F1 Books You've Read/Reading...
Discussion
Read.
Ross Brawn / Adam Parr - Total Competition : Enjoyed it but heavy going at times with the continual references to the Art Of War which spoiled the book for me.
Damon Hill - Watching the Wheels : Really enjoyed it as it was quite frank with his feelings and opinions toward things. I was not a big Damon fan but but it completely changed my opinion of him.
Jonny Herbert - What Doesn’t Kill You : Enjoyed it From the perspective of hearing how he struggled with horrific injuries that would have finished a lot of people off, again it changed my opinion on him.
Marc Priestly - The Mechanic : excellent story especially about his relationship with Kimi, then Lewis / Fernando and how they worked with the team, did feel that he wrapped it up quickly with his final season and Lewis becoming champion. Certainly made me feel differently about all 3 drivers (being a Lewis fan).
Jenson Button - My Championship Year : easy read which I enjoyed as it was all to do with the “Fairy Tale” that was Brawn GP.
Current
Jenson Button - Life To The Limit - more auto biographical and very immersive, just at the point on why he joined McLaren.
To read
Adrian Newey - How to build a car - looking forward to starting that.
Ross Brawn / Adam Parr - Total Competition : Enjoyed it but heavy going at times with the continual references to the Art Of War which spoiled the book for me.
Damon Hill - Watching the Wheels : Really enjoyed it as it was quite frank with his feelings and opinions toward things. I was not a big Damon fan but but it completely changed my opinion of him.
Jonny Herbert - What Doesn’t Kill You : Enjoyed it From the perspective of hearing how he struggled with horrific injuries that would have finished a lot of people off, again it changed my opinion on him.
Marc Priestly - The Mechanic : excellent story especially about his relationship with Kimi, then Lewis / Fernando and how they worked with the team, did feel that he wrapped it up quickly with his final season and Lewis becoming champion. Certainly made me feel differently about all 3 drivers (being a Lewis fan).
Jenson Button - My Championship Year : easy read which I enjoyed as it was all to do with the “Fairy Tale” that was Brawn GP.
Current
Jenson Button - Life To The Limit - more auto biographical and very immersive, just at the point on why he joined McLaren.
To read
Adrian Newey - How to build a car - looking forward to starting that.
Edited by NM62 on Saturday 13th January 14:57
About to read Newey's book but currently reading Howden Ganley's excellent Road to Monaco . What a career- mechanic for McLaren, F3 and F5000 , then F1 with BRM , Can Am and Interserie , 2 litre sports cars, Le Mans etc with Matra, Mirage etc, then set up Tiga with Tim Schenken. A very , very nice man who I was lucky enough to have a long chat with last year.
GarageQueen said:
NM62 said:
To read
Adrian Newey - How to build a car - looking forward to starting that.
just started that one, interesting so far Adrian Newey - How to build a car - looking forward to starting that.
he was very candid as well about the Senna accident
Edited by GarageQueen on Sunday 4th February 18:47
Just finished Chequered Conflict by Maurice Hamilton, picked up a charity shop for £1.
It's a fairly good read about the 2007 season and the battles between Hamilton and Alonso and between Ferrari and McLaren with the spy gate saga.
It compares the 2007 to the 1986 battles between Mansell, Prost and Piquet.
It's a fairly good read about the 2007 season and the battles between Hamilton and Alonso and between Ferrari and McLaren with the spy gate saga.
It compares the 2007 to the 1986 battles between Mansell, Prost and Piquet.
Paul578 said:
The decline of Team Lotus in the post Senna era has always fascinated me. Does the book go into any detail about how Warr led the team through the disastrous 88 and 89 seasons and how he was forced to abdicate with the team at bankruptcy? I mean they screwed up using the Honda turbo engine, were forced to run a second-rate Nakajima, junked active suspension just as Williams proved it was race winning technology (after 4+ years of their own internal development), and how they ended up with such a poor chassis considering they could co-opted work to Lotus Engineering - is beyond me.
Good discussion a few years ago: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...Mark Hughes' recent response to someone asking the difference between Lotus and McLaren:
"The Lotus 100T was a terrible car, with mediocre aerodynamics and a chassis that was nowhere near structurally stiff enough for the loads being fed through it. "You could change settings from full stiff to full soft and it felt exactly the same," reported Piquet in an interview I did with him. Lotus was losing the plot by this time, being left far behind technically as McLaren ramped up the level of resource needed to win. Steve Hallam joined McLaren from Lotus and said: "It was mind blowing seeing the difference. I'd thought Lotus was still a top team until I arrived at McLaren and saw what Ron had done. He'd completely changed the game." The McLaren had a step up gearbox that moved it out of the way, allowing a massively enhanced diffuser, a big engineering challenge but one that - even without the Lotus' other failings - was worth probably over a second per lap. In terms of drivers, post-Imola '87 Piquet, without the depth of vision he'd previously enjoyed, was not in any way comparable to Senna. The McLaren averaged 2.6s (TWO POINT SIX!) per lap faster than the Lotus, with an identical engine. Probably around 2s of that was the difference in cars. To put into perspective how bad a car it was, the Lotus averaged 1.3s per lap slower than the Ferrari despite a vastly superior engine. Had everyone been competitively powered that year, that 2.6s deficit to the McLaren would have had it down near the back of the grid everywhere. It gave the illusion of an average car rather than a disastrous one only because of its massive engine advantage over everyone apart from McLaren." https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opinion/f1/80s-...
Apologies for going off topic.
I've recently finished Newey's book. I thought it was very good & easy to read, although a little disjointed at times due to (unexplained) technical jargon or reference to events not previously written about to the reader- it's as if sections or even chapters were deleted from the final draft.
I thought it gave great insight into his career and reiterated his philosophy for incremental performance gain on engineering that is understood.
The section on McLaren was interesting, especially on how Dennis & Whitmarsh basically screwed themselves and the team with matrix-management.
Also it made me think that in the later years at March what could they have produced if they had the money and a decent gearbox!
It'll be interesting to see what projects Red Bull Advanced Technologies can realise after the Aston Martin Valkyrie is completed.
Next up for me it's JB's autobiography.
I thought it gave great insight into his career and reiterated his philosophy for incremental performance gain on engineering that is understood.
The section on McLaren was interesting, especially on how Dennis & Whitmarsh basically screwed themselves and the team with matrix-management.
Also it made me think that in the later years at March what could they have produced if they had the money and a decent gearbox!
It'll be interesting to see what projects Red Bull Advanced Technologies can realise after the Aston Martin Valkyrie is completed.
Next up for me it's JB's autobiography.
[quote=NM62]Read.
Ross Brawn / Adam Parr - Total Competition : Enjoyed it but heavy going at times with the continual references to the Art Of War which spoiled the book for me
Read the first section of the book about Ross Brawn’s career, loved it. Went onto the second section about the art of war and put it down and now it’s off to the charity shop.
Ross Brawn / Adam Parr - Total Competition : Enjoyed it but heavy going at times with the continual references to the Art Of War which spoiled the book for me
Read the first section of the book about Ross Brawn’s career, loved it. Went onto the second section about the art of war and put it down and now it’s off to the charity shop.
hammo19 said:
NM62 said:
Read.
Ross Brawn / Adam Parr - Total Competition : Enjoyed it but heavy going at times with the continual references to the Art Of War which spoiled the book for me
Read the first section of the book about Ross Brawn’s career, loved it. Went onto the second section about the art of war and put it down and now it’s off to the charity shop.
I couldn't finish it either!Ross Brawn / Adam Parr - Total Competition : Enjoyed it but heavy going at times with the continual references to the Art Of War which spoiled the book for me
Read the first section of the book about Ross Brawn’s career, loved it. Went onto the second section about the art of war and put it down and now it’s off to the charity shop.
Bernie's Game by Terry Lovell is worth a read. I can't find my copy but if you search the web there are later editions with stuff removed, so check which edition you order. Some of the tricks he and Mosley are very amusing and 'creative'.
It's much better than No Angel: The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone by Tom Bower, which I found less impressive and has errors
It's much better than No Angel: The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone by Tom Bower, which I found less impressive and has errors
The best I've read have been
Jackie Stewarts - Winning is not Enough
Martin Brundle - Working the Wheel
Damon Hill - Watching the Wheels
Gilles Villeneuve - The Life..
Senna V Prost - The lenghts these two went to out psych each other hurt my brain.
And a rare book I have is Keke Rosberg (by Keke and Keith Bosward) which is mainly a compilation of interviews with Keke over the years, but does reveal a lot about Keke and particularly his aggressive driving style and what it was like to drive a F1 car in the 80's.
Jackie Stewarts - Winning is not Enough
Martin Brundle - Working the Wheel
Damon Hill - Watching the Wheels
Gilles Villeneuve - The Life..
Senna V Prost - The lenghts these two went to out psych each other hurt my brain.
And a rare book I have is Keke Rosberg (by Keke and Keith Bosward) which is mainly a compilation of interviews with Keke over the years, but does reveal a lot about Keke and particularly his aggressive driving style and what it was like to drive a F1 car in the 80's.
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