Review - Formula One: The Real Score?

An interesting new book is Formula One: The Real Score? By Brian Harvey and Veloce Books. Subtitled A reassessment of driver ability based on an analysis of all F1 and equivalent race results since 1947, it is the author’s opinion that existing attempts to rank F1 drivers are faulty because they are based solely on the drivers’ results in World Championship (WC) Grand Prix races.

Now our younger readers will be puzzled, saying, aren’t all F1 races WC events? Well, that may be true today, and has been for about 35 years, but the old-timers will remember the days when the annual schedule was full of non-championship F1 races that made up for the relatively small number of WC events, which were 10 or fewer for many years. As an example, in 1962 there were 28 F1 races, of which only 10 had WC status!

These non-championship races were typically attended by WC teams and WC drivers, and were often as hotly contested as the points-paying events. There were also fatalities (Ricardo Rodriguez, Jo Siffert) and career-enders (Stirling Moss), so the benefits of these added races weren’t all positive. Among the races were annual events like the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, the International Trophy at Silverstone, the Glover Trophy at Goodwood, the Gold Cup at Oulton Park and the Grands Prix of Pau, Siracusa and Solitude. There were also one-off events, such as “proving races” for circuits planning to host WC events in future years; these included the 1962 Mexican GP and the 1967 Spanish GP. And there were races that were simply not successful, like the 1971 Questor GP at the Ontario Motor Speedway.

The author has included the years before the WC began in 1950 because many of the same teams and drivers participated, and a few of those drivers achieved success but did not make it to 1950 (J.P. Wimille). Every year from 1950 to 1972 gets its own chapter, which starts with a brief description of formula or rules changes since the preceding year, and a list of all the teams and drivers, including prominent privateers like Rob Walker. There is a list of all qualifying events, including F2 races in which WC teams and/or drivers participated, although these get no further coverage.

The F1 races are covered chronologically and are ranked from zero to three stars depending on the level of competition, which enters into the author’s driver ratings. (A few races with very poor competition are not even included, but are discussed briefly at the end of the book.) Then comes length of race, number of entrants, starters and finishers, and the drivers on the front row, followed by a table giving the top three finishers with the margins between them, and the driver with the fastest lap. Then comes a paragraph summarizing the race. At the end of each chapter are the championship standings and an assessment of the season by the author. I should point out that the races listed include similar series like the Argentine Temporada, the Tasman series in Australia & New Zealand, the Formula Libre races of 1952/53 and the Intercontinental Formula of 1961. (The Indy 500, for the years that it was a WC round, is not included.)

The years 1973-1983 are lumped into one chapter because of the steadily dwindling number of non-championship events, which was largely due to the steady increase in the number of WC rounds. (I think that you would agree that today’s WC schedule of 20-or-so races simply doesn’t leave much time for other races.)

There are two galleries featuring 32 pages of photos on glossy paper. These are well chosen and exclusively concentrate on the non-championship events, which is a plus, and I suspect that many have not been published before.

The author concludes with his listing of the 50 greatest drivers, which doesn’t differ from prior lists as much as one might think, but there are a few surprises. He goes on to rank the remaining drivers that won races; I believe the total driver count was 134. And a decent index allows you to find references to a particular driver.

Even if you discount the author’s driver ratings, this is a valuable desk reference because of all the other races that it covers that are not commonly found in F1 histories. That is the reason that I bought the book, and if you’re really a student of F1 history, you’ll probably want to do the same.