The Formula

How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest Growing Sport

By: Joshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg

Narrated by: Qarie Marshall

An NPR Best Book of 2024

A Sports Illustrated Best Book of 2024

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Wall Street Journal reporters and authors of The Club, Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg tell the riveting saga of how Formula 1 broke through in America, detailing the eclectic culture of racing obsessives, glamorous settings, gearheads, engineering geniuses, dashing racers, and bitter rivalries that have made F1 the world’s fastest growing sport.

For decades in America, car racing meant NASCAR, and to a lesser extent IndyCar, with Formula 1—the wealthiest racing league in the world—a distant third. Fast forward to 2023, and F1 has emerged at the front of the pack powered by a passionate yet nascent American fanbase. The F1 juggernaut has arrived, but this checkered flag was far from inevitable.

In The Formula, Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg tell the epic story of how F1 saved itself from collapse and finally conquered America through guile, fearlessness, and above all, reinvention. With fast cars, big money, glamorous locales, and beautiful people as the backdrop, The Formula reveals how F1’s sudden arrival in the US was actually decades in the making, a product of the sport’s near-constant state of transformation and experimentation. Bringing unique insight and access to F1’s most storied teams and personalities—from Ferrari to Bernie Ecclestone to Christian Horner to Lewis Hamilton—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, The Formula is the tale of a disrupter that broke into the crowded American sports marketplace and claimed its place through cash, personality, and a new understanding of what a sport needs to be in the age of wall-to-wall entertainment.

broad picture of the sport & it's history

clear spoking naratuon. a multi decade history of the teams, F1 managment,team peincipals and drivers.

Really, really well done. Historically accurate.

Enjoyed this book immensely. Well written and read. Loads of humorous anecdotes.
Highly recommended for anyone remotely following Formula 1.

Awesome f1 book

After listening to many F1 books I highly recommend this book. It is very informative. I learned a lot from it so I knew so I didn’t but overall excellent book you will enjoy it. I highly recommend it get the book.

For the complete F1 story...

Well done in every aspect. The facts were facts and not hyperbole. The controversies were not slanted or opinionated. The performance was outstanding. Excellent book!

Intriguing history of Formula One

At first I was up in the air about this but it proved to be a compelling and fascinating assessment of the history of Formula One from its inception right up until today