Warring team-mates, cheating engineers, striking drivers, fake crashes and avoidable tragedies – Formula 1: The Controversies looks at the scandals that have rocked motor sport’s top series.
Spanning 75 years of racing drama, this book explores the defining flashpoints of Formula One history, including Oscar Piastri’s contested move to McLaren and the power struggles within Red Bull. You’ll revisit bitter team¿mate battles such as Prost vs Senna, cases of industrial espionage, race¿fixing and even world champions attempting to game the qualifying process at Monaco.
You’ll discover:
- Some of the craftiest attempts to bypass the tech rules from Benetton to Ferrari.
- The spying revelations that almost bankrupted McLaren.
- A scandal that ended the reign of F1’s most controversial boss.
- The furious team-mate battle at Ferrari, when neither driver finished the season.
- A grand prix in Spain where teams fixed the crash barriers themselves.
- A beloved German driver who died on the brink of world championship glory.
- How the son of a world champion ‘fixed’ F1’s first nightrace.
- The modern-day tragedy of Jules Bianchi – and how it almost happened again…
- Why James Hunt was wrong to blame Riccardo Patrese for a tragedy at Monza.
- When Sebastian Vettel flouted team orders to get payback on his team-mate.
- The years-long feud between two of the greatest drivers in F1 history.
- How Ferrari’s love of team orders spectacularly backfired (at a cost of $1m).
Written by an Autosport journalist whose career spans from the Villeneuve–Pironi era through the Senna–Prost rivalry and the explosive Schumacher–Hill season of 1994, this book offers rare, first¿hand insight. Gain fresh perspectives from a writer who stood in the paddock as these events unfolded, interviewing Villeneuve and Pironi, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill – and who still lends his expertise to the Channel 4 commentary team today.
This is a gripping insider’s account of Formula One’s most defining moments.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Foreword
Introduction
Sportsmanship wins
Tragedy at Monza
Stewart’s accident starts a mission
Ferrari boycotts the Grimaldis
Montjuic madness
Hunt versus Lauda
The Lotus 79 beater
Patrese scapegoated for Peterson crash
FISA + FOCA = FIASCO
Drivers go on strike!
Villeneuve vs Pironi
Tyrrell – Battling the all-powerful turbos
Senna vs Prost at Suzuka
The inevitable showdown
No triumph out of Senna tragedy
Mosley sells F1 to sole bidder
‘You hit the wrong part of him, my friend!’
Dennis orders Coulthard to move over...again
FIA hands Ferrari a lifeline...
Fans protest at Todt’s orders
Todt and Mosley help sink Indianapolis
BAR gets barred
Schumacher gets a parking penalty
‘Spygate’ threatens to sink McLaren
Mosley revelations spark a privacy campaign
Crash!
The Brawn supremacy
‘Fernando is faster than you’
Vettel gets his payback
Bianchi’s accident provokes change
The mysterious case of extra sensory deception
A title fight like no other!
Sign on the dotted line...
Massa sues 17 years on!
Power struggle at Red Bull
The ‘hands off’ FIA president…
Index
Picture credits
