View Chasing the Title
“Chasing the Title: Memorable Moments from 50 Years of Formula One”
By Nigel Roebuck
Book Review by Gregg Leary
Category:Formula One
I just KNEW “Chasing the Title” was going to be a very good book when I found three fascinating nuggets of Formula One information in the three page Introduction.
1: “On one occasion the (Formula One) title went to a driver with fewer points than another. In 1988, Alain Prost scored 105 to Ayrton Senna’s 94, but at that time a driver counted only his 11 best results, and thus Senna became World Champion, by 90 points to 87. Since 1990, every point has counted.”
2: “Between the visits to Spa in June 1952 and June 1953, no one but Alberto Ascari won a World Championship Grand Prix.”
3: Juan Manuel Fangio’s 24 victories came in only 51 Grands Prix… 47% winning percentage.
The book is divided into 23 Chapters and contains 64 vintage black and white photographs and 41 color images.
IMOLA, 1994-The day everything changed
JUAN MANUEL FANGIO-Maestro
SILVERSTONE, 1950-Players versus gentlemen
TONY BROOKS-The unknown genius
PHIL HILL-American in Maranello
1967-The last simple year
ROB WALKER-Profession: Gentleman
SILVERSTONE, 1969-A game for two players
PIERS COURAGE-Frank’s favourite driver
JOCHEN RINDT-Working without a net
MONZA, 1971-This slipstreaming lark
DENIS JENKINSON-The little man with the beard
JAMES HUNT AND INNES IRELAND-Leaving the party early
DIJON, 1979-Second best
1982-Season of turmoil
DALLAS, 1984-Keeping a cool head
ADELAIDE, 1986-The great race
ENZO FERRARI-His terrible joys
NIGEL MANSELL-A problem for every solution
PROFESSOR SID WATKINS-The Surgeon-General
AYRTON SENNA-I race, therefore I am
BERNIE ECCLESTONE-Absolute power
MIKA HAKKINEN-New Age champion
Nigel Roebuck is a superb storyteller and is able to crystallize his knowledge from over thirty years of covering Formula One racing into a fast paced read that zooms by like the spectacle of a grand prix weekend. Roebuck also has a keen ear for interesting quotes and used his trusty reporter’s notepad and tape recorder to document many that are excellent.
Stirling Moss: “If you make racing safe, you obviously lessen the challenge. If you watch high-wire artists, you don’t get the same feeling if they’ve got a safety-net do you? I’d try to walk on a wire two feet from the ground, but I sure as hell wouldn’t across the Grand Canyon! The skill required is exactly the same in both cases, but the challenge is not.”
Juan Manuel Fangio…5 Time World Champion… described his last and greatest victory.
“Even now I can feel fear when I think of that race. I knew what I had done, the chances I had taken. The Nurburgring was always my favorite circuit. I loved it and I think that day I conquered it. On another day it might have conquered me. I took myself and my car to the limit, and perhaps a little more. I had never driven like that before, and knew I never would again.” Fangio retired at the end of the year. He said, “Racing is beautiful when you are full of enthusiasm, but when it becomes work you should stop.”
Fangio talks about visualization and sports psychology long before such things were popular. “In the Grand Prix of Argentina in 1955 the heat was impossible. Drivers were collapsing. I felt no better than they did, but I imagined I was a man waist-deep in snow-it was the only way to go on. And in that way I was able to finish, and win.”
“Chasing the Title” is a must for rabid Formula One fans. Some of the topics covered include:
What Medical Chief Professor Sid Watkins said to Ayrton Senna at the scene of Roland Ratzenberger’s fatal accident at Imola in 1994.
Who said, “For 12 years God had his hand over Formula 1. This weekend he took it away.”
When were crash helmets made mandatory in Grand Prix racing?
Who was the only driver Jim Clark feared?
Who said, “We make history. You only write about it”
Who is Denis Chevrier talking about when he says, “To Nigel, a racing car is like a toy to a child-and when it doesn’t work as it should, he behaves like a kid with a broken toy.”
Nigel Roebuck’s “Chasing the Title” has more than 300 pages of fascinating facts, quotes and anecdotes. I rate it four out of five lug nuts.