The latest instalment in Evro Publishing and Peter Higham’s decade-by-decade delve into the Formula One World Championship has continued with a comprehensive 300-page plus insight into one of the most exciting periods in the entire sport’s history.
The turn of the millennium witnessed Ferrari use the momentum from its Constructors’ title success in 1999 to end a protracted drought in the Drivers’ Championship since 1979 to claim five consecutive title doubles.
Ferrari’s F2002 car, which took Michael Schumacher to the podium in all the races that particular season, centres on the cover, and this edition breaks down the nuances that facilitated its record-breaking success.
The book provides an extensive rundown on the developments through each season that enabled the Italian marque to sustain the most dominant stretch F1 had seen to date, as well as the less successful innovations that its rivals implemented with less fortune.
Among those include McLaren’s infamous MP4/18 which was one creation in Adrian Newey’s glittering design career that he would choose to avoid looking back upon.
But while Ferrari’s pre-eminence threatened to detract people from tuning in each week, a regulation change come 2005 would halt the run and set the trend for an enthralling phase that would see Fernando Alonso (twice), Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button hog the limelight until 2009.
Prior to running through each respective team’s campaign, Higham sets the scene for the season he is about to describe with a breakdown of the various rule changes that served to swing the balance across the board, alongside the biggest news stories at the time such as the 2007 Spygate scandal, which saw McLaren fined $100 million and thrown out of the Constructors’ Championship for possessing Ferrari intel.
Meanwhile, Higham even highlights the more minute details such as personnel changes and even sponsor revisions to immerse the reader more than the watch of a season review video online would serve to.
Each season is covered in championship order and documents how Ferrari went from trendsetters to pace chasers, how Renault built upon the foundations Benetton laid to return the Enstone-based squad to the pinnacle with Alonso in the mid-2000s, the titanic tussle between a revitalised Ferrari squad and long-time rival McLaren, and completed with Brawn’s dramatic and dream rise from Honda’s sudden withdrawal to double championship winners in 2009.
Once again, all the most notable technical revolutions such as Renault’s mass damper configuration and the double diffuser which helped to give Brawn its nascent advantage are covered, as well as lesser-known ones.
Furthermore, the book also spends ample time dissecting Red Bull’s venture into the sport and transition to eventual race winners as it prepared to dominate, while Williams’ plight down the order is explained.
While the predominant bulk fixates on how the big names thrived or faltered on and off the track, Higham also gives respect to the minnows that newer F1 viewers might not know much about in advance of reading.
Ranging from Alain Prost’s unsuccessful attempts to translate his on-track glories to a management position with his eponymous team to the much-loved Minardi squad, the book goes to extreme depths in all aspects.
The sole complaint would be that running through each team’s season on a race-by-race basis can create repetition, especially when the sides are grouped on positions.
However, that is a rather minor and perhaps unavoidable blemish to compensate for the dwindling number of teams and the rising calendar as Bernie Ecclestone wielded his power to expand the schedule to wider territories in comparison to past decades.
All in all, the latest entrant to the series plays another stellar role in encapsulating the trials and tribulations that unfolded during a riveting F1 decade that saw teams come and go and multiple race winners.
With the series experiencing exponential growth with the emergence of the Netflix Drive to Survive docuseries since 2018, more recent viewers of F1 would be well-advised to read up on this fascinating era.
Author: Peter Higham
Publisher: Evro Publishing
Publication Date: May 2024
Pages: 304 (including over 350 colour photos)
UK Price: £60
ISBN: 978-1-910505-86-1
