FORMULA ONE: THE CHAMPIONS

Hello, and just to recap: with the 2019 advent of the popular* (seven seasons!) Formula One tell-all Netflix docudrama series entitled Drive to Survive and then the new big screen, bigger (loud) soundtrack, biggest (high dollar) racing bromance eponymously named F1 The Movie*, along with two (count ‘em two) F1 World Championship races in America (no other single country is afforded two F1 races in the same year), more people are becoming aware of the world-wide nature of this premier, high dollar, single-seater/open wheel sport.

For the ones looking for amazingly beautiful illustrated guide to the thirty-four drivers who have piloted these sleek machines to World Championships for the past three quarters of a century, Formula One: The Champions is a smart, colorful, and engaging place to meet up with all of the thirty-four world class race drivers who amassed seventy-five World Championships between them.

As we just said, many Formula One fans are going to be meeting a wonderful group or historic drivers, some of whom they may well have never read or heard about.  Suffice to say that they are very likely to be greatly surprised (as well as entertained and educated) with what author Maurice Hamilton has to relate about each of the members of this cadre of true champions.  

This is a BIG book: 9 inches by12 vertical and the size makes amazing use of the great photography of the late, legendary motorsports photojournalist Bernard Cahier and his son Paul-Henri. 

The elder Cahier’s race reports from Europe (F1 and sports car events) in the '60s and '70s in Road & Track magazine updated, informed, and excited a whole generation of American road racing fans.. 

Just for the record, virtually all of the shots (three hundred plus) really don’t need long-winded cut lines at all, their imagery perfectly captures page after page of the special aura that’s part and parcel of Formula 1 racing.  

The faces and the places here are all the real deal.  Every shot in this very complete book of true motorsports heroes fully belongs there.  

“Beautiful” really seems like it should be the wrong word here in this high speed, dangerous, no quarter asked for (nor given) sport but it actually fits.

There are fully thirty-four names on this honor roll of Formula 1 racing champions.  Each in turn is cataloged and commented on in terms of the times that they competed and the sort of competition that they faced every time that they stepped into racing machines always designed and built to be the fastest, most advanced racing vehicles of the day. 

Each FIA World Driving Champion chronicled here is given a full page portrait which (for me anyway) starts to tell that Driver’s story before the first sentence about him comes into view on the pages of story content that follow the portrait.  Here’s a few random notes on some of the stars of this book.

There’s the Argentine, Juan Manuel Fangio, five times the World Champion, in his split fame goggles, short sleeve shirt and what almost looks like a thousand-yard stare, his calm demeanor belying the fire that he brought to every race he ever ran.

There’s a smiling Scotsman, Sir Jackie Stewart, three-time World Champion and outspoken advocate for driver safety in an era where driver fatalities were all too common. After hanging up his helmet he continued his fast-paced style, only now it was race announcing that had a real ring of authenticity. 

There’s Formula One’s very own “Peck’s Bad Boy” James Hunt the Brit who was as good at being a wastrel as he was at being a F1 driver.  Hunt smoked, drank, and womanized in volume but still found time and the energy to win a World Championship in 1976.

Two Americans celebrated in this special list of honor.  Mario Andretti and Phil Hill.  Almost generation apart on the track, Hill winning his championship in 1961 and Andretti stepping to the top mark on the podium in 1978.  Both California native Hill, and Italian/Croatian transplant Andretti showed speed and a keen sense of the challenge of racing against the best of their time.

Brazil’s Ayrton Senna won three World Championships (1988, 1990, and 1991).  He was a phenomenon in a field of racers that all had the talent and credentials to be there.  He was cerebral, aloof, and straightforward.  But, however brief as he was in conversation, he was practical magic in a racecar.  His untimely 1994 death at the San Marino Grand Prix at age 34 in an accident caused by the failure of a chassis component was mourned by F1 fans worldwide.

There’s Niki Lauda who won three World Championships (1975, 1977, and 1984).  Notice that seven-year gap between his last two championships?   He was horribly burned in 1976 in a fiery accident in the German Grand Prix that, he came back to win the ‘77 title and, remarkably won his final Championship in ‘84.  “Rush” a feature film directed by Ron Howard which detailed Lauda’s ‘76 accident and his rivalry with the afore mentioned James Hunt, came out in 2013.

One more:  Sebastian Vettel, one of the happiest of Formula one hot shoes and one of the best as well as his World Championship tally of four (2010-2013) bears witness to. This guy loved winning and let everyone know it, he didn’t strut and look down on the vanquished, he celebrated his drive, his team’s work, he jumped like an NBA point guard and fully celebrated the thrill of doing well in a sport that he loved.

Okay, that leaves the below twenty-plus other knights of the road to read much more than the above squibs, and a good reason for serious Formula 1 people (old timers and just come aboard new converts alike) to latch on to this book … these are the stories of real racing and real racers who all took the challenge and who (though their paths varied greatly) all became Formula One World Champions.- DS

*And which has now been officially been recognized as the highest grossing racing movie OF ALL TIME.