The Bookworm Critique
"5 DAYS OF A GRAND PRIX" By Jon Nicholson and Adam Parsons; Published by Macmillan	by Mark Glendenning, Australia

No matter what it is about Formula One that starts your motor, you can fairly confidently assume that somebody, somewhere, has written a book about it. A quick look back over the titles that have been reviewed in Atlas F1 this year illustrates this quite well - there have been books about drivers, driving, teams, money, mechanics, technology, and behind-the-scenes exposes. All of the books that were reviewed favourably earned at least part of their praise through their potential to increase the reader's knowledge of a particular aspect of Formula One, irrespective of how long they may have been a fan. Knowledge is not always conspicuous. In other words, it does not always take the form of hard facts that you had not come across before. It can also be quite subtle, in that the reader finishes the book having built upon their overall understanding and feeling for the sport (often without even being aware of it), rather than having just equipped themselves with a new armoury of trivia that's good for little other than impressing your mates down at the pub. '5 Days of a Grand Prix' very much belongs in the latter camp. This book, a collaboration between photographer Jon Nicholson and writer Adam Parsons, is a celebration of the humanity that exists beneath the surface of all aspects of Formula One. The book is divided into six parts - an introduction, which contains the bulk of the book's text, and then a separate chapter for each day of a Grand Prix weekend; from Thursday through to Monday. Here, the text steps into an Eddie Irvine role (circa 1996-8), existing primarily to support the photography. As motor racing fans, I'm sure that we have all had to deal with questions like "what's so exciting about watching these things just go round and round in circles?" Usually the people that say this to me are into stuff like golf, so I just look at them pityingly and say nothing. From now on, though, I think I'll show them Parsons' introduction to this book instead. While he doesn't go into a massive amount of depth (it is an introduction, after all), Parsons does a really nice job of conveying the appeal of Formula One racing to the world. The introduction covers a lot of ground, touching on issues as diverse as nationalism, environmentalism, and romanticism. Not surprisingly, the latter focuses heavily on Ferrari and includes a superb quote from the team's technical director, Ross Brawn: "When we test out cars, people who live nearby open their windows to hear. In England, they would be on the phone to the council to complain about the noise, but in Italy it is part of their history. They want to hear a Ferrari engine. To them, it's music." Parsons also sets the scene for the rest of the book, discussing the particular characteristics of each day in a typical Grand Prix weekend. From Thursday, when the teams arrive and convert an empty garage into a home away from home, to Monday, when the track and pit buildings stand startlingly quiet and deserted after the sensory overload of the previous few days, Parsons descriptions will no doubt revive all sorts of memories and feelings in those lucky enough to have attended a Grand Prix. And for those that haven't, he manages to convey some impression of what it's like to watch a round of the F1 World Championship played out before your eyes. The one criticism that I have of Parson's work is an occasional tendency to underestimate the fans. Or, perhaps more accurately, he fails to distinguish between the different types of supporters that Formula One attracts. In describing Friday practice, for example, he talks about the need to look beyond the times that are posted by the drivers during these sessions. Did the Williams post the fastest time because they have done some development work since the last race? Were they running a light fuel load? Or maybe the Ferraris were simply spending the session working on some aspect of the car that didn't really require a flying lap? Parsons goes on to say, "For the fans, though, the intricacies are of little importance." Sure, some people probably don't care about why the Arrows posted the fifth quickest time in the session. For other people, though, these kinds of questions are the lifeblood of their interest in motor sport. Such a broad and dismissive generalisation, then, seems a little careless. It's a fairly minor criticism though, and does not detract too much from the overall quality of the work. Jon Nicholson is a well-established F1 photographer. I have always liked Nicholson's photos, and his efforts in '5 Days of a Grand Prix' do not disappoint. His atmospheric black-and-white shots fill the bulk of the book, and they brilliantly express the humanity behind what can often seem a very impersonal sport. Whether it be in the form of an Italian fan singing his heart out with a large stick for a microphone, or Michael Schumacher trotting downstairs for a briefing, Nicholson's photos capture the essence of Formula One. Some photos have an immediate impact - they smack the viewer right between the eyes and convey their message faster than a cola advertisement. Others require their audience to engage with them a little. While most of the shots in this book work well on both levels, it must be said that virtually all of them lend themselves particularly well to a bit of contemplation. Some readers, for instance, might look at the shots of the bare-chested, beer-bellied fans digging themselves into the hillside at Imola, and compare them to the bare-chested, gym-toned, designer sunglasses-wearing folk sunbathing on a Monaco hotel roof, and think about the ability of F1 to unite such different types of people into a common interest. The more practical, meanwhile, might simply wonder how those Hungarian fans managed to get a whole cow carcass into the circuit. But they all make you think. And no matter how many times you look at them, you always seem to find something you hadn't noticed before. The only gripe that I had with the photos was that there were maybe three or four shots more of the fans on the Imola hillside than there really needed to be. While they are all worthy shots, they do become a little repetitive. Like the criticism that I made of the introduction earlier, though, it is a pretty minor one, and the extent to which the book as a whole suffers as a result is very small. '5 Days of a Grand Prix' is a great book. It has the potential to appeal to any fan, irrespective of how knowledgeable they are, or where their allegiances lie, because there are images and descriptions here that we, as fans, can all identify with. In the same way that late-1990s Formula One has been accused of becoming too distant from the supporters, this book manages to bring them back together again. Better than probably any other book out there at the moment, it also captures the overall atmosphere and 'state of play' in millennium-era F1. A souvenir of today for the fans of tomorrow. I recommend this book very, very, highly.

Mark Glendenning	© 1999 Atlas Formula One Journal.
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