Formula One: The Pursuit of Speed: A Photographic Celebration of F1's Greatest Moments

by Maurice Hamilton, Jackie Stewart (Contributor), Paul-Henri Cahier (Photographer)

The adrenaline-fueled, high-octane world of Formula One has created some of the greatest moments in sporting history. From the intense rivalries between teams and drivers, such as Alain Prost and Arton Senns and 2015's Rosberg and Hamilton, to the infamous tracks that have created moments of tragedy and triumph -- F1's greatest moments read like a film script.

The Cahier Archive has captured the drama from the 1950's to the present day including Lewis Hamilton's 2015 winning season. It is fulled with stunning behind-the-scenes shots, from pit stops to personal moments, beautiful portraits of the drivers and atmospheric shots of the racing in action. Structured around three Drivers and Rivalries, Teams and Cars, and Tragedy and Triumph of the Circuits, Formula 1: The Pursuit of Speed captures the intensity and beauty of the sport. Each sectionis introduced with vivid essays by F1 correspondent Maurice Hamilton, and filled with the Cahier's beautiful and resonating photographs, many unpublished giving a behind-the-scenes look at the world of F1.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sports

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2016

Reviews

[Andrew Doran · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the surface this book looked really good — select photographs from a father and son's archive spanning their many years of covering the sport with accompanying text from Maurice Hamilton — but having finished it I found myself disappointed.

The work is organised into three somewhat arbitrary chapters: driver rivalries, teams and tracks. Although the book is big there are only a couple of pages and an odd paragraph dedicated to each subject, such as a particular driver rivalry, which left me unsatisfied and wanting to know more; but I do accept that an in-depth account is not the point of this book. A couple of pages had me reaching for Wikipedia, for example to look into the very dangerous F1 track at Berne, Switzerland, which I had never heard of before. Given the preamble and forward by Sir Jackie Stewart I was expecting to see lots of interesting, intriguing and revealing photographs but felt disappointed by the selection here. There just weren't enough new insights from the photos to leave me 'wowed' and keep my interest.

This book is probably good for someone who has only just started to get an into Formula One and us interested about its heritage as it provides enough jumping-off points for you to explore elsewhere; for long-term fans of the sport I don't think there is enough here to justify spending on such a big book.

[Xantd999 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is greatly put together and worded. Also the images tie things together perfectly for me.
Another thing is that it is going through the time periods with a lot of grace. All together this is an amazing book and i would highly suggest reading it if you are into formula 1. This book also makes for an amazing gift.
This book is also not to long or short so if you are stuck to your devices this is a good length book to get into so your not on a device. It also has the ability to give you an amazing picture in your head of what is going on. And if it doesn't for you There are still pictures!

And if i had to change anything about this book it would be to go into more context on the other drivers. It puts a lot of focuses on rivalries and things like that while also leaving everyone else in the dust. Which i feel does not help the idea of this book. But over all this book has a lot more good than bad to it and that is why i give it a 5/5 stars.

[Tyson Wetzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful pictures, makes a great coffee table book for the F1 fan

[David Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maurice Hamilton wrote the words and Sir Jackie Stewart wrote the foreword, but there's no need to bother with reading this book. That's not to say the words aren't good, but this book is all about the photographs.

My wife brought the book home from the library for me and at first I didn't even look at the cover to see who put it together. I went straight to the pictures. I pointed to one and said, "That's by Bernard Cahier!" He's the only F1 photographer I can name off the top of my head. Well, him and his son. All the photos here are by the Cahiers. And they are fantastic.

I did read the words. I looked at the photos as I worked through the text. Then I went through it again, just taking in the photos.

[Colin Murtagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Father and son Paul-Henri Cahier & Bernard Carhier have been photographing F1 for decades, and this is a taster of their work. Going from the 1950s up to the 2016 season, virtually every important driver and car makes an appearance.
It is however arranged in a bit of a weird order. After the initial introduction, the book is split into 3 parts.
The first is driver rivalries. The obvious ones, Senna/Prost etc are all their, but some like Vettel/Webber I'm not entirely sure deserve the same scrutiny. Not that there is a lot of text. The photography takes centre stage here, and the text is a distant second place. Some of it could have been expanded on a lot. The majority of it was stuff I already knew, but I'm not entirely sure if that's a bad thing. It looks like the text is there to put the photography in context, and to try and let the pictures speak.
The second part is the teams and cars. This to me is a little too short, and possibly focussed too much on the usual suspects. Saying that there are some lovely shots of the Matra I've not seen before. Jaguar and Benneton are both there, but no Brawn?
Finally there are the circuits. Got to admit, there are a few circuits that I'd not heard of, and possibly the addition of a circuit map, especially for the long gone circuits would have made it a little clearer, but seeing F1 cars on a circuit with cobble stones on, is something I'd never thought I'd see. Wonder how the modern cars and drivers would cope with it.
There are a few quibbles with it, but as a photographic document of the changes over the years, it's well worth a look

[Emiliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is perfect because the images added in the book are one in a million. I have never seen this images in any social media. The facts that the author gives you are very good, it gives you a mood where you are inspired to become an f1 driver. And I think I would recommend this book to a person who wants to enter to the sport of f1 because it will get you very passionate about this beautiful, dangerous, and fast sport.

[Kathy Smitheman · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son enjoyed this book much ore than me, but his level of interest in this subject was far beyond the detail provided in the book. Perhaps book should be indicated for f1 enthusiasts just starting out?

[Alexandru · Rating 4 out of 5]

So nice and so short. Great book of memories for old fans of Formula 1. Beautiful pictures and short stories about them.

[Jessica Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

After just having started watching F1 in the current season, it was great to get a broader perspective of the sport's history in terms of drivers, teams, and tracks. Fantastic!

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

3

[Dylan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Truly a poor overview(?), history(?), or introduction (?) to F1. I got interested in the sport, thanks to the Netflix “Drive to Survive” series and wanted to learn more. This book is maddeningly random in its layout, and astonishing poor in its writing. The photos are fine, but they’re without meaningful organization. The reader has no coherent narrative to work with: no real history of the drivers, teams, tracks, or cars. One finds 100s of images, without exposition or theses. Instead, this book is little more than a scrapbook.