Bernie Ecclestone is best-known as the architect and figurehead of modern Formula One, but he has been a constant and often controversial presence in both Formula One and British public life since the 1970s. In this exhaustive and insightful biography, initially written in close collaboration with Bernie, Susan Watkins analyses in detail his rise to prominence, from his early entrepreneurial exploits as a schoolboy to his position today as a peerless businessman and multi-billionaire. All aspects of his business and racing exploits are examined, and contrasted with intimate insight into his personal life.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Private, mysterious and some say sinister, 79 year-old Bernie Ecclestone criss-crosses the globe in his private jet mixing with celebrities, statesmen and sporting heroes. Ecclestone's success has not just been to create a multi-billion pound global business but to resist repeated attempts to snatch the glittering prize from his control. Ecclestone has never before revealed how he graduated from selling second-hand cars in London's notorious Warren Street to become the major player he is today. He has finally decided to reveal his secrets: the deals, the marriages, the disasters and the successes on race tracks, in Downing Street, in casinos, on yachts and in the air.
For nearly forty years he has ruthlessly exploited and dominated Formula One motor racing, and now he is setting his sights further afield...This is the true story of Bernie Ecclestone, the street-smart, working-class kid who masterminded the transformation of Formula One from an amateur sport of the fifties into a global billion dollar industry of the 21st century. Now, with his GBP2.5bn fortune, influence and power, Bernie has moved into the world of football with Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore to turn Queen's Park Rangers, a struggling west London club, into a serious rival to the capital's glamour club, Chelsea. To many he was the saviour of Formula One, but there are also those who came into conflict with his methods. They have a different story to tell. Bernie Ecclesone, King of Sport reveals the unbridled avarice, callousness and corruption behind the hype of Formula One - and the warts-and-all character of the man who is now making his mark on the beautiful game. This is the true, astonishing story of the single most powerful man in thew world of sport today.
Since the Grand Prix’s start in 1950 just 33 men have achieved the accolade of F1 World Champion. For the first time, legendary F1 commentator Maurice Hamilton and award-winning photographers Bernard and Paul-Henri Cahier bring the heroes of this iconic sport together, in a stunning photographic portrayal of the poise, skill and winning mindset that separates the fast from the furious, the elite from the talented. With exclusive quotes from icons such as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, and including Maurice’s historic interviews with the sport’s lost heroes – including James Hunt and Aryton Senna – F1: The Champions is a beautiful tribute to the most ferocious of sports and the incredible sportsmen who drive at the edge in pursuit of greatness.
F1 Mavericks is the story of the grandest, most influential, and most fondly remembered era in Formula 1 racing as seen through the lens of master motorsports photographer, Pete Biro. The period from 1960 to 1982 saw the greatest technological changes in the history of Formula 1 racing: the transition from front engines to rear engines, narrow-treaded tires, massive racing slicks, zero downforce, and neck-wrenching ground effects—and, of course, a staggering increase in performance and reduction in lap times. In short, the period saw the creation of the modern Formula 1 car. This is also the time when legendary names who defined F1 were out in full force: Jim Clark, Jack Brabham, Dan Gurney, Sir Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, Niki Lauda, James Hunt, Bruce McLaren, Jody Scheckter. We’ll see and meet all of them. But F1 Mavericks also focuses on the designers and engineers behind the cars—men like Colin Chapman, Sir Patrick Head, Maurice Philippe, Franco Rochhi, Gordon Murray, and many others. We’ll hear directly from many of them, including a foreword from 1978 F1 World Champion, Mario Andretti. Every chapter is a photographic account of key races throughout the period, supplemented with sidebars featuring key designers and technologies, like wings, ground effects, slick tires, turbochargers, and the Brabham “fan” suction car. F1 Mavericks is an international story, and includes loads of information on designs from Japan (Honda), Britain (McLaren, Tyrrell, Cooper, BRM) Italy (Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo), France (Matra, Ligier, Renault), Germany (Porsche, BMW) and the United States (Eagle, Shadow, Penske, Parnelli). Strap yourself in for the story of the greatest era in Formula 1 racing—it's all here in F1 Mavericks.
This biography tells how a street-sharp, working-class kid became one of the most powerful and wealthiest figures in sport. For more than 30 years, Bernie Ecclestone has ruthlessly exploited and dominated Formula One motor racing to become the third richest man in the United Kingdom with a family fortune worth #3 billion. the labours of his wheeler-dealing, he is both feared and admired for the way in which he has masterminded the transformation of Formula One from an amateur sport of the Fifties into a global billion-dollar industry of the 21st century. But along the way there have been many, not only in Formula One but in motor sports at large, who have suffered at his hands - the weak and the gullible, the politcally naive and unsuspecting. They have a different story to tell. hype that sustains it. It opens the august portals of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, the body that governs Formula One, to discover the avarice, callousness and corruption of its rules.
Bernie Ecclestone is best-known as the architect and figurehead of modern Formula One, but he has been a constant and often controversial presence in both Formula One and British public life since the 1970s. In this exhaustive and insightful biography, Susan Watkins analyses in detail his rise to prominence, from his early entrepreneurial exploits as a schoolboy to his position today as a peerless businessman and multi-billionaire. All aspects of his business and racing exploits are examined, and contrasted with intimate insight into his personal life.
'The story of Brawn GP is legendary... Exciting and magical.' Damon Hill 'Nick Fry and Ed Gorman take us behind the mysterious and tightly closed doors of F1 to tell the remarkable story of the 2009 season.' Martin Brundle Foreword by Bernie Ecclestone The full story of F1's incredible 2009 championship battle has never been told. Until now. In this gripping memoir, Nick Fry, the former CEO of Brawn GP, reveals how he found himself in the driving seat for one of the most incredible journeys in the history of motor sport. At the end of 2008, Nick, then head of Honda's F1 team, was told by his Japanese bosses that the motor company was pulling out of F1 in thirty days. This bolt from the blue was a disaster for the team's 700 staff, for Ross Brawn, who Nick had recently recruited as chief engineer, and for the drivers, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. But in a few short weeks, Nick and Ross would persuade Honda to sell them the company for £1 (plus all the liabilities). Just thirteen weeks later, the Brawn GP team, led by Nick and Ross, would emerge from these ashes, win the first Grand Prix of the 2009 season, and go on to win the Driver's and the Constructor's Championship, with a borrowed engine, a heavily adapted chassis and, at least initially, no sponsors. In Survive. Drive. Win., Nick gives an up-close-and-personal account of how he and Ross turned disaster into championship glory and laid the foundations for what was to become the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team. Along the way he gives the inside track on the drivers, the rivalries between teams, on negotiating with Bernie Ecclestone, on hiring and working with two global superstars: Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton - and offers a unique and thrilling perspective on an elite global sport.
After Max Mosley decided to take the News of the World to court for invading his privacy, a friend of Rupert Murdoch asked Bernie Ecclestone 'Does Max know what he's taking on?' Ecclestone replied that he thought Mosley probably did, but he wasn't sure about Murdoch. It was a mark of the respect in which the former president of the FIA is held by those who know him best. Mosley not only won, but he has now become a formidable campaigner against the abuses of the press. Now, having been in the public eye all his life, after his parents Oswald and Diana Mosley were interned during the second world war for their political beliefs, he has decided to give his fascinating account of his extraordinary career. He gave up a promising position at the Bar to take up motor racing, initially as a driver and later as a team owner. He got to know some of the sport's most famous names, but also saw the reckless disregard for their lives shown by many organisers. Mosley went on to form a formidable partnership with Ecclestone, and he reveals in compelling detail how they set about transforming Formula One into the most glamorous, exciting and extravagant form of motorsport. His inside knowledge is unrivalled, and for any fan of the sport this account is sure to shed much new light. His often unsung work for the FIA not only made Formula One safer, it was also to have hugely beneficial consequences to motorists eveywhere.
