Grand Prix!

by Mike Lang 259 pp. 11″ x 8″. GT Foulis & Co., Sparkford, Yeovil, Somerset, BA22 7JJ £19.95

This is a kind of reply to PSL’s Camel’s Complete Grand Prix History Book. It contains two volumes about the F1 World Championship, for the years 1950 to 1973, with each race separately written up. There have been similar books previously but here are easy references to each race, with tables of starting grids, results and retirements. The latter presumably had to be based on what press reports said but there is little more an historian can do towards accuracy unless he attends races himself.

Championship points year by year are obviously prominently listed, but less prominence is given to the Constructor’s Championship points; it should be remembered that this was instituted in 1925 when it was won by Alfa Romeo, and resumed after a break in 1958 (Vanwall). As two volumes, published previously in 1980 and 1981, are incorporated in this one great tome, you get two Forewords, one by Stirling Moss, the other by Jackie Stewart (whose ‘titles’ are not appended to their names). The circuit diagrams are by Colin Edgecombe and there are lots of pictures of drivers as well as of cars. It depends on how much GP history you want and how much you have to spend whether you buy the PSL or the Foulis book. WB