Publishers Weekly
05/13/2024
This rip-roaring debut from journalist Richards profiles the individuals, most of them behind the scenes, who keep Formula One teams up and running. He details how Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner takes a hands-off approach, reasoning that personnel work best when given wide latitude to exercise their own initiative. Discussing the role of head strategist, Richards explains how Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake’s Ruth Buscombe games out plans for myriad contingencies (faster-than-expected tire degradation or weather changes, for instance) and runs through them with drivers and engineers to prepare for races. A chapter dedicated to McLaren driver Lando Norris reflects on the pressures of the limelight (he reports eating little on race days due to nerves), but the overall focus is on F1’s unsung contributors. For instance, Richards discusses how Red Bull Racing machinist Neil Ambrose manufactures custom parts and how McLaren pit mechanic Frazer Burchell views track-side repairs as “an extremely well-rehearsed” dance. The revealing profiles of performance coaches, engineers, mechanics, and technicians capture the collaboration and strategic calculations that go into making champion racers, providing a panoramic view of F1’s inner workings. Racing fans will want to take this for a spin. (July)
From the Publisher
An intriguing look behind the drivers of Formula One…a treat for racing fans.”—Kirkus
“This rip-roaring debut from journalist Richards profiles the individuals, most of them behind the scenes, who keep Formula One teams up and running… Racing fans will want to take this for a spin.”—Publishers Weekly
Kirkus Reviews
2024-05-08
An intriguing look behind the drivers of Formula One.
As former champion Damon Hill puts it in his foreword to Guardian sportswriter Richards’ book, race car drivers are “the last people to arrive and the first people to leave.” In their shadow stands an astonishingly large army of support personnel. In the case of Red Bull Racing, more than 450 people are involved in one way or another. Richards goes ringside to examine these working parts—and on that note, one of his interviewees, McLaren F1 logistics coordinator Sarah Lacy-Smith, observes that a modern F1 vehicle contains about 14,500 parts, each with the potential need to be changed out at any moment, meaning that she and her crew need to know exactly where each of those parts is at any given moment. “You have to be quite good at memorizing stuff,” she notes, with typical British understatement. Most of the author’s interviewees are Brits on his home turf, though there are some other internationals, including the McLaren team’s chief mechanic, a Finn who grew up on a farm and got his start tinkering with tractors and other agricultural equipment. It’s refreshing that so many of the narrative’s principals are women, including Ruth Buscombe, the head of “race strategy” for the Alfa Romeo team who went to Cambridge to study engineering because, already set on a career in racing, that’s what some of her F1 idols studied. Who knew that there was someone who planned strategy for people whose apparent task is simply to zoom around as fast as possible? And who knew that there’s an alternate team that wins races not on the track or course but inside a simulator? Richards’ book is full of such surprises, and it’s quite the revelation.
A treat for racing fans, especially those who prefer Le Mans to Talladega.
