FLAT OUT, FLAT BROKE - FORMULA 1 THE HARD WAY! BY PERRY MCCARTHY

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FLAT OUT, FLAT BROKE — FORMULA 1 THE HARD WAY! BY PERRY MCCARTHY ISBN 1-85960-886-8 Published by Haynes Publishing, L1799

SHOULD YOU EVER NEED

reminding why you watch, and racing drivers race, watch Montoya through Eau Rouge — or read this book. You’ll realise that you have neither the skill — nor the determination. Perry McCarthy has always been excellent at describing his career in a series of memorable anecdotes, and here they are, strung together in book form. The reader is frequently left racked with sympathy at the author’s outrageous misfortune, or in convul

sive sobs of laughter. You’re left in no doubt about how much it hurt each and every time Lady Luck kicked him in the stomach, but McCarthy’s humour won through in life, and does so again on the page. Friends whom he matched for talent at F3 level — Damon Hill, — Mark Blundell, etc — found fame in the sport, yet McCarthy never once gets maudlin. Instead, he cloaks his annoyance in finely expressed wit. This is an utterly fantastic read. DM

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER — THE GREATEST OF ALL? BY CHRISTOPHER HILTON ISBN 1-85960-873-6 Published by Haynes Publishing, £19.99

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER

is not a fascinating character. He can be tender or mean, magnanimous or condescending, generous or unethical. Or any stop in between, He is, in fact, just like you and me.

But that is what makes Michael a fascinating man. As this book proves, with analysis of statistics, data and interviews from a variety of sources, Michael is an ordinary human being (whatever the British press want you to believe) with an extraordinary gift. And as this book proves, Schuey has built upon this wondrous talent to achieve extraordinary success. What he does is something incomprehensible to us. Not only that, those who do comprehend it — his rivals —

cannot, with very few exceptions, come even close to emulating it. Christopher Hilton has taken major steps to explaining why, and that is to be much admired. The fact that he doesn’t quite answer the question in the tide matters not one bit. DM