Formula 1: All the Races 2016–2024, Liberty Media’s Makeover
by Roger Smith
“Hamilton hadn’t won a race since landing his third title. But Rosberg had: all of them. His fifth in a row—a feat only matched or exceeded by Lewis and six other Formula 1 Champions—was his 16th victory. It matched Moss’ career tally as well as Stirling’s status as ‘winningest’ non-Champion. Nico, already 17 points up on Hamilton and 35 on Vettel, looked on course to hand back that shared accolade to Stirling come season’s end.”
Pretty tightly packed, huh?
This one paragraph was picked totally at random but is representative of the level of magnification and pace throughout the book. This particular example showcases another thing that permeates the book: rich context that connects dots from the nine seasons that are the topic of this one book to older material that mattered in the overall history of F1.
And let’s be honest: even readers who maintain an ongoing, long-time immersion in F1 would be hard-pressed to rattle off such a degree of detail on the spur of moment. Author Roger Smith doesn’t do it spur of moment either but rather burrows through reams of data, and, as he explains on the last page (which makes it all too easy to miss) he sets down his synopses “immediately after the race, preserving the detail of the events while they remain vivid.”
While considering himself a lifetime fan and student of Formula 1, he did have to attend to the demands of a professional career in a different arena and so has partaken of “only” 100-odd F1 races since 1957 in the flesh, meaning he did have to become adept at vetting other people’s material so as to separate the wheat from the chaff.
A smattering of pages from the book. You can see at a glance that the same graphic elements occur throughout which makes it easy to get your head into the various seasons.
Long-awaited, this book is a continuation of its similarly titled predecessor. That volume covered 1950 to 2015, ending with race #935 so the new book starts with 936. A quick clarification: that was not Smith’s last book. In 2019 he published the 720-page compendium Formula 1: All The Races – The First 1000 which, befitting its subtitle, ended on race #1000 i.e. round 3 of 21 in 2019. (So as to not leave readers dangling the publisher in a very enlightened move made available on their website a downloadable file for the remaining races of 2019.)
Each race is covered on half a page, in an element called “Race Pod.” You can see that the color of the headers is the same whereas in the previous book they were color-coded in one of five ways to indicate a ranking: gold, silver, bronze, black/tragedy, white/travesty. Very handy but potentially controversial because at least the first three could be thought of as subjective.
As to the subtitle of the new book, you will recall that Liberty Media Corp. submitted its bid to acquire the commercial rights for F1 in 2016 which were then awarded/finalized in 2017. Hence the book begins with the start of the 2016 season, i.e. race 936. And just to get it out of the way, neither the book nor this review are the place to relitigate the merits of Liberty Media, its impact on the sport, or what’s next for either. This book does not engage in spin, not least because the preponderance of stats and facts strung together with a minimum of interpretative exposition simply leaves no room for it.
The race data set comprises Part 1; because Liberty Media is a US company, Part 2 deals with various ways in which US races and racers have shaped F1.
The review could end here.
A book like this is essential for anyone who needs a reliable trove of data presented in a consistent form. It is of much greater utility, and drills much deeper than a strictly narrative treatment. You do want to make yourself familiar with its organization to get the most out of it. On that score, newbies need to know of an item not called out on the Table on Contents: parts 1 and 2 are divided by a crucially important page of “Explanatory Notes and Abbreviations.”
Precisely because of the book’s value as a research tool we now offer some very specific pointers. Since it repeats some 50 pages from The First 1000 it makes sense to look at both side by side, and this does reveal differences.
As before, each race is covered on half a page and in a uniform format: a brief summary, a list of the top 10 finishers, key stats, and a paragraph of miscellaneous remarks (the “2021” photo above). This text in both books appears identical except the font size is now even smaller than it was, for no obvious reason. Very occasionally there may be a photo. A very few instances of layout changes have no impact worth discussing here.
Also as before, each season ends with 5–6 pages of recap titled “Facts and Folklore” (photo above) which begins with a summary in the form of bulleted talking points. This used to be followed by various categories, and still is, except now the categories are different, and, in this reviewer’s opinion, improved: Rules & Regs, and Championship Landscape (Races, Teams, Drivers). As before, the final element is one table each of standings in the Driver’s and the Constructor’s Championship (photo below).
The amount of data on offer is enormous—but just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’ll drop into your lap: the only way to discover which year, say, the Venturi throat (what??) was raised or when Phillipe Streiff (who??) died is to simply stumble across it as you read because this book is presently not available as a digital file that would be searchable by keyword. There is no Index, nor would one make sense.
A book about the hundred greatest F1 races is next (ISBN 9781836440581).
Copyright 2025, Sabu Advani (speedreaders.info)
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