Speed Reader

Whenever I see a picture of the Lola T97/30, I'm reminded of the audition episodes of those Pop Idol-type shows (admit it, you watch them too).

The best part of those programmes are the early bits, when they are still separating the wheat from the chaff, because pretty much every week you get to see what happens when someone discovers (often several years too late) that their ambitions - and often, their assessment of their own ability - is dramatically at odds with reality.

Some, when the judges tell them that they're not up to scratch, get angry. Others remain defiant and in denial, often delivering a venomous parting shot to the cameras along the lines of 'the judges don't know what they've missed out on... next time you see me will be on the charts'. (They're my favourite ones). And for some, facing the truth bites hard and they are devastated. You can't help but feel a little sorry for them.

But the thing that they all have in common was that after all the planning, all the dreaming, and all the preparation, when their moment in the bright lights finally came, they were nowhere. And that's what happened with Lola.

Actually, looking back, it's hard to believe that something as half-cocked as Lola's F1 attempt could have happened as recently as 1997.

Irrespective of sponsor pressure, how could anyone have thought that they could take an F1 car that had been designed from scratch in four months, had never been near a wind tunnel, and had done virtually no testing (one wet day at Silverstone that ended early due to a gearbox problem, and some straight-line running at the Santa Pod drag strip) to Albert Park for the start of the season and not make themselves look stupid? And that's before you take into account that they had Ricardo Rosset driving the thing.

Dreams are one thing, but just like the poor sap trying to sing Ricky Martin on our reality TV show, Lola's first taste of reality came as a cold shock. The car was impossible to set up (well, duh), generated no grip, and wobbled around about 11 seconds off the pace.

It failed to qualify - at the time, all cars had to qualify within 107 percent of the pole-sitter's time - and never even made it onto the track for the second round in Brazil.

There is something morbidly fascinating about how someone can get it all so wrong, particularly a company of Lola's pedigree. SS Collins obviously feels the same way, because it was his fascination with the Lola farce that sparked his interest in F1 cars that never made it onto the grid; an interest that culminated in this book.

First up, kudos for the idea. I'm not aware of any similar books having been written in the past, and F1's ethos of having teams designing and building cars in-house rather than buy chassis off the shelf means that history is studded with examples of machinery that never got past the testing stage. Actually, some never even made it that far.

Collins has decided to limit himself to the unraced F1 cars of the recent three-litre era. Straight off the bat there will be a lot of disappointed fans whose memories (or interest) stretch back further than 15 years, but it's Collins' book and he can do what he likes.

It must be said, though, that the less rigid regulations of earlier eras means that the author has denied himself some rich material - take a look at 8W's Grand Prix cars that never raced page for a taster.

Anyway, having established that this book is based on a cool concept irrespective of whether you agree with its boundaries, we unfortunately run into problems fairly quickly.

For a start, it lacks badly in both depth and personality. The little author biography on the back of the dust jacket says that Collins "has always been more interested in cars than drivers", which is fine. But unlike cars, drivers can talk - they explain things, share memories and anecdotes, and sometimes reveal new information.

And if you don't want to talk to drivers, there are designers, team managers, mechanics, photographers who took spy shots. There was potentially a huge cast of people who could have been interviewed , and yet almost nothing in the book suggests that the author ever picked up the phone.

The quotes that have been included are overwhelmingly drawn from either press releases or news articles from magazines of the day, and the only hints that Collins spoke to anyone at all come from occasional banal facts attributed to 'a team source' at Honda or Toyota.

Even if you are generally technically-minded, as Collins clearly is, the lack of input from those who were involved in the various projects is mystifying. A random sample of guys who tested some of the cars in this book includes Allan McNish, Mika Salo, Darren Turner and Jos Verstappen, none of whom would be particularly difficult to get hold of for an interview. You'd have thought it would be a no-brainer.

The absence of any personal colour puts extra pressure on Collins's writing to make up the shortfall, and unfortunately it is nowhere near strong enough. On the contrary, evidence that the manuscript never made it to the desk of an editor prior to publication is all too frequent.

There are signs of his effort in other aspects of the research - the chapters are reasonably detailed from a technical point of view, and his attempts to chase up small details like the present whereabouts of each car are appreciated. But it's not enough.

Another aspect of the book that confused me was Collins' decision to set such a distinct emphasis on three-litre F1 cars, and then ignore his own boundaries by including a frankly pointless chapter about Premier 1 and Superfund.

The inclusion of interim testing cars also seemed superfluous. "... they don't justify their own chapters, but its worth briefly touching on their stories", Collins writes. A few days spent running this year's car with next year's front wing and gearbox on it? No it's not.

And don't even get me started on the disproportionate amount of space allocated to the BAR Honda Bonneville car - a year-old BAR that was tweaked in 2006 for an attempt to break the 400 km/h barrier.

Then there are the occasions where you're left wondering whether the author may have missed the point. The chapter covering McLaren's stillborn MP4/18, for example, points to the huge differences between that car and the various incarnations of the MP4/17, but makes little attempt to evaluate it against the MP4/19, which came afterwards - and took many of its conceptual cues from the 18.

Collins' conclusions regarding Lola were even more bewildering. "T97/30 didn't destroy Lola, it saved it, and there are very few racing cars that can be credited with assuring a firm's long-term prosperity," he writes.

Lola lost a reported £6 million through its F1 attempt, which sent the company bust. Had Martin Birrane not stepped in to buy it, the firm would have folded. Now, I failed Year 10 economics at school, so I'm not going to offer myself as an authority on number crunching, but this does not strike me as a financial success story.

That Lola did survive is a great thing - it's a proud company with a glorious heritage, and these days it is in good shape. But as far as I can see, it is in good health despite the F1 disaster, not as a result of it. For all I know Collins could be correct, but he doesn't offer any evidence in his book to support himself.

I really wanted to like this book. As I said at the start, Collins found himself a brilliant subject that has been under-represented so far, and for that he deserves credit. I'm a fan of the publisher Veloce too, which is energetically dedicated to publishing specialist racing books that larger companies would deem unviable.

But like so many of the cars that it tells us about, 'Unraced' is ultimately a great idea that falls apart in its execution.