Formula 1 2012 Car And Driver
By Peter HighamPublication date: December 2017This book is the second in a multi-volume, decade-by-decade series covering the entire history of Formula 1 through its teams and cars. This instalment covers the 1970s, when the sport gained big new sponsors and grew into a television spectacle, with battles between Ferrari and Cosworth-powered opposition a continuing theme. As well as the big championship-winning teams – Lotus, Ferrari, McLaren and Tyrrell – this was a period when small teams and privateers continued to be involved in significant numbers and they are all included, down to the most obscure and unsuccessful. Peter Higham works in motor racing as a freelance writer and project manager. For nearly 30 years he worked for Haymarket Consumer Media, the publisher of motor racing magazines and websites, and he continues to be the event director of the prestigious Autosport Awards. For half of that period he was director of LAT Photographic, which is the world’s largest motor racing photo archive. A motor racing enthusiast since watching his first race in 1973, he has written three previous books on the subject, including the award-winning International Motor Racing Guide.
“Peter Higham certainly is an encyclopaedic author, and is behind many all-you-need books on Formula 1. Now he’s tackling the cars themselves, decade by decade. It comprehensively charts every single-seater to have graced (or disgraced) the starting grid. From the Mexican Team Rebaque to Ecurie Evergreen, they’re all here, but the dominance of the big guns from Lotus, Ferrari and Terrell is of course omnipresent. The book is jam-packed with single-car photos relaying as much visual information as possible. Ideal for a superb reference book that you’ll find yourself pulling off the shelf constantly.”Classic & Sports Car“Higham’s detailed research adds fascinating nuances to familiar elements but the real joy comes in sifting through the obscurity (such as Tony Trimmer in the Maki, or a young Bobby Rahal’s cameo in a Wolf WR5), photographed throughout in full colour.”F1 Racing“ Formula 1 Car-By-Car 1970-79 keeps up the high standard set by the previous book.
More than just a coffee table book of pretty car pictures, it’s a superbly detailed reference work too.”www.racefans.net “Higham’s method is to delve into the nooks and crannies. While using the phenomenal LAT archive. The result is a series of gems hitherto lost in the mists of time. The treat here is seeing colour photos of all the driver/car combinations – in the case of BRM in 1972, that means Beltoise, Howden Ganley and Peter Gethin in both P160 and P180 models, Bill Brack and Brian Redman in P180, and Reine Wisell and Helmut Marko (yes, that one) in P160 and P153.
That’s 14 driver/car combinations for one team in a single season.”Autosport“Encapsulating an entire decade’s worth of F1 racing into pictures and tales of individual cars and teams makes for an interesting read, and allows you to get a feeling for the evolution of the politics and technologies of the era. And what an era the 1970s was.
Awesome cars, iconic drivers, epic battles, and the dawn of ground effects, turbos and major-league sponsorship. Higham covers the many minnows, too, most largely forgotten.”Octane“Year-by-year chronicle of arguably the most creative period in F1 history. Colourful and enjoyable.”Classic Cars“This book is a must for fans of F1 nostalgia. Improvements in photography over the era mean this edition’s imagery gets better as it goes on. It's a really complete account of the entire decade.”Auto Express“Higham’s book covers each season individually, discussing each team’s fortunes and technical developments. An intriguing read.”Classic Car Weekly“A wonderful trip through the most colourful and eccentric decade of Grand Prix racing.”Automobilsport (Germany).
Lewis Hamilton, the greatest race-car driver of this generation, has big plans for 2017: Recapture a Formula One title he lost under bitter circumstances. And help his sport catch fire in AmericaPiercing screams swallow up Lewis Hamilton as he enters an amphitheater at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in Austin on a warm evening in late October. Hundreds of fans have been waiting for hours, pressed against a gate, in hopes of getting something, anything, autographed by the fastest driver on the planet. They shove hats, programs, posters, even cell phones in his direction. One clever devotee places a cap on the tip of his selfie stick, like bait on a rod, and stretches it over the throng. Another name-drops Hamilton’s pet bulldog: “Sign this for Coco!” he shouts. “I love your f-cking dog!
You’re my f-cking hero!” Hamilton smiles and signs the hat. Fittingly, Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” blares over the loudspeakers. Here, the British-born race-car driver is as big as a pop star. Photograph by Thomas Prior for TIMEIn the U.S., however, such recognition is rare. Formula One comprises 11 teams with two drivers each, backed by brands like Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari. Over some 20 races spread across eight months and five continents, the teams fight for the Constructors’ championship, while each driver vies for the individual title. America hosts just one race per year, the fall Grand Prix in Texas, and Formula One lags in popularity behind homegrown racing circuits like NASCAR, not to mention the NFL, NBA and many other pro and college sports.
“So many people I meet in America ask me, ‘What’s Formula One?’” Hamilton says before walking out to his autograph session a day before the Austin race. “What, do you live in a shoe box? Haven’t you at least heard of it?”For years the American market has vexed Formula One, even as it grew into one of the most popular sports elsewhere in the world. The races are often televised at odd hours and rarely on broadcast networks, making it particularly tough to lure casual viewers.
Formula 1 2012 Car And Driver License
But that may be changing. In September, Liberty Media, the U.S.-based conglomerate controlled by billionaire John Malone, bought Formula One in a deal valued at $8 billion. The purchase has stoked optimism that a domestic ownership group with a range of technology and entertainment businesses in its portfolio will figure out how to make Formula One work in the States. Market is important,” says Chase Carey, the former Rupert Murdoch lieutenant whom Liberty installed as Formula One’s new chairman in September.
“It’s an area of opportunity for us.”Hamilton will be critical to the effort. The son of mixed-race parents, he became the first black driver in Formula One after growing up in public housing north of London, rather than being groomed in the gilded garages that typically breed championship drivers. Since winning his first title in 2008 at just 23, Hamilton has become as much of a celebrity off the track, a Fashion Week regular whose Instagram feed is filled with shots of him hanging out with Rihanna and Justin Bieber. He’s recorded hip-hop songs and had a role in the latest Call of Duty. “He’s an ambassador for Formula One,” says Christian Horner, head of the rival Red Bull Racing Team. “He takes it to places where you wouldn’t normally see it, particularly in the U.S.”For an ambassador, Hamilton is not exactly known for diplomacy. The 2016 season played out as a high-stakes rivalry between Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, with Hamilton repeatedly citing engine trouble for races he lost.
27, in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton defied team orders, slowing the pace in an attempt to thwart Rosberg and keep his own title hopes alive. Hamilton won the race, but Rosberg still beat him out for the world championship––and then announced his surprise retirement. The hyper-competitive Hamilton was not a model of grace in defeat. “Lewis is Marmite,” says Horner. “People either love him or hate him.”. ANTHONY WALLACE—AFP/Getty Images Hamilton can’t win without his 20-person pit crew, here changing tires during the Singapore Grand Prix in September. At their fastest, Formula One pit stops take some 2 seconds; a flawed exchange can cost adriver a race.The loss is fuel for Hamilton, who wants to reclaim a world title in 2017 that he feels he lost in spite of his driving.
Formula 1 2012 Car And Driver 3
“It’s been quite a painful couple of weeks,” he tells TIME in a December telephone interview from his home in Monaco. “This is really a time of year when you’re turning, trying to leave the negative behind and take the positive forward. But of course, it will build. The yearning for next year will build.”Hamilton’s path to the top of auto racing began at age 6, when he started entering––and dominating––remote-control-car races on weekends.
His talent landed him on the British children’s show Blue Peter, where he won a race against the host and a bunch of bigger kids. (A YouTube clip shows him raising a tiny, triumphant right arm in victory.) He quickly graduated to go-karts. Hamilton says that the first time he puttered around in a kart, he picked up the braking technique––hit them late around the corners to maximize speed––that he still uses today. “I remember that day,” he recalls, “feeling vrrrrrrrrrrrrm.”Hamilton’s parents split when he was 2. His father Anthony managed his racing career while holding down multiple jobs.
They stood out in the U.K.’s all-white karting scene. “We were the scruffy black family,” says Hamilton, whose paternal grandparents are from Grenada. “We had the sh-t equipment, sh-t car and a sh-t trailer.”Still, Hamilton kept winning, roiling others on the youth racing circuit. “I had parents come up to me and say, ‘You’re not good enough, you should probably quit,’” says Hamilton.
“But I just beat your son. What are you talking about?” He recalls racist taunts at the track and says he was picked on at school, where he was one of a handful of black children.About 5 ft. Today, Hamilton was never imposing. But at one point, he decided it was time to fight back. “I remember being in the back of the car with my dad.
I took my seat belt off, and was like, ‘Can I do karate?’” Hamilton says. “I was 6 years old. I was being bullied and hated it. So I went and did karate and learned how to defend myself.”At an auto-sports award show in 1995, the 10-year-old Hamilton met Ron Dennis, head of the McLaren racing team, and told him that he wanted to race one of his cars one day. Dennis signed him to McLaren’s young-drivers program, and he flourished. By the age of 21 Hamilton had secured a spot in Formula One, where he turned in one of the greatest rookie seasons ever, losing the championship by a single point.Hamilton’s instincts and tenacity were evident from the start. Otmar Szafnauer, chief operating officer for the Sahara Force India racing team, recalls watching Hamilton tail McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso, the defending two-time world champ, at the street race in Monaco, whose narrow course makes passing especially difficult.
Hamilton finished second behind Alonso, but not before applying heavy pressure. “Someone else in that same situation would say, ‘I have no chance at passing here—it’s Monaco, I’m a rookie, he’s the world champ—just take your second place,’” says Szafnauer. That’s what makes him special.”.
He won the title in 2008. Two years later, after finishing fifth, Hamilton fired his father as his manager. “It was a pivotal moment, and still the toughest thing I’ve really ever gone through,” he says. “Growing up so close to someone and looking up to someone, and having them move heaven and earth for you every single day, and one day you say, ‘I don’t want you to be a part of it anymore.’”The following two seasons were rough, with Hamilton matching his career-worst fifth-place finish in 2011. But he says the move was worth the personal fallout. “It was necessary and a very positive thing in terms of moving forward,” Hamilton says. “I’m almost 32 now.
I’m not squandering my money. I don’t do drugs. I still have the values on which I was raised.” He switched teams, from McLaren to Mercedes, for the 2013 season before taking the ’14 and ’15 world titles and finishing a close second this season. His net worth, meanwhile, is estimated to be more than $200 million.
But the damage remains. Hamilton calls his current relationship with his father “still a work in progress.”The brash confidence that has enabled Hamilton’s heroics on the track has rubbed many people the wrong way. “There are so many haters, it’s kind of crazy,” says Lindsey Vonn, an Olympic champion skier and a close friend. “When I first met him, I had heard the rumors that he was really arrogant. He’s not even remotely arrogant.” Vonn was part of a small group of boldface pals—including tennis icon Venus Williams, broadcaster Gayle King, actor Christoph Waltz and NASCAR champ Jeff Gordon—who were on hand at the race in Austin.
Hamilton often hopscotches the globe between races, appearing at exclusive events with his famous friends. Though he is single now, his longtime relationship with pop star Nicole Scherzinger provided a steady stream of tabloid fodder.The hobnobbing has riled some members of Formula One’s old guard.
“If he was at McLaren,” Dennis, his former boss and mentor, said in 2015, “he wouldn’t be behaving the way he is, because he wouldn’t be allowed to.” Hamilton’s response is the equivalent of pointing to the scoreboard: three titles and 10 race wins this season, including the last four of the year. Besides, he says, his interests in music and fashion prevent him from burning out on the track. “There’s very little that can distract me, really,” Hamilton says. “I’m very much a person of energy, and when you meet someone you naturally feel an energy, good or bad, you know?”His current boss has no objections. “People out there try to put other people into boxes,” says Toto Wolff, head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport.
“‘This is how you should be, this is how you should behave, this is how you should concentrate on this sport.’ It’s all wrong. If it works for Lewis to fly around the world and go from one fashion show to another, hang out with his friends and do a gig, if that works fine, we should just accept it. We’re much too judgmental.”.