Racers : The Acclaimed Story of the 1996 Grand Prix Season Richard Williams

by Richard Williams

The 1996 Grand Prix season was a battle between three highly different personalities: Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve. This book gives an account of the season as it unfolded in episodes of increasing tension and unexpected developments.

Genres: Nonfiction

290 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Richard Williams is the chief sports writer for the Guardian and the bestselling author of The Death of Ayrton Senna and Enzo Ferrari: A Life. He is a lifelong fan of Nottingham Forest.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Williams’ story of the 1996 F1 season is a character-driven narrative, focussing primarily on the awkward, decent Damon Hill and his fight against Jaques Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, and himself.

And as is usual for Williams, this is full of lengthy digressions into F1 history, its economics, engineering, etc. - which is where his love of the sport really shows.

In my view Racers is not quite as successful as Williams’ other F1 books, but it’s still comfortably better than most other authors can manage.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

The year of 1996 was the year that came good for Daemon Hill. For the previous two years he had been a runner up to Schumacher, but he had just moved to Ferrari and the car there was new.

In the team with him was Villeneuve, a rookie in formula 1, but a champion already in Indy car and hungry for wins in his new sport. Both of them had had their fathers race in the sport, and they were always being compared to them.

Williams has written a fairly good account of that season, it's ups and downs, the intrigue and the drama, the technology and the battle for the championship that finally went Hills way.

Not a bad read of a season to remember.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting insight into the 1996 F1 season - supposedly focussed on Schuey, Villeneuve and Hill but actually giving a good view of many of the movers and shakers in the sport past and present. 10 years have gone by, but its good to view from a distant perspective and see what has happened to the drivers and teams over the following decade.