New Book Review: Grand Prix by Will Buxton

Most long time F1 fans will know plenty of F1 history books that have been published and in a variety of different formats from photo albums, paperpack storytelling to kids books (many of which have been reviewed on this site). 

Will Buxton’s (famous F1 TV pundit and Drive to Survive series talking head) new book is the latest attempt to document the rich history of Formula 1 and Buxton has chosen to do it via a hand illustrator rather than using photos.

His hardcover book has a 239 page count and organised into basically 10 chapters. 

The first chapter “What is Formula 1?” is a basic 50 page introduction to key aspects of the motorsport including circuits on the calendar, race weekend, design regulations, safety components in a race car, team factory & garage. There are some neat drawings highlighting the evolution of driver helmets, overalls and car design.

The next 8 chapters showcase each decade of F1 from the 1950s to 2020s with profiles of driver world champions and other famous drivers from that era, from Farina, Fangio through to Stewart, Lauda, Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton, Button to Verstappen. The profiles are full page colour illustrated portraits (driver & car) with a right side page short bio. The 2020s chapter also includes thumbnail portraits of all the current F1 drivers on the grid.

The last chapter deals with the future direction of F1 covering diversity, sustainability initiatives, women drivers and F1 movies in popular culture.

There’s a lot of content in the book included that will keep new F1 fans occupied but older or more knowledgable F1 fans may not find anything significantly new.  For me, I found the first and last chapters the most interesting in terms of fresh content.

Whether or not you prefer illustrations rather than actual photos will largely determine whether you will enjoy this book. My book preference is usually always for excellent photography instead of drawings (with the exception of Giorgio Piola books). That said, the driver illustrations in this book are colorful (Charles, Carlos and Checo might feel their portraits look a bit bloated!) and maybe this book is probably more suitable for younger new F1 fans.

Wow Factor/Money shot: Illustrations of side profile evolution of race cars and safety features of modern F1 cars

Suitable for: New fans to F1