The Piranha Club: Power and Influence in Formula One - Hardcover

Collings, Timothy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1852279079 ISBN 13: 9781852279073

Publisher: Virgin Pub, 2001

Synopsis

'Welcome to the Piranha Club' Ron Dennis (head of McLaren) to Eddie Jordan on the inception of the Jordan Formula One racing team. The Piranha Club is the very first serious study of Formula One's most intriguing and influential figures - the men who wield the real power in this global sport. Formula One attracts astounding television audiences world-wide and huge crowds at every race meet. It is the meeting point of sport, commerce, showbusiness, glamour and gossip with technology, the automotive industry and big-time international politics. You are as likely to share a table for lunch in the paddock with Michael Douglas s with a politican, a royal or a rock star. The Piranha Club is the very first book to tackle the fascinating and topical subject of Formula One motor racing's most influential figures - how it works, what makes them the money, and drives them. Author Tim Collings has been granted unparalleled access too all of the sport's influential figures and has gained penetrating insights on motor racings biggest names: Bernie Ecclestone, Max Mosely, Luci di Montezmolo, Alain Prost, Jackie Stewart, Ron Dennis, Frank Williams, Eddie Jordan - and many more.

About this title

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.

About the Author:

Timothy Collings, sporadic author and prolific sports journalist, is motor racing correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and Formula One reporter for Reuters news agency. He runs his own sports news agency, Collings Sport, supplying a wide range of clients all over the world with reports on anything from football to surfing and motorcycling to wine-drinking. He has reported on Formula One since 1986 and his previous books include The New Villeneuve: The Life of Jacques Villeneuve, Damon Hill: My Championshp Year and Schumacher: The Life of the New Formula One Champion. Married with two children, Tim lives in Hertfordshire, UK.

About this edition

• Publisher: Virgin Pub
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1852279079
• ISBN 13: 9781852279073
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 334