fact, it doesn't answer much of anything for people that already know a lot about the history of the sport.
I still enjoyed reading it. And it reminded me why I had been a fan of Jacques Villeneuve back in the day, what with his peculiar personality, a mix between nerd and adrenalin junkie, and his meteoric rise before his star burned up early.
I also realized that Nelson Piquet's personality had some similarities to James Hunt and Kimi Räikkönen, two drivers I admired. Piquet, on the other hand, I couldn't stand. But that's mostly down to his fraught relationship with Ayrton Senna, I think. Although, watching the late 70s and early 80s F1 seasons recently made him rise some places in my personal ranking of best F1 drivers.
Anyways, neither a bad nor a great book, this was decent entertainment for two or three evenings. I just wish that chapter about Jim Clark had been better.
I only picked this up because I wanted to read the chapters about Kimi Räikkönen (brief, but good), Jim Clark (disappointing) and Ayrton Senna (okay, with a few nice passages). But I ended up reading at least 80% of it, so I decided to add and rate the book after all.
It's a short book. One only gets between 6 and 10 pages per driver, which includes some space for (nice) pictures. So, one shouldn't expect to get much more than a basic idea what kind of a person and driver the respective champion was.
The foreword was written by Bernie Ecclestone, who (gasp) chose Alain Prost as the greatest of them all. But Bernie being Bernie, a day later it could have well been Fangio. And then the week after maybe it was Senna. Well, at least he picked someone that is in the conversation. This is a question that is impossible to answer anyway.
Who had been the best of them all also isn't a question the book even tries to answer. In fact, it doesn't answer much of anything for people that already know a lot about the history of the sport.
I still enjoyed reading it. And it reminded me why I had been a fan of Jacques Villeneuve back in the day, what with his peculiar personality, a mix between nerd and adrenalin junkie, and his meteoric rise before his star burned up early.
I also realized that Nelson Piquet's personality had some similarities to James Hunt and Kimi Räikkönen, two drivers I admired. Piquet, on the other hand, I couldn't stand. But that's mostly down to his fraught relationship with Ayrton Senna, I think. Although, watching the late 70s and early 80s F1 seasons recently made him rise some places in my personal ranking of best F1 drivers.
Anyways, neither a bad nor a great book, this was decent entertainment for two or three evenings. I just wish that chapter about Jim Clark had been better.