The Pits

Rating:
Summary: save your money
Review: A friend warned me that he'd heard this book wasn't much good. I wasn't smart enough to listen. Be smarter than me -- save your money. The blurb on the back cover says "The Pits is an incendiary and revelatory behind-the-scenes account of the truth about Formula One". Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Except that it's a bald lie. The author seems to be a rather cute looking Brit television "talking head". She traveled around to the F1 races in 2003, picked up some superficial twaddle, and now presumes to know deep truths about F1. She has a section about each race, but spends about one paragraph on what actually happened in the race. The rest is about her opinion of her hotel's decor, or various smug discourses. Half a dozen pages of her Melbourne section are about some little group of protestors, going into great detail about their objections to the government money spent on changes (they don't like) to Albert Park. Are F1 drivers really atheletes; is F1 really a sport or a business; why aren't there female F1 drivers; and her really long snit about sexism throughout F1. Endless pages about these and other equally deep and socially relevant topics. Nothing at all "indendiary" or "revelatory", unless you didn't know that Bernie and Max run F1. If you're not an F1 fan, why would you even consider this book? If you are a fan, this book is simply worthless. If you're as dumb as me and buy it anyway, you'll be kicking yourself later.