The Pits: The Real World of Formula 1 (Hardcover)

These points are actually not very interesting for a book published in 2004 as they've been made at length for years, and much more forcefully elsewhere than here. There is, perhaps, a magazine article's worth of arguments on these topics in the book, but not an especially ground-breaking article as the examples and anecdotes related to support the author's point just don't rise to the level of especially new or interesting.

Formula One is a business, and its participants are a little rough around the edges: we're supposed to be surprised?

There are two other interesting themes that the author starts to develop. First, that the sport is resistant to welcoming women drivers and that the men who run the sport have an old fashioned view of the role of women in F1. The second side theme is that as the sport creates new racing venues in the developing world to escape bans on cigarette advertising, it is destined to lose its touch with its European racing heritage. These seem to me to be more interesting points and the author starts to do a good job of making them - especially the point about women.

But again, there's about a magazine article's worth of material here, and I think these important points could have been done more justice. In the end, these themes are not enough to redeem the book. They are made, lightly outlined, and then dropped.

As a result, it's hard to figure out the audience for this book. The casual reader, I think, would be lost, as many personalities, racing venues and facts are presented with little context. If you're not a fairly well informed fan already, you would be lost reading this book. On the other hand, if you know enough about F1 to make it through all the inside references you probably would not see much new here.

Overall, I was just disappointed that the author did not pick up any of the serious topics addressed here to really dig in with fresh, original reporting.

Just one example: the ongoing public controversy regarding F1's displeasure with the British Grand Prix venue at Silverstone. One would think that the author -- a British TV presenter -- is ideally placed to give us the real "behind the scenese" story about what's going on among the BRDC, Sir Jackie Stewart, Max Moseley and Bernie Ecclestone, and whether the effort to move the GP to London is really serious, and whether the government truly believes it has a role in spending significant dollars to keep the race at Silverstone. She could also have spent real time exploring the facts -- comparing the public accommodations at Silverstone to other venues. She could have examined the costs it would take to upgrade Silverstone. At the very least, she could have had a single conversation with her former colleague Martin Brundle and told us more about Silverstone and the inner political workings of British motorsport than what makes the book. Instead, we got little more than the public back-and-forth that is already in the newspapers - pretty thin for a book (the quotes are not nearly as colorful as this year's threats by Bernie Ecclestone to strangle Sir Jackie with his kilt).

Likewise -- how about a single, serious interview with Bernie Eccelstone? How about a conversation with any of the big sponsors -- certainly there are enough big sponsors in Britain that the author could have had a penetrating conversation (not a quick sound bite) with one of them. Instead, we get tidbits from cocktail parties and photo shoots with Mark Webber. The author makes clear, over and over, in the book that she is not an F1 insider. But as an author and journalist the author owes us more work before taking our money.

What finally sank this book for me, though, (and merited its one star vs. a higher ranking) is the statement in the final chapter that she left ITV because she was the victim of dirty tricks by her colleagues. Wait a minute! Isn't that the story? We struggle through an entire book of grim anecdotes about boring cocktail parties and in the final few pages she asserts that her career was torpedoed by her colleagues? There are absolutely no facts presented here to support that assertion. Seems to me that either that allegation should be supported and the story told in full, or it should have been deleted entirely. It indicts all her colleagues (are we to suspect them all of ill-doing?) without really making her case. It's a careless way to put a book together, and emblematic of the problems of this book in general.

A final note: some reviewers seem to be forming their opinions of this book based on the book's statements about women. Just to clarify, I agree with the author's points about women. Formula One's record in regards to women seems dreadful, and the fact that it uses scantily clad women as "grid girls" each Sunday seems to advertise to the world that it is proud of its retrograde attitude toward women. The sport would benefit if (a) it bought some clothing for the grid girls and (b) put together a concerted effort to sponsor young women drivers in the lower ranks so that the sport overall would be stronger in future years. Yet: however much one agrees with the author's points about women, it's still not a very well formed book.