Alex Jacques has deservedly collected plaudits for his commentary work since taking up the microphone at F1 TV. He won the Sports Commentator of the Year award in 2022 and has just been nominated again.
Somehow, between criss-crossing the world to cover 24 grand prix weekends per year plus various other motorsport commentary gigs, he’s found time to pen this 300-page book on Formula 1 history.
“Grid to Glory” is described on its back cover as “celebrating the Formula One world championship’s 75th season”. Presumably this is a reference to last year, 2025 being the 76th edition of the championship. Either way its premise – listing “75 milestone Formula 1 moments” – is a tricky one.
Of course it will invite quibbles over which milestones do and do not deserve inclusion. What developments truly shaped the F1 we know today? And can they all be defined by individual ‘moments’?
To put it another way, was Renault’s decision to risk developing its turbocharged car, which changed the course of F1 technology for years, as significant as Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber’s falling-out over team orders? The introduction of advertising to F1 clearly influenced the sport we watch today but does Claire Williams’ appointment in charge of her father’s team resonate in the same way?
If the book made a case for their inclusion it would be easier to accept why some, arguably less pivotal moments, made the cut. But too often it doesn’t.
However the real problem with this ‘listicle’ concept isn’t which milestones belong, it’s the sheer number of them. Has F1 really produced an average of roughly one ‘milestone’ per year? And can each of them be readily summarised in a few pages before dashing on to the next?
Some of these topics deserve to have entire books written about them. And some have, in the case of Bernie Ecclestone’s accumulation of power or the death of Ayrton Senna.
The bigger issues are also hard to define in a single moment, such as Ecclestone’s creeping control over the sport. On these occasions the text leaves it open to interpretation exactly what the milestone is.
The product is a mixture of interesting stories which are told too hastily alongside other ‘milestones’ of debatable significance. It’s telling the author felt the need to lumber some chapter headings with expository details indicating the reasons for their inclusion: ‘Jim Clark’s Death – It Could Happen to Anybody’; ‘Politics in Indianapolis Overwhelm the Sport, Setting Up Years of Change’.
With so much detail crammed into such brief chapters you could never describe the material as dull. The writing too often is, however, with repetitive prose and lapses into cliche. The editor should have spotted spelling errors such as ‘Ballestre’, ‘Segio’ and ‘Massi’.
This said, Jacques has done an impressive job to cover such a broad scope of F1 history, tackling the on-track action, off-track politics, technical developments and more, even if the treatment feels perfunctory in places. Anyone who’s heard his commentary will realise how much preparation and research he puts into it and that is evident here, too.
That makes the book more of a disappointment: too many of the ‘milestones’ don’t feel like they belong, while those which do are related too hurriedly in this random history of F1.
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Grid to Glory: Chapter titles
1: The Creation of the World Championship
2: Jack Brabham – the Australian Legend Who Almost Missed Out
3: Bernie Ecclestone – The Journey to Control F1
4: Murray Walker Defines Modern Sports Commentary
5: Enzo Ferrari Sends Stirling Moss Home
6: The Creation of the Constructors’ Championship
7: Stirling and Alf Change the Game
8: Stirling Moss, the Gentleman Racer
9: The Great Fangio Gets Kidnapped
10: Jackie Stewart Stares at Death
11: The Original Hollywood Fight to Take Racing to the Big Screen
12: Cosworth DFV Engine – A British Engineering Achievement Worth Celebrating
13: The Making of Colin Chapman
14: Jim Clark’s Death – It Could Happen to Anybody
15: Colin Chapman After Jim
16: The Ad Men Arrive
17: March Burst on to the Scene and Win
18: Ron Dennis Crashes Through his Windscreen
19: The Used-car Deal that Gave Hunt a Shot
20: Slowing Down F1 – Introducing the Safety Car
21: Project 34 – The Legendary Six-Wheeler
22: Lella Lombardi Makes Her Point
23: Niki Lauda Chooses to Drive
24: Niki Lauda Chooses to Stop
25: Yellow Teapot – Renault Build a Turbo Engine
26: Sid Watkins Bringing Safety to Formula One
27: The Brabham Fan Car
28: John Barnard’s Carbon-Fibre Car
29: Ferrari’s Villeneuve and Pironi – A Racing Tragedy
30: The Strike
31: Adrian Newey Makes His First Mark in F1
32: Ginny Williams Refuses to Let Her Husband Die
33: Mansell’s Tyre Bursts to Break a Generation’s Heart
34: Prost vs Senna, Part One – Japan 1989
35: Prost vs Senna, Part Two – Japan 1990
36: Jean Alesi’s Sliding Door
37: Bertrand Gachot Is Late for Dinner
38: The Battle for Schumacher’s First Full-Time F1 Contract
39: Senna’s Lap of the Gods
40: The Death of Ayrton Senna
41: Schumacher’s Dark Arts
42: Awards and Rewards – Three Defining Days in the Career of Lewis Hamilton
43: Hill Gets Fired in the Press
44: Hill vs the World and the Washer
45: Schumacher Wins in the Pit Lane
46: European Grand Prix 1999 – What Happens When the Lights Don’t Go Out
47: The Real Rules of the Game
48: The Shootout that Made Jenson Button’s Career
49: Mercedes’ Disgruntled Employee Changes the Race
50: The Greatest Overtake of All Time
51: Ferrari’s Team Order Farce in Austria
52: Rossi and Surtees – From Two to Four Wheels
53: Kimi Rips the Tyre Off and Everyone Ignores It
54: Politics in Indianapolis Overwhelm the Sport, Setting Up Years of Change
55: The Rebirth of the Second Tier
56: Adrian Newey Goes for Dinner on the King’s Road
57: Budapest – McLaren at War
58: Kubica – The Man Who Could Have Challenged Alonso and Hamilton
59: Vettel Becomes the Youngest Winner… With the B Team
60: Brawn’s Two Titles – Won in Translation
61: A Crazy Bridgestone Race Defines an Entire Era
62: Lewis and Niki Chat in Singapore
63: ‘Multi 21, Seb… Multi 21′
64: Claire Takes Over Williams
65: The Battle that Saved Mercedes’ Engine Advantage
66: Marko Promotes Max Straight into F1 at Seventeen
67: Verstappen and Son The Road to Becoming F1’s Youngest Winner
68: Rosberg Retires at Thirty-One
69: Drive to Survive
70: The Cost Cap and the Pandemic
71: Grosjean Cheats Death
72: Silverstone Ignites a Battle for the Ages
73: Abu Dhabi – Hamilton vs Verstappen
74: Charles, Herve and Jules
75: Hamilton Moves to Ferrari
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“Grid to Glory: 75 Milestone Formula One Moments”
Author: Alex Jacques
Publisher: Michael O’Mara
Published: 2025
Pages: 320
Price: £20 (hardback), £10.99 (paperback), £9.99 (Ebook)
ISBN: 9781789297683
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