The Piranha club - Timothy Collings

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. Author Tim Collings has written an entertaining and incisive analysis of the Formula One paddock, explaining how it works, who runs it, how it makes mocey and what sort of people exist there. Formula One hardly needs selling. It has massive television audiences world wide and huge crowds at the race tracks. It oozes colour, drama, and glamour, not to mention money. 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 Liz Hurley, Naomi Campbell or Michael Douglas as with a politican, or a royal pop singer. The place is tumbling with intrigue and interest. It is run like clockwork and the guys who run it are the most intriguing of all: Bernie Eccleston and Max Mcseley, Luca di Montexmolo, Alain Prost and Jackie Stewart, Ron Dennis, Frank Williams, Eddie Jordan and the rest. They are from all sorts of backgrounds, but they share the common interest of Formula One reacing - and finding a way of making money successfully. These racing rollers are big people.