Why the sudden interest? Well, it's not sudden. Questions have been asked about the immense economy that exists within F1 for years, but the answers have always been buried well out of the reach of anyone outside the tiny clique that needs to know. Recent events, such as the unified stance of the manufacturers against the traditional powerbrokers, along with the invariable questions that arise from the assumption that Bernie has to hand over the reigns sometime, have nevertheless inspired a few of the more tenacious of F1's press corps to do some digging anyway. Their combined efforts have not created anything close to a complete picture of the F1 financial world, but they have managed to dig up a little more than Ecclestone and some team owners may have liked.

Henry's latest effort falls some way short of being the definitive book about Formula One finance, although the ever-changing nature of that side of Grand Prix racing, coupled with the gulf between those privy to the fine details and those who want the information to become public knowledge, probably make such a prospect unlikely anyway. Indeed, developments in Grand Prix politics over the latter half of the year 2003 have already robbed Henry's book of a degree of immediacy, with some passages now having been rendered obsolete.

That said it's still not a bad read, even if it is not as revelatory as the rent-a-quote by Niki Lauda on the dust jacket may suggest. Henry has spent many years with a press accreditation dangling around his neck, and the relationships that he had built up with F1's major players in that time puts him at a distinct advantage over many similar authors when the time comes to do a little extra prying. Unfortunately, it's not always apparent that Henry has really tried to make the most of this. 'The Powerbrokers' is not short on quotes but at the end of the day, a decent chuck of this book could have been produced just as easily through a careful search of reliable news archives.

Where Henry's vast experience does come to the fore, however, is in facilitating the telling of the tale. Negotiating the Grand Prix business world to any serious degree is no simple matter, but Henry has done a good job of making the fundamentals of the subject accessible to F1 fans generally. He also does a good job of putting what is happening now in F1 into a historical context. In some cases he may go too far in re-treading what could, for many readers, be a very well-worn path - such as the FISA/FOCA wars - although the difficulty in trying to predict what a reader may or may not know should never be underestimated.

There are occasions, however, when Henry's glimpses into the rear view mirror work a treat, as exemplified in his account of the transition from turbos to naturally-aspirated engines. 'From here, the battle would be for revs. High-revving naturally-aspirated engines would be the order of the day. But as Honda president Nobuhiko Kawamoto warned : "In a few years' time the turbos will look cheap compared with naturally-aspirated engines. Remember, boost is cheaper than revs.'" (p. 138). In light of the current financial climate in F1, particularly where engines are concerned, it's safe to say that Kawamoto now has every right to feel rather smug.

Also capturing the interest of this particular reader was a passage in which Henry addresses accusations of a pro-Ferrari bias within the FIA. Max Mosley, predictably, dismissed the notion, pointing to the famous bargeboard case involving McLaren and Ferrari following the Malaysian GP in 1999. History shows that McLaren were unable to prove that Irvine's winning car should have been disqualified for a technical infringement, thus forcing the title fight to a last-round showdown between the Ulsterman and Mika Hakkinen at Suzuka. Mosley's acknowledgement that the red cars were, in fact, illegal, and that McLaren had simply sent dud lawyers to argue their case was intriguing enough; McLaren's response - a quiet public front masking a seething indignation at what they considered a miscarriage of justice and misrepresentation of evidence, culminating in a suspicion that the FIA's lack of partiality extended to the organisation waiting for McLaren to make a goof in order to, in Henry's words, "slap them down", says a lot about how the wheels really turn in F1.

For all those who were wondering what Ron Dennis meant when he said that F1 is a sport every second Sunday and a business the rest of the time, this might shed some light on the answer - particularly when one considers that this uneasy relationship between McLaren and the FIA culminated in Dennis and long-time ally Frank Williams taking a united stand against F1's proposed rule changes just days before the start of the 2003 season. As good as this book is at putting current events into a historical framework, it suffers the same flaw as similar books in that it makes little attempt to look forward.

The next couple of years are going to be critical in dictating the shape of Grand Prix racing over the decade to come - Bernie, presumably, will no longer be at the wheel; the manufacturers could just as easily end up dominating the sport as they could withdraw from it; and it's possible that we're not approaching real stability in some areas of the technical regulations, especially where engines are concerned. Taking Henry's long association with the sport into account, it could have been illuminating to read an informed speculation of where things might be heading. At the end of the day though, it doesn't really detract from 'The Powerbrokers', although it certainly would have set it apart from the pack.

The apparent rush to ensure that this book was on the shelves in time for Christmas seems to have resulted in the manuscript go from Henry's word processor to the publisher without the intervention of an editor or proofreader. And it shows. If you are going to pay full price for a book such as this, you deserve better than to be told that McLaren's team principal is Rob Dennis (p. 153). There are also some punctuation errors scattered amongst a few stylistic lapses in Henry's normally tight writing.

Additionally, the book includes the apparently obligatory block of photos in the middle pages, none of which really enhance any aspect of the volume other than, presumably, the price. Richard Williams seems to have grasped the fact that 20 stock-standard photos add nothing to a book's inherent value (check out 'Racers', for example, or 'The Death of Ayrton Senna'), but the rest of F1's writing world doesn't seem to have caught on yet. If the photos are previously unpublished or particularly illuminating, then bring them on. If not, ditch them.

'The Powerbrokers' does have its shortcomings, then, but fundamentally it remains a worthwhile book. While close followers of F1 business (and believe it or not, they do exist) might find some sections a little lightweight, it should still appeal to a general reader with an urge to learn something about how the sport works. It is not as detailed as Hotten or Lovell's efforts, but Henry's closer ties with the sport and its participants, coupled with an obvious effort to make a complicated subject relatively digestible, make this a more accessible alternative.