THE PIRANHA CLUB:
POWER AND INFLUENCE
IN FORMULA ONE

By Timothy Collings.
Published by Virgin Books.

It's always a little scary reviewing a book written by another Atlas F1 contributor. On one hand, I want to be impartial, try to maintain a little integrity and just generally do the right thing by the people who actually read these reviews before they shell out for a book. In other words, I don't want to give someone the equivalent of four stars in the Michelin guide just because they happen to be a member of 'the family'. Trying to maintain a sliver of self-respect can have its pitfalls though - were I to dislike a book written by a colleague, I'd be scared that next time I opened the door to my office in the Atlas F1 Towers, I'd find that someone had sprinkled alfalfa seeds all over the carpet, watered it, and turned up the heating.

In the case of 'The Piranha Club', though, I shouldn't have a problem. I liked it. And I would have liked it even if it hadn't been written by 'one of us'. Timothy Collings, of course, has written about F1 for quite some time, and in addition to past biographies of Jacques Villeneuve, Damon Hill, and Michael Schumacher, he covers the sport for some of the world's biggest newspapers. As one would guess from a title derived from Ron Dennis's famous comment to Eddie Jordan following Michael Schumacher's defection to Benetton after just one race, 'The Piranha Club' is about the history and development of the power-wielders in Grand Prix racing.

Collings has arranged the book fairly predictably - the elaborate orchestrations that led to Michael Schumacher disappearing from under Eddie Jordan's nose after just one race in 1991 and, ultimately, lent this book its title serves as an opener (see 'Welcome to the Piranha Club'). From there, Collings hits the rewind button and explores the dealings of Enzo Ferrari, before moving on to what the Old Man termed the 'Garagistes' - the British kit-car teams spearheaded by John Cooper and Colin Chapman, before embarking on the Bernie Era, which, unsurprisingly, takes up about two-thirds of the book.

The author has done his homework, and it is most evident in the spectrum of people that he spoke to in the course of his research. Collings is one of those authors who likes to sprinkle his text fairly liberally with quotes that often billow out to a few paragraphs. This is generally a good thing - from a personal point of view, I'm a big fan of work that allows people to tell their own story as much as possible.

When I last reviewed one of Collings's books though (almost three years ago!), I dimly remember being critical of his tendency to quote large chunks of other secondary sources unnecessarily. This does crop up again in 'The Piranha Club', though to a reduced extent. As interesting as some of these excerpts are, they frequently seem to offer little that Collings would not be capable of coming up with himself. (Weirdly, in criticising an aspect of the book, I am handballing the author a thinly veiled compliment. Go figure.)

For all that, it's a pretty small criticism though, and when balanced against what is good about 'The Piranha Club', it barely registers a blip on the negative scale. In attempting to give the reader an idea of how power and influence actually works in F1, this book succeeds to a far greater extent than most similar titles that have been released in recent years.

In addition to the guided tour of how the current 'Holy Trinity' (Bernie, Max, and Bernie again) came into being, the reader is also treated to a peek into the history and psyche of all the team principals, circa 2001.

What these guys have to say is invariably interesting, and sometimes even downright intriguing. For example, coming from a man who leads the team that virtually redefined PR-consciousness, I found the following comment from Ron Dennis strangely reassuring:

"The thing that gets you out of bed in the morning and into the factory is the desire to produce a car that is better than anyone else's. If the desire is to get out of bed and make money, then your philosophy doesn't work. The best way to make money in Grand Prix racing is to fulfill your main objective and that is to win races and the money follows." (p. 197).

If you want to understand the machinations of Formula One and how all the little processes tick over behind the scenes, this book is indispensable. Collings has put together an accessible, intriguing, and comprehensive account of exactly how things tick over in Grand Prix racing. If you're after a distraction from the off-season, you could do worse than to check this out.