Customer Reviews

Autocourse 2007-2008: The World's Leading Grand Prix Annual

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Autocourse remains the finest of all F-1 season reviews being published. Because it has a 57 year history (as of 2008 ) it has become a collectors item that ranks it a must have for any F-1 aficionado. The photographs are the years best from all of the who's who of F-1 photographers. Paul Henri Cahier, Darren Heath, Patrick Gosling, and Bryn Williams all are represented here in stunning fashion.
The reviews of the races and the stories that made the year in F-1 what is was are condensed brilliantly between the covers and make great reading even years later. Any person who is an F-1 junkie and is looking for something from his era of F-1 to pass on to the next generation with pride, Autocourse is it.

I look forward to Autocourse every year. My first hint that something wasn't quite right, was a pre-production photo I saw of the cover: Lewis Hamilton/McLaren. This was after Kimi Raikkonnen already won the WDC.

So I order anyway. The copy I received had a different cover, appropriate to the World Champion. But almost every single race report begins with ecstatic ravings about Lewis Hamilton, whether he won the race or not.

Even worse, Autocourse gave Hamilton the #1 driver position in the annual top ten rating! The guy blew the championship! Kimi fought hard and won it, yet he gets #2 status.

Alonso, the reigning WDC is treated as an afterthought throughout.

Buy it for the history, but you can't overlook the blatant favoritism throughout this issue. Not balanced reporting at all.

The blatant pro-McLaren, anti-Alonso bias of this book is unfortunate, and stands out all the more with what has happened since the book went to press. For example, the book states, as purported fact, that Ron Dennis and McLaren management were entirely innocent in the Stepneygate affair, and were unfairly dragged into the matter through no fault of their own by the actions of a single bad apple.

The rules of objective reporting exist for a reason, and this book's editors would look a lot less ridiculous had they followed them.