Formula 1: The Knowledge - Reviewed

As computers have become more pervasive in life, so have the extent of sports statistics. In baseball, stats were once mainly limited to battering average, wins & losses, RBIs, HRs, ERA and a few more. Now we have stats like OPS, WHIP, WAR and many others, some of which, even as a fan, I still can't figure out.

It's been the same in motorsports, and the stats the on-screen reporters come up with sometimes makes you say "where did they get that one from?" Well, a new book from David Hayhoe, long-time stats editor for "Autocourse" and editor of the "Grand Prix Data Book", provides a whole lot of stats in a very enjoyable format. The book is called "Formula 1: The Knowledge", and has actually been around since 2016, when it was self-published by the author. Now a new second edition has been published by Veloce, making it easier to get.

As can be seen on the contents page below, there are 27 chapters, mostly listing particular stats first for drivers and then for constructors, plus four useful appendices. Rather than getting into a lot of detail, I'll direct you to Veloce's website, which has sample pages from the book. It's 542 pages and quite heavy, but you'll want to keep it by your easy chair so you can pick it up in your free time and peruse the many stats and stories. Incidentally, it does include stats from the 1950-1960 Indianapolis 500s, which were rounds in the World Championship, but these are kept separate from the stats for the "real" Grands Prix. Stats are complete through the end of the 2018 season.

As an example, here's a remarkable entry from the first chapter, "Coincidences":
Perfect symmetry
Jack Brabham won Jacky Ickx’s first race: Ickx won Brabham’s last
Alan Jones won Alain Prost’s first race: Prost won Jones’ last
Alain Prost won Ayrton Senna’s first race: Senna won Prost’s last
Ayrton Senna won Michael Schumacher’s first race: Schumacher won Senna’s last
Michael Schumacher won Jenson Button’s first race: Button won Schumacher’s last

Another interesting coincidence is that the 1959 British GP had 4 drivers entered named Taylor, none of which was related to any other! There are also some interesting coincidences concerning the only father & son World Champions, the Hills and the Rosbergs.

https://www.veloce.co.uk/shop/products/productDetail.php?prod_id=V5237&prod_group=Motorsport&

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