The Bookworm Critique

I try hard not to have any expectations of the books that I review. Honestly, I do. But it never works. There are some where I'm like a four-year-old kid at Christmas - any ideas about removing the wrapping sensibly go straight out the window as I bore a hole directly through the 16 layers of cardboard and plastic that shipping companies insist on sheathing books in for freight, desperate to get to the wordy goodness contained within.

Other times, there are books that I am relatively neutral about. The packaging is removed neatly, and the book is put somewhere respectful until I have the chance to get acquainted with it.

The final group consists of the ones that I'm leery about. They're the books that are sometimes not even removed from the box until I have to read them, and even then I might spend a couple of days eyeing them warily before I finally crack the cover open.

As much as I hate to say it, this book fell into the last camp. Part of the reason was that I have always found Timothy Collings's books a bit hit-and-miss, both in the quality of their information and also in the way that they're written. Some have been OK; others I have been rather less excited about.

I was also a little suspicious of the subject, because while I am theoretically in favour of as many motorsport books flooding the shelves as possible, I am also starting to wonder whether the world really needs any more to be written about Michael Schumacher (unless, that is, it is written by Michael himself, but I don't have high hopes of seeing that happen any time soon).

But as it turns out, this time my scepticism was a bit premature because Team Schumacher actually isn't a bad read. Collings has switched the focus somewhat away from Michael himself, and instead directed it towards the architects of the Schumacher/Ferrari dynasty that now extends back a decade, and has proven so successful that is has created an entire generation of fans who think that the Italian national anthem is the second verse of the German one.

With entire chapters devoted to the likes of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Willi Weber, Collings has given himself a rich mine of material to work with. Indeed some of the protagonists, particularly Todt, are easily worthy of a book in their own right.

Even the most blinkered member of the tifosi will admit that the past 10 years of Ferrari have not passed without controversy, and, generally speaking, Collings does make an effort to at least acknowledge most of these. Some, such as Jerez 1997 or some of the clumsier enforcements of the team orders philosophy have already been covered extensively elsewhere.

But there are others, such as Weber's legal problems, that have been less exhaustively examined, and it is a credit to Collings that he makes an effort to balance things out, even if he sometimes gives things a little less scrutiny than the reader might have hopes for.

There are a few other shortcomings, too - given the stunning dependability of Ferrari's engines over the past few years, I am a little bewildered that Paolo Martinelli has been moved to the sidelines. I'm also disappointed in the over-reliance on existing interview material.

Anybody who has ever tried to arrange a Ferrari interview will appreciate the difficulty in penetrating the inner sanctum for a one-on-one, but Collings could still have done a bit more of his own work on some of the other characters.

Former Ferrari driver Ivan Capelli still attends all of the Grands Prix in his capacity as a commentator for Italian TV station RAI Uno, so why rely on an old interview published in a (not very good) book five years ago?

There are also a few basic errors, such as spelling mistakes, that could have been ironed out with some more careful proofreading. But on the flip side, there are some highlights. The chapter on Todt probably offers some of the book's more revealing material. Not only, that, the team's Napoleonic spearhead also provides the basis for the best anecdotal material - the story about Todt interviewing Ross Brawn for the job while wearing nothing but his underwear and a singlet is simultaneously funny and disturbing.

This may be a drop in an ocean of books that have already been written about Michael and the Prancing Horse, but despite its shortcomings it still stands out as being above the average. If you are looking for a reasonably thorough exploration of the people that helped to get Schumacher to where he is, and possibly a few insights into the man himself as well, then you could do worse than have a look at 'Team Schumacher'.