[Book Review] Second to None

The European Formula 2 Story: From Ickx to Thackwell and from Rindt to Streiff

By Chris Ellard

The 2017 season brought a rebranding of the lower tier of motor racing, with GP2 once again to be known as Formula Two. Formula Two evokes so many motor racing recollections and memories. Drivers learning their craft and competing on the cusp of Grand Prix racing, and much earlier Grand Prix drivers duelling with each other in a different arena. Chris Ellard looks at the Formula Two years from 1967 through to 1984, drawing much from early visits to F2 races as a spectator and like many enthusiasts he was drawn to the racing by the sight, smell, noise and overall ambience of a typical 1960s race weekend. Ellard’s book focuses on those drivers who won at least one race throughout the 18-year period. It doesn’t just concentrate on UK and European races, but also those in South America too, together with various “one-off” races. It also provides information about those drivers who have become somewhat forgotten—those who were good, but due to one reason or other, never really made the grade as a Grand Prix driver—such as Rad Dougall, Chris Irwin, Ingo Hoffman and Maurizio Flammini, to mention but a few. Of course, there were the tragedies too—most remember Jimmy Clark lost at Hockenheim in April 1968, but there were others, Ian Raby, Chris Lambert, Gerry Birrell, Markus Hottinger and Bert Hawthorne.

The excellent text and story telling of Ellard is more than adequately enhanced by the many photographs, both black and white and color—many never before published. It is easy to get truly immersed in this cornucopia of nostalgia, seeing how the cream-of-the-crop drivers rose to the top, the closeness of the races and the camaraderie of all involved. There is a great deal of painstaking research gone into the production of this book, it is self-published and comes with two smaller soft-cover books giving all races information, results and data (these are co-written with Chris Ellard’s brother Tony).