Grand Prix, Yesterday and Today, Bruce Jones (Carlton Books, £20) (From The Northern Echo)

Grand Prix, Yesterday and Today, Bruce Jones (Carlton Books, £20)

10:31am Saturday 27th November 2010 in Sport By Matt Westcott

THE joy of motorsport, says Sir Stirling Moss in the foreword to this book, is that the spirit of needing to be the fastest still remains.

As arguably Britain’s greatest racing driver will attest, practically everything has changed in the sport over the decades. Those contrasts are brought home through grainy black and white images and pinsharp colour as Jones goes back through the archives and celebrates the icons of today. On each page there is an historical reference point in history juxtaposed with a much more recent event. So you can see pictures of the gentleman racers of the 1930s in spotless white overauls without a hint sponsors’ graffiti next to today’s flame-retardant outfits, covered from top to toe with the names of the world’s leading manufacturers.

There’s a section on how safety has changed for the spectators, never mind the drivers, and also a look at the pits as they were then and as they are now.

Putting the book together in this way brings home to the reader just how far things have come and, at the same, just what we have left behind.