GRAND PRIX CENTURY

The first 100 years of the world's most glamorous and dangerous sport

Christopher Hilton

Publication: Out Now · Format: Paperback · RRP: £9.99 · ISBN: 978 1 84425 983 0

This is one of the greatest stories ever told - about a century of men and machines pitted against each other, death riding at their elbow, risking everything to win. Here, in one action-packed volume, Christopher Hilton celebrates the span of Grand Prix history, from the first race on 26 June 1906, when horses towed the new-fangled cars to the grid, to the awesome technology of today. The thrilling 100-year story is meticulously researched and vividly told, with an extraordinary eye to human detail. It will fascinate both the race fan and general readers who will have the drama spread before them like a feast.

It began at 6am on Tuesday, 26 June 1906, when the first of 34 pug-like cars prepared to go onto an immense, stone-strewn circuit outside Le Mans. At the instant that Lorraine-Dietrich accelerated away, the great, astonishing, frightening, heroic 100-year dynasty of Grand Prix racing was born. The sport which millions of people worldwide watch on television today is the direct, unbroken descendant of that.

Grand Prix Century tells the whole story - from there to here - in a continuous narrative of living detail embracing many men, great and small, recreating a host of the most thrilling races and exploring in plain language the stunning technology. Woven into the text are the winners of every race since that dawn in 1906, through to the Grand Prix that completed the century - by a coincidence in France. It was won by a young Spaniard, Fernando Alonso.

Ace storyteller and respected historian Christopher Hilton is the author of a number of Haynes books including best-selling biographies of Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya and Murray Walker.