Product Description

This text takes a look at some of the Grand Prix in the years 1996-2000 in Formula One racing. It includes Schumacher's epic crash at Silverstone in 1999. The author also looks back at his own career and discusses some of the great drivers he has known.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #744570 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
Strictly for motor racing fans, especially those who bought his best-selling memoirs Life at the Limit four years ago, because the Grand Prix neurosurgeon plunges straight into recollections of major crashes, then memories of the great drivers he has known, and finally a race-by-race account of the Millennium season. Watkins has such broad access to the motor racing fraternity that every section is an insider account, especially when he goes to the aid of Michael Schumacher in the famous 1999 Silverstone crash and recommends a heart bypass operation for Bernie Ecclestone in the same year. Most of the anecdotes are tinged with medical matters, making them all the more unusual and reducing some of the Grand Prix heroes to very basic levels. Covering safety issues as well, the motor racing doctor takes fans on the inside track into aspects and hazards they would never normally know about.

Customer Reviews

I couldn't put it down
Prof Watkins' account of Formula One has made me become very interested in this sport, despite knowing nothing about it whatsoever before I read this excellent book and his other- Life at the Limit. His role of being the chief medical man at every Formula One meeting, and his invaluable help with all the tremendous safety innovations which have revolutionarised the sport, make him a leading man- no one better could write such a book. Added to this is his wicked sense of humour which shines through every page and kept me giggling throughout the book, and what is created is a must-have guide for anyone interested in Grand Prix. Read it and see for yourself...

A clingfilm-thin follow-up to a previous worthwhile book.
Prof Sid should be worth a read. He has seen more of the action and characters of F1, closer up, than anyone - even Murray Walker or B. Ecclestone. ...

The book consists of a hotchpotch of anecdotes presumably assembled from the ones left on his editor's floor from the previous book, many of which are banal, weak and lacking any connection with F1. This last point would not matter if the stories were pithy, witty and interesting: few are.

A pointless, skimpy and garbled re-hash of the 2000 season is trotted out to fill out the mid-section and the book ends with appendices of tables of extremely erudite but arcane statistics on injuries, construction materials, design specs and other matters vital to the FIA Medical and Technical Committees but of no interest to anyone else - not even Grand Prix drivers, I suspect - least of all Eddie Irvine ...

Prof Sid is a self-deprecating fellow. The result of the modesty of his narrative is that on many occasions you feel he's apologising for being present at the events and with the characters involved: consequently, descriptions are thin, lack colour and tend either to drift to vague, aimless conclusions or just stop dead, leaving the reader suspended, waiting for a point that will never be made.

By all means buy this book for a journey, swallow it whole at one sitting for the occasional insight or humorous anecdote expressed by an evidently charming man, then leave it on the plane without a second thought, as I did. One day we will have the full autobiography of Prof Sid, hopefully guided by a writer such as Alan Henry, Nigel Roebuck or David Tremayne. Unlike this one, that book will be worth keeping.

A book with an insight behind the scences of F1
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, Sid is a great storyteller. If you're looking for a different F1 book than this is the one for you!! I liked reading about different drivers reactions after a crash, and how some still managed to be on top of things. It's a great read and I'd recommend it to anyone who's into F1.