What do you think?
Rate this book
Formula One and Beyond: The Autobiography
Cross Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year'To a Formula One fan, this book is a dream' Independent For almost 50 years, Max Mosley was involved in motor racing, having seen the sport at all as a driver, a team owner (with March) and, between 1993 and 2009, as president of the FIA, motor sport's governing body. In partnership with Bernie Ecclestone, he helped transform Formula One into a multi-billion-pound global brand. Now, in this fascinating and revealing memoir, Mosley gives a compelling insight into the sport and its most influential figures and biggest stars - it is a book that no fan of Formula One can afford not to read. But Mosley's story goes far beyond motor sport, as his life and career have taken him through an extraordinary range of experiences, from being brought up as the son of Oswald and Diana Mosley, who were interned during the war, and having to deal with the taint of the family name; through his vital campaigns for road safety that have helped to save many thousands of lives; and on to the intrusions into his private life that led to a famous court case against the Murdoch press.It is a book that sheds new light on events from Formula One through to Ecclestone's controversial donation of a million pounds to the Labour party. It is packed with behind-the-scenes gossip, vital business tips and some hilarious stories.
512 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 18, 2015
5 people are currently reading
136 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 11, 2016
I’m as big a Formula 1 fan as you will ever meet, but I still learned things from this book. If you are into Formula 1, you can’t afford not to read it.
We don’t have a major literary achievement here; Mosley writes like I imagine he talks and annoyingly refers to previous chapters by number, as if this were some type of legal document. And in the interest of getting non-F1-fanatics to persevere till the end of the book, the bit where he discusses his victory over the News of the World and Rupert Murdoch, he dumbs down the technical bits a lot. Regardless, the fanatic will be well rewarded from reading this tremendous book.
It takes you through Max Mosley’s fascinating –and tragic- life and sheds light on the sundry controversies he was involved in, unwittingly (he did not choose to be Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford’s son) or otherwise.
He comments on his highly nonstandard childhood by saying “being a small child, it never occurred to me there was anything odd about all this.” The funny thing, of course, is that this applies to his entire life, which he manages to recount from a good distance and with excellent humor.
There are chapters about his childhood (he skipped Eton and got tossed in and out of schools across Europe and travelled around a lot), his struggles with Physics at Oxford and his early success at the Bar, his days as a racing car driver, his truly inspiring entrepreneurial years from setting up March F1 to making it the world’s preeminent racing car manufacturer (and engineering legends such as Chris Amon and Ronnie Peterson along the way), his double act with Bernie Ecclestone that upended Jean-Marie Balestre’s FIA, the emergence of Formula 1 as a major business, his years running the FIA, his highly effective NCAP safety campaign (comfortably his biggest legacy), and of course his struggle and victory against The News of the World and Rupert Murdoch.
This being Max Mosley, the story is told “one controversy at a time” and that’s what awesome about it. You get his angle on all of them. At the beginning of the book he’s fighting his poor finances more than anything else (hence that ugly oil tank on the back of the original March F1 –there was no time or money to fit it nearer the middle of the car), later it’s one stunt at a time (the cancellation of the 1975 Canadian GP, the manufacturers’ no-show at the 1980 Spanish GP, the rogue 1981 South African GP, the garagistes’ no-show at Imola in 1982), after that it’s one infringement at a time (six wheelers, the Brabham fan car, water tanks, secret WWII BMW fuel mix, grooved tyres, Ferrari’s Malaysia ’99 barge boards, the Michelin debacle at Indy in 2005, Stepneygate, the Brawn double diffuser, Nelsinho Piquet’s Singapore slingshot), one financial deal at a time (the Concorde Agreement, the £1 million Bernie donation to Tony Blair, the Kirch deal, the 100 year deal) and finally one court appearance and one cross examination at a time.
It’s also told one death at a time. Deaths come thick and fast in this book, and they are woven into the story very well. So Mosley drove several times past Jim Clark’s wreck at Hockenheim in 1968 in his maiden championship F2 race, was personal friends and effectively teammates (sharing Frank Williams’ garage) with Piers Courage when he was killed, close competitor for sponsorship and good friends with Bruce McLaren when he was killed, Roger Williamson’s team manager (and his father’s host in the pitlane) when he burned, had a contract with Ronnie Peterson for the next year when he tragically died at Monza and of course Mosley was the recently anointed FIA boss when Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed.
I came away with enormous admiration for Max Mosley. He’s had a remarkable life and his claim to fame (that the Euro NCAP he instituted has saved thousands of people from a premature, violent death) is genuine and permanent. Also, you’ve got to admire the self-effacing kind of guy who flies to be on the side of the Ratzenberger family for their son’s funeral when all the showboaters were busy carrying Senna’s coffin, sworn enemies included.
And the whole story is told effectively out of the neighbourhood I live in, where Max Mosley spent a large part of his life. I know exactly which café on the Brompton Road he takes his breakfast in when he’s staying at the mews house behind, I once tried to rent out the garage on Adam and Eve Mews where he had parts for the original March fabricated; even the carpet on his picture with his wife lives on (in the scarves Paul Smith sells, if you must ask)
As a fanatic, I have my own, often different, views from the ones expressed here. In particular, I once used to bet very heavily on F1 results and I always –ALWAYS—made money betting FIA decisions would lean in favor of making the championship tighter. The two race ban on Schumacher and subsequent additional exclusion from his amazing Spa victory saved the 1994 championship from ending mid-August, the Malaysia ’99 decision kept Irvine in the game till the last race, the Michelin judgement on those square tyres would probably had been allowed if it tightened the competition, the ban on the third suspension element on the Renaults almost lost a championship for Alonso and the double diffuser made for a wonderful fairytale in 2009, while potentially preventing Toyota from quitting. You won’t find one judgement that consolidated anybody’s lead. But yes, that’s but a conspiracy theory of mine and it was FANTASTIC to be reminded of all those stories (and the money I made betting, that was good too)
So my thesis is the man wasn’t always totally above it all, despite what he says in his book. A good example is how he, a champion of safety (and an extremely effective champion of safety, at that) was happy to look the other way on the sliding skirts issue when he was fighting on the side of Bernie and against the manufacturers. This much he actually, and candidly, admits himself in the book.
Finally, you don’t get to survive the legacy he was given as a young man without nursing some blind spots, and you could drive an F1 car through some of Max Mosley’s. Terribly little on Colin Chapman relative to his stature and no word on the double-chassis, double-banned Lotus 88. There’s extensive coverage of Imola ’82 but not a word on Gilles Villeneuve’s tragic loss weeks later at Zolder (or Elio de Angelis’ premature death testing at Paul Ricard a few years later). There’s not a word on the team orders scandal that shook F1 at the Austrian GP in 2002. Most glaringly, there’s no mention of the fact that his bête noire, Rupert Murdoch, actually owns Sky, who have taken over more than half the live coverage of F1 from the BBC and are allegedly even bidding to buy out CVC outright.
Regardless, you can’t call yourself an F1 fan if you don’t go out there and buy this book NOW.
We don’t have a major literary achievement here; Mosley writes like I imagine he talks and annoyingly refers to previous chapters by number, as if this were some type of legal document. And in the interest of getting non-F1-fanatics to persevere till the end of the book, the bit where he discusses his victory over the News of the World and Rupert Murdoch, he dumbs down the technical bits a lot. Regardless, the fanatic will be well rewarded from reading this tremendous book.
It takes you through Max Mosley’s fascinating –and tragic- life and sheds light on the sundry controversies he was involved in, unwittingly (he did not choose to be Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford’s son) or otherwise.
He comments on his highly nonstandard childhood by saying “being a small child, it never occurred to me there was anything odd about all this.” The funny thing, of course, is that this applies to his entire life, which he manages to recount from a good distance and with excellent humor.
There are chapters about his childhood (he skipped Eton and got tossed in and out of schools across Europe and travelled around a lot), his struggles with Physics at Oxford and his early success at the Bar, his days as a racing car driver, his truly inspiring entrepreneurial years from setting up March F1 to making it the world’s preeminent racing car manufacturer (and engineering legends such as Chris Amon and Ronnie Peterson along the way), his double act with Bernie Ecclestone that upended Jean-Marie Balestre’s FIA, the emergence of Formula 1 as a major business, his years running the FIA, his highly effective NCAP safety campaign (comfortably his biggest legacy), and of course his struggle and victory against The News of the World and Rupert Murdoch.
This being Max Mosley, the story is told “one controversy at a time” and that’s what awesome about it. You get his angle on all of them. At the beginning of the book he’s fighting his poor finances more than anything else (hence that ugly oil tank on the back of the original March F1 –there was no time or money to fit it nearer the middle of the car), later it’s one stunt at a time (the cancellation of the 1975 Canadian GP, the manufacturers’ no-show at the 1980 Spanish GP, the rogue 1981 South African GP, the garagistes’ no-show at Imola in 1982), after that it’s one infringement at a time (six wheelers, the Brabham fan car, water tanks, secret WWII BMW fuel mix, grooved tyres, Ferrari’s Malaysia ’99 barge boards, the Michelin debacle at Indy in 2005, Stepneygate, the Brawn double diffuser, Nelsinho Piquet’s Singapore slingshot), one financial deal at a time (the Concorde Agreement, the £1 million Bernie donation to Tony Blair, the Kirch deal, the 100 year deal) and finally one court appearance and one cross examination at a time.
It’s also told one death at a time. Deaths come thick and fast in this book, and they are woven into the story very well. So Mosley drove several times past Jim Clark’s wreck at Hockenheim in 1968 in his maiden championship F2 race, was personal friends and effectively teammates (sharing Frank Williams’ garage) with Piers Courage when he was killed, close competitor for sponsorship and good friends with Bruce McLaren when he was killed, Roger Williamson’s team manager (and his father’s host in the pitlane) when he burned, had a contract with Ronnie Peterson for the next year when he tragically died at Monza and of course Mosley was the recently anointed FIA boss when Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed.
I came away with enormous admiration for Max Mosley. He’s had a remarkable life and his claim to fame (that the Euro NCAP he instituted has saved thousands of people from a premature, violent death) is genuine and permanent. Also, you’ve got to admire the self-effacing kind of guy who flies to be on the side of the Ratzenberger family for their son’s funeral when all the showboaters were busy carrying Senna’s coffin, sworn enemies included.
And the whole story is told effectively out of the neighbourhood I live in, where Max Mosley spent a large part of his life. I know exactly which café on the Brompton Road he takes his breakfast in when he’s staying at the mews house behind, I once tried to rent out the garage on Adam and Eve Mews where he had parts for the original March fabricated; even the carpet on his picture with his wife lives on (in the scarves Paul Smith sells, if you must ask)
As a fanatic, I have my own, often different, views from the ones expressed here. In particular, I once used to bet very heavily on F1 results and I always –ALWAYS—made money betting FIA decisions would lean in favor of making the championship tighter. The two race ban on Schumacher and subsequent additional exclusion from his amazing Spa victory saved the 1994 championship from ending mid-August, the Malaysia ’99 decision kept Irvine in the game till the last race, the Michelin judgement on those square tyres would probably had been allowed if it tightened the competition, the ban on the third suspension element on the Renaults almost lost a championship for Alonso and the double diffuser made for a wonderful fairytale in 2009, while potentially preventing Toyota from quitting. You won’t find one judgement that consolidated anybody’s lead. But yes, that’s but a conspiracy theory of mine and it was FANTASTIC to be reminded of all those stories (and the money I made betting, that was good too)
So my thesis is the man wasn’t always totally above it all, despite what he says in his book. A good example is how he, a champion of safety (and an extremely effective champion of safety, at that) was happy to look the other way on the sliding skirts issue when he was fighting on the side of Bernie and against the manufacturers. This much he actually, and candidly, admits himself in the book.
Finally, you don’t get to survive the legacy he was given as a young man without nursing some blind spots, and you could drive an F1 car through some of Max Mosley’s. Terribly little on Colin Chapman relative to his stature and no word on the double-chassis, double-banned Lotus 88. There’s extensive coverage of Imola ’82 but not a word on Gilles Villeneuve’s tragic loss weeks later at Zolder (or Elio de Angelis’ premature death testing at Paul Ricard a few years later). There’s not a word on the team orders scandal that shook F1 at the Austrian GP in 2002. Most glaringly, there’s no mention of the fact that his bête noire, Rupert Murdoch, actually owns Sky, who have taken over more than half the live coverage of F1 from the BBC and are allegedly even bidding to buy out CVC outright.
Regardless, you can’t call yourself an F1 fan if you don’t go out there and buy this book NOW.
April 12, 2018
Invaluable research for my upcoming book www.1994f1.com
Mosley implies in 1994 Benetton weren't playing fair and highlights discrepancies within their black box after that fateful San Marino GP, and their fuel filter after Hockenheim. Motor racing enthusiasts will delight in his take on the in-fighting, back-stabbing in 1993/94 but more importantly how he worked to make F1 safer following the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. All is discussed in more detail in my upcoming book.
However Mosley is talented at spinning things his way. For instance he categorically shuts down any suggestions whether a return to simpler cars in 1994 contributed to the accidents that year. Others equally informed F1 insiders disagree with that point of view - All is discussed in more detail in my upcoming book. Also Mosley makes out like he made a morale choice to go to Roland Ratzenberger's funreal instead of Senna's. When the truth is he wasn't allowed into Senna's funeral at the request of his family. Berger & Herbert attended both funerals.
Mosley implies in 1994 Benetton weren't playing fair and highlights discrepancies within their black box after that fateful San Marino GP, and their fuel filter after Hockenheim. Motor racing enthusiasts will delight in his take on the in-fighting, back-stabbing in 1993/94 but more importantly how he worked to make F1 safer following the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. All is discussed in more detail in my upcoming book.
However Mosley is talented at spinning things his way. For instance he categorically shuts down any suggestions whether a return to simpler cars in 1994 contributed to the accidents that year. Others equally informed F1 insiders disagree with that point of view - All is discussed in more detail in my upcoming book. Also Mosley makes out like he made a morale choice to go to Roland Ratzenberger's funreal instead of Senna's. When the truth is he wasn't allowed into Senna's funeral at the request of his family. Berger & Herbert attended both funerals.
February 10, 2019
Max Mosley is certainly not the most popular figure of motorsport these days, not only due to his fascist father but also down to the News of the World scandal which ultimately ended the paper’s existence.
But like or loathe Max Mosley m, his is without a doubt a man of action and one who helped mould Formula 1 into its current form both as a team owner and as President of the FIA.
This autobiography includes an in-depth look at Max Mosley’s life both in the media spotlight and out of it, shedding light on his formidable partnership with Bernie Ecclestone and the harsh realities of the politics that has marred F1 since the 1980s.
But like or loathe Max Mosley m, his is without a doubt a man of action and one who helped mould Formula 1 into its current form both as a team owner and as President of the FIA.
This autobiography includes an in-depth look at Max Mosley’s life both in the media spotlight and out of it, shedding light on his formidable partnership with Bernie Ecclestone and the harsh realities of the politics that has marred F1 since the 1980s.
October 7, 2016
Max Mosley has led a life which provides plenty material for an autobiography. Born during World War 2 to a father who had led Britain's main fascist party, his parents wedding guests had included one Adolf Hitler. In the 1960s he tried to make it as a professional racing driver, getting as far as Formula 2 and racing against some of the sport's all-time greats before deciding to focus his attentions instead on establishing a racing team and joining forces with Robin Herd, Graham Coaker and Alan Rees to set up March Grand Prix. He spent eight years there, slowly becoming more interested in running the sport than running a team. This led to his teaming up with one Bernard Charles Ecclestone to run the Formula One Constructors Association, which was largely responsible for turning the sport from a minority interest to an international television sport. Ten years on from that, he succeeded Jean-Marie Balestre as the head of the FIA – the organisation he had fought in the 1980s for control of the sport, running it for nearly twenty years and finally passing on the torch to Jean Todt shortly before his seventieth birthday. Whereupon he became a leading light in the Leveson Inquiry, calling for greater restrictions on the press' ability to report the private lives of public figures (and others) after finding himself at the centre of a tabloid 'scandal' about his sex life.
The problem I had with the book is that I too often found Mosley giving many pages over to what to me were the less interesting aspects of his life story, and skipping over the most intriguing parts. His early years growing up as the son of Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford are dispatched in a mere 7 pages (I can't say I buy his take on his father's politics either. While, having seen Max Mosley on Question Time, I'm prepared to take him at his word that he's essentially a political centrist, I think it requires a major re-write of history to claim the same was true of his dad. Still if he's determined to defend his father's memory, I suppose it's better that he pretends Oswald Mosley was not a fascist than that fascism is misunderstood.) His Formula 2 career is similarly dispensed with quickly and with little detail. The section of the book that deals with March Engineering is one of the better parts of the book, though if like me you've read Ted Simon's 'A Chequered Year' the most interesting part of it – the team's first year - will be quite familiar. By contrast, he gives over far too much space (to my mind at least) to the story of how the FIA sold a 100 year lease on the commercial rights to the sport to Bernie Ecclestone. I'm aware that there have always been those who claimed that the FIA made a serious mistake in doing so (or worse, that they did so because they had been bribed) and I thought Mosley's argument – that if they hadn't done a deal with Ecclestone, there is every chance that he would have been able to argue that the rights de facto rested with him already (or at least, that it is not clear what it is that the FIA actually had the rights to) and cut the FIA out of the deal entirely – was plausible. But I'm not sure that I wanted to wade through the whole affair in quite the level of detail that Mosley provides.
There's little in the way of introspection here. Whether it is because (notwithstanding his willingness to dedicate some sixty pages or so to the legal battles that followed a tabloid sting about his sex life) he is an essentially private man, or whether he is something of a stranger, even to himself, I don't know. There is only the briefest explanation of what it was about motorsport that captured his imagination when he first went to a race in the mid-60s. He never really says why it was that he stopped racing himself – the book simply moves on from his F2 racing to March Grand Prix. A passing reference, much later in the book, to how meeting a senior law lord left him feeling much the same as he had done when he went up against Jochen Rindt in an F2 car years before suggests that he realised that he simply wasn't quite good enough (actually he makes a few comments, for example, about tweaking his F2 car in order to try to gain an unfair advantage that might make up for what he lacked in terms of ability behind the wheel which suggests he was always aware of his limitations). He also gives little away with regard what he actually thinks of anyone – seemingly willing to more or less give the benefit of the doubt to more or less everyone, insisting, for example, that he had no real beef with Ron Dennis (though I couldn't help thinking that when he quoted Bernie Ecclestone as saying that “Ron was fine £5m for the breach of the rules and £95m for being a cunt about it” he was letting Ecclestone act as his ventriloquist's dummy) and crediting his sometime nemesis Balestre with achieving much to improve motorsport safety (though in his polite, lawyerly way, he does rather hint that he was as much of a pompous arse as he appeared).
The end result is a book that takes a story that could, in the right hands, have been of interest to a much wider audience than the subject matter might initially suggest, and misses that opportunity. There's enough material of interest here to keep someone like me, who grew up with F1 constantly in the background, reading. But it had the potential to be much better had he got a better editor, and had he been more willing or able to tell us what he actually thought.
The problem I had with the book is that I too often found Mosley giving many pages over to what to me were the less interesting aspects of his life story, and skipping over the most intriguing parts. His early years growing up as the son of Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford are dispatched in a mere 7 pages (I can't say I buy his take on his father's politics either. While, having seen Max Mosley on Question Time, I'm prepared to take him at his word that he's essentially a political centrist, I think it requires a major re-write of history to claim the same was true of his dad. Still if he's determined to defend his father's memory, I suppose it's better that he pretends Oswald Mosley was not a fascist than that fascism is misunderstood.) His Formula 2 career is similarly dispensed with quickly and with little detail. The section of the book that deals with March Engineering is one of the better parts of the book, though if like me you've read Ted Simon's 'A Chequered Year' the most interesting part of it – the team's first year - will be quite familiar. By contrast, he gives over far too much space (to my mind at least) to the story of how the FIA sold a 100 year lease on the commercial rights to the sport to Bernie Ecclestone. I'm aware that there have always been those who claimed that the FIA made a serious mistake in doing so (or worse, that they did so because they had been bribed) and I thought Mosley's argument – that if they hadn't done a deal with Ecclestone, there is every chance that he would have been able to argue that the rights de facto rested with him already (or at least, that it is not clear what it is that the FIA actually had the rights to) and cut the FIA out of the deal entirely – was plausible. But I'm not sure that I wanted to wade through the whole affair in quite the level of detail that Mosley provides.
There's little in the way of introspection here. Whether it is because (notwithstanding his willingness to dedicate some sixty pages or so to the legal battles that followed a tabloid sting about his sex life) he is an essentially private man, or whether he is something of a stranger, even to himself, I don't know. There is only the briefest explanation of what it was about motorsport that captured his imagination when he first went to a race in the mid-60s. He never really says why it was that he stopped racing himself – the book simply moves on from his F2 racing to March Grand Prix. A passing reference, much later in the book, to how meeting a senior law lord left him feeling much the same as he had done when he went up against Jochen Rindt in an F2 car years before suggests that he realised that he simply wasn't quite good enough (actually he makes a few comments, for example, about tweaking his F2 car in order to try to gain an unfair advantage that might make up for what he lacked in terms of ability behind the wheel which suggests he was always aware of his limitations). He also gives little away with regard what he actually thinks of anyone – seemingly willing to more or less give the benefit of the doubt to more or less everyone, insisting, for example, that he had no real beef with Ron Dennis (though I couldn't help thinking that when he quoted Bernie Ecclestone as saying that “Ron was fine £5m for the breach of the rules and £95m for being a cunt about it” he was letting Ecclestone act as his ventriloquist's dummy) and crediting his sometime nemesis Balestre with achieving much to improve motorsport safety (though in his polite, lawyerly way, he does rather hint that he was as much of a pompous arse as he appeared).
The end result is a book that takes a story that could, in the right hands, have been of interest to a much wider audience than the subject matter might initially suggest, and misses that opportunity. There's enough material of interest here to keep someone like me, who grew up with F1 constantly in the background, reading. But it had the potential to be much better had he got a better editor, and had he been more willing or able to tell us what he actually thought.
July 10, 2019
An essential read
A real fascinating behind the scenes look at the administration of F1 and the role of the FIA. Very well written and an interesting read for any F1 fan, particularly the story of the 1994 Imola GP aftermath and 2005 USGP debacle.
A real fascinating behind the scenes look at the administration of F1 and the role of the FIA. Very well written and an interesting read for any F1 fan, particularly the story of the 1994 Imola GP aftermath and 2005 USGP debacle.
April 9, 2023
Excellent read. Such an interesting man and what an interesting life
August 1, 2024
Very dull. I struggled to finish it.
May 19, 2017
Gripping reading for lovers of motorsport, the politics of motorsport, and the ongoing battle against the excesses of the Press
A tremendous read. The inside story of F1, advances in car safety worldwide in the last 20 years, and Mosley's campaigning work in recent years to curb the Press's flagrant abuse of power. Very well written indeed.
A tremendous read. The inside story of F1, advances in car safety worldwide in the last 20 years, and Mosley's campaigning work in recent years to curb the Press's flagrant abuse of power. Very well written indeed.
January 25, 2016
A very fast paced account of an interesting life - from visiting parents in gaol as a baby and toddler, to running the Governing Body of world motorsport and being at the forefront of Formula 1 as a constructor and administrator.
Mosley takes many gentle digs at Bernie Ecclestone - the pair having been joined at the hip for much of their respective rises through the sport.
Working as the founder and constructor of March race cars at the time where, sadly, deaths in motorsport were rather commonplace, Mosley takes a very cold and clinical approach to those that lost their lives along the way.
He reserves quite an amount of the book to addressing the News Of The World controversy and taking on the might of Rupert Murdoch to clear his name.
Mosley doesn't do many others favours - there's a liberal dose of self promotion and tooting his own trumpet - but he makes a fascinating account of many of the biggest controversies that have struck F1 since the beginning of the World Championship.
He comes across as an enjoyer of Rallying, which this author found somewhat surprising, and a very good insight is given into the stringent road safety and manufacturing initiatives that Mosley pushed through throughout his tenure as FIA President. Ultimately, the road safety side of his role with the motoring clubs and re-organisation of the FIA will be his lasting legacies.
The book tends to end rather abruptly, leaving it open for another edition. There's no real reflection on his achievements or looking ahead to round it off, which was kind of unusual.
Worth a read if you've followed Formula 1 or the motoring industry.
Book 1 of 2016.
Mosley takes many gentle digs at Bernie Ecclestone - the pair having been joined at the hip for much of their respective rises through the sport.
Working as the founder and constructor of March race cars at the time where, sadly, deaths in motorsport were rather commonplace, Mosley takes a very cold and clinical approach to those that lost their lives along the way.
He reserves quite an amount of the book to addressing the News Of The World controversy and taking on the might of Rupert Murdoch to clear his name.
Mosley doesn't do many others favours - there's a liberal dose of self promotion and tooting his own trumpet - but he makes a fascinating account of many of the biggest controversies that have struck F1 since the beginning of the World Championship.
He comes across as an enjoyer of Rallying, which this author found somewhat surprising, and a very good insight is given into the stringent road safety and manufacturing initiatives that Mosley pushed through throughout his tenure as FIA President. Ultimately, the road safety side of his role with the motoring clubs and re-organisation of the FIA will be his lasting legacies.
The book tends to end rather abruptly, leaving it open for another edition. There's no real reflection on his achievements or looking ahead to round it off, which was kind of unusual.
Worth a read if you've followed Formula 1 or the motoring industry.
Book 1 of 2016.
June 3, 2017
Interesting read. Still unsure what to think about it. Mosley had a habit of jumping back and forth in time, and I think it was a calculated maneuver to try and get people to not dwell on the Formula One commercial rights deal that went down under his watch. That deal is considered by many to be one of the all-time con jobs in sports business. Ending it on his lawsuits and battles with News of the World also distracts. While it was a big story at the time as were his subsequent legal battles, most people reading this are doing so for the Formula One/FIA information. In addition he glosses over his childhood. It's known his family had links to Hitler and the Nazis which he does acknowledge, but casually moves on from it all. But what do you expect from a man who's initial professional career was that of a solicitor? He knows the ins-and-outs of how to weave a story of seeming ordinariness, so as to disarm the reader into believing this a logical and highly rational man...which he is in plenty of instances. However it serves as a great smokescreen on the more delicate subjects as he's able to dance clear across the ice with a deftness that defies belief. Only the serious motor racing fan should read unless curiosity is harbored about the News of the World battles Mosley engaged in.
October 10, 2015
A bit technical in part, but I was lucky my husband picked the interesting bits for me. He loved all of it.
May 26, 2016
Turgid and boring. A real disappointment to read.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews