Lights Out, Full Throttle: Stories from the Pit Lane

by Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert

Overview

Lights Out, Full Throttle is the hilarious account of life in the F1 pit lane from two legends of the sport, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert.Damon and Johnny here. Motorsport's answer to Ant and Dec, just a lot more comprehensible and, all in all, a wee bit taller. Between us we have about 100 years’ experience of driving cars quickly and have competed in 261 Grand Prix spawning 25 wins, 49 podiums, one World Championship and 458 championship points. We even have a win at Le Mans to our names, as well as two smashed ankles, a broken arm, a broken wrist, a broken leg, about sixty broken ribs, a pierced upper thigh that missed Johnny’s twig and berries by millimetres, and a bruised ego or three.Basically, we’re two middle-aged men who are both what you might call physically compromised. That said, contrary to popular belief, we still have a modicum of bladder control and can talk Formula 1 with the best of them. Which brings us to our book. Despite its immense popularity, when it comes to things like humour and absurdity, Formula 1 is not exactly a ride on the big dipper and in that respect it hasn’t buttered our parsnips for decades. Well, nil desperandum boys and girls because we, Damon Graham Devereux Hill, OBE, and John Paul Herbert, No BE, are here to put the F back into Formula 1 by ditching aerodynamics, clean air and tyre degradation in favour of honest, forthright opinions and apocryphal stories involving automotive derring-do. And, derring-don’t!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781529039993
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	12/01/2020
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert are a key component of Sky Sports award-winning coverage of F1. Between them they cover the majority of Grand Prixs, and will continue to do so for the 2020 season, if not beyond. They have a combined social media following in the region of 260K. They plan a podcast and dedicated social media channels to support the book.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Monaco 5

Chapter 2 Team orders: good or bad? 25

Chapter 3 Can Fl be green, and should it even aspire to be? 55

Chapter 4 Lewis 73

Chapter 5 Is it harder for people from poorer backgrounds to make it in Fl? 85

Chapter 6 Silverstone 95

Chapter 7 Whither Ferrari and whither Williams? 117

Chapter 8 Safety 133

Chapter 9 Big Bernie 147

Chapter 10 How important is fitness? 165

Chapter 11 Driving by the seat of your pants 179

Chapter 12 Has Fl lost a bit of its soul? 187

Chapter 13 Favourite Fl driver(s) of all time 199

Chapter 13 (Part Two) Same question again, only serious this time 201

Chapter 14 The perennial problem of overtaking, or the lack of it, in Fl 211

Chapter 15 Geniuses in Fl 225

Chapter 16 Circuits: the good, the bad and the ugly 243

Chapter 17 Getting the yips and knowing when to quit 259

Chapter 18 How much input does the driver have these days? 273

Chapter 19 Fame 283

Chapter 20 Whither punditry? Expert analysis, or idiots mouthing off? 291

Chapter 21 The future 307

Afterword 315

Index 323