The Formula

How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Made F1 the World's Fastest-Growing Sport

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The Formula

By: Joshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg

Narrated by: Qarie Marshall

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£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

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** Shortlisted for Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Writing Award, 2025 **

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

ONE OF THE FINANCIAL TIMES' BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2024

'HANDS DOWN THE GREATEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN ABOUT F1.' -Sam Walker, author of The Captain Class
'MODERN F1 IS THE SPORTS STORY OF THIS ERA AND NO ONE COULD TELL IT BETTER' -Kevin Clark, ESPN
'THE FASTEST READ YOU WILL EVER PICK UP' -A.J. Baime, author of Go Like Hell

F1 is now the fastest growing sport in the world; the full story of its unbelievable rise is a riveting saga only hinted at by the likes of Drive to Survive. In this book - the first, definitive account of how F1 came to achieve total global fandom - Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg take us inside a world full of racing obsessives, glamorous settings, petrolheads, engineering geniuses, dashing racers and bitter rivalries.

The story of F1's world dominance is one of near-constant transformation and experimentation. This is a sport where the only way to win championships is to land a series of technical moon shots - and then do it all over again. With fast cars, big money, beautiful people, and glamorous locations from Monaco to Melbourne, The Formula tells the full, epic story of the sport. Starting in 1950s Britain, where six years of wartime engineering laid the foundations for a new type of motorcar racing; to the first global star partnership of Senna and Ecclestone; Spygate; Crashgate and its transition into an entertainment juggernaut. Bringing unique insight and access to F1's most storied teams and personalities - from Ferrari to Lewis Hamilton to Christian Horner and Daniel Ricciardo -The Formula offers a riveting portrait of the drivers, corporations, cars, rivalries, and audacious gambles that have shaped the sport for half a century.

The end result is a high-octane history of how modern F1 racing came to be - the first book to tell the story of the outrageous successes and spectacular crashes that led F1 to this extraordinary yet precarious moment. More than just a sports story, it is the tale of a commercial empire, one built in the 20th century, rendered almost obsolete in the early 21st, and re-emerged world-dominant today; a disrupter that claimed its place in the crowded sports marketplace through cash, personality, and a new understanding of what a sport needs to be in the age of wall-to-wall entertainment.©2024 Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg

Joshua RobinsonJonathan CleggQarie MarshallMonoray

Motor Sports

Sports

Racing

Money

Motor Sports Sports Racing Money

Critic reviews

A stunningly researched and comprehensive work of business reportage that somehow reads like a novel, The Formula is a lively hot lap through the untold history and explosive growth of the most glamorous, spectacular, and sordid global sport of them all. With all of the juicy background and context about Formula 1 that you won't see on Netflix, this is hands down the greatest, most definitive book ever written about F1. A sweeping sports story for the ages.

No one explains exactly what's happening in global sports like the duo of Clegg and Robinson. They've done it again with The Formula, a fascinating account of how F1 exploded in the Netflix age. Modern F1 is the sports story of this era, and no one could tell it better. In a book about racing geniuses, no one is better at their craft than the storytellers themselves.

The fastest read you will ever pick up. The Formula brings you inside the furious present and sometimes bizarre past of the world's richest, most technologically advanced form of sport. Even if you don't know how to drive, you should read this book.

A thrill for fans of F1, and a fine example of fluid sports writing

Deep and intelligent...a portrait of football greatness.

A comprehensive primer into the entwined histories of the two titans and the commercial forces that have molded their careers and, by extension, the sport.

While these two soaring greats are known for their transcendent wonder on the field, this rollicking narrative plunges into the complex backstories and entire ecosystems that propelled their colliding trajectories. With a pair of epic hero stories like The Last Dance or Homer's Odyssey in cleats, this book traces the journey from aspirational prodigies to global commercial billboards, explaining how these two juggernauts and their rivalry shaped the most popular, and lucrative, era of the world's most beloved sport.

This rigorously researched book avoids becoming hagiography. The result is an ambitious and valuable study for all those who want to understand the modern world of football that Mr. Messi and Mr. Ronaldo have helped forge.

This book explains the brilliant backstory behind how each player became a start and how that stardom changed the footballing landscape not just in Spain but in the wider world as well...I read it in a day.

[An] exceptional account of an intense sport . . . The authors go beyond the adrenaline-drenched action of the racetracks in portraying the progression of Formula One.

Brilliantly executed... (Matt Kew)

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very good fore people that like f1 and it shows the other side of f1