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The Piranha Club: Power and Influence in Formula One
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Product Description
Formula One is the meeting point of sport, commerce, showbusiness, technology, industry and international politics. You are as likely to share a table for lunch in the paddock with Naomi Campbell or Michael Douglas as with a politician, a royal or a pop singer. Those who run it are the most intriguing of all: Bernie Ecclestone and Max Moseley, Jackie Stewart, Ron Dennis, Frank Williams, Eddie Jordan and the rest. Though from various backgrounds, they share the common interest of Formula One motor racing – and finding a way of making money successfully.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #890025 in Books
- Published on: 2004-09-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
Editorial Reviews
F1 News, November 3 2001
Incisive, revolutionary and entertaining, offering a unique 'behind the scenes' perspective on the politics and power plays within Formula One
Review
" … offers a penetrating and fascinating insight ... incisive, revolutionary and entertaining ... a unique behind the scenes perspective." - F1 News
"Collings rounds up the cast of characters and offers a rare insight into the lives of the club members who have created probably the most effective cash-generating machine in sport." - The Times
From the Inside Flap
When Eddie Jordan attended his first meeting as a member of the elite organisation of Formula One team owners, he was greeted by the words, 'Welcome to the Piranha Club' and a broad and ironic grin. If Jordan thought the message was a joke, he was soon to learn otherwise.
In Grand Prix motor racing, life is lived in the fast lane in every sense. Only the fittest survive. It may be the most technologically advanced, most compelling, extravagant and glamorous sport on earth, but it also remains firmly Darwinian.
This is the story of how this exclusive club - beset by arguments and intrigues, chicanery and controversy - continues to stay beyond the reach of the lawyers and command a television audience that leaves other sports green with envy.
In The Piranha Club, Timothy Collings goes behind the scenes in the Formula One paddock and talks to the men at the heart of the business within the sport. He analyses the development of a unique television sports show which straddles news, gossip, industry and high finance, and profiles the characters who haunt its corridors of power. He strips away the glitz and greasepaint of the pit lane and paddock to introduce the reality of men like Bernie Ecclestone, Max Moseley, Frank Williams, ROn Dennis Eddie Jordan and Flavio Briatore.
It is a tale of danger and risk-taking, of plots and arguments and, above all, of a resounding level of ambition and energy that reveals how colourful and thrilling are the lives of Formula One's major movers and shakers. The dictionary tells us a piranha is a predatory South American fresh-water fish, noted for its voracity. The Piranha Club explains why Jordan was met with such an alarming greeting.
Customer Reviews
More anecdotes please...
This book chronicles the different life stories of the prominent personalities of the F1 paddock - Bernie Ecclestone, Max Mosley, Frank Williams, Ron Dennis as well as some of the old members like Enzo Ferrari, Walker, Cooper and Chapman. Also chronicles the rise of Paul Stoddart, the owner of the Minardi Team.
Instead of delving on the inner workings of the Piranha Club, the author opts to present a collection of biographies of the more prominent members of the Club. There are some anecdotes on the inner workings interwoven between the life stories of the team principals(e.g. Schumacher's transfer from Jordan to Benetton, poaching of Minardi's chief engineer by Toyota, Frank Williams closeness with Ron Dennis) but they are few and far between.
If the author could have made these inner workings of the club as the main thesis of the book then it could have been a far worthwhile read.
