Fast Money: The Backroom Deals, Corporate Espionage, and Legendary Power Struggles That Drive Formula One

Two veteran reporters delve into the business of Formula One from the boardroom to the track, revealing the shady deals, scandals, and secret contracts that helped turn the sport from a pastime for wealthy enthusiasts into the world's most-watched annual sports series.

The popularity of Formula One racing has exploded in the U.S. over the past five years. And Liberty Media, the sport's U.S.-based owner, presents a clean-cut face to the world's media. But just beneath the pristine surface and a different picture emerges: one full of corporate espionage, long-held grudges, courtroom dramas, and shady dealmaking. This is a sport - and business - whose current success stands on the shoulders of decades of rule-breaking, ugly compromise and financial misdealings.

The result of over a thousand hours of exclusive interviews with the sport's major players, Fast Money treats the sport of Formula One as the business it is, following the money that is driving the sport to new heights.

Full of free-wheeling, pugnacious, swaggering characters, the book travels from the sunny climes of the French Riviera to the tarmacked deserts of the Middle East, focusing on the sport's most important episodes, most of which fans know next to nothing about and which are being brought to light, in sometimes eye-watering detail, for the very first time.

Author: Christian Sylt, Caroline Reid
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 03/25/2025
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781541704268

About the Author
Christian Sylt and Caroline Reid are journalists who specialise in the business of Formula One. Over the course of their careers covering the sport, they have broken many exclusives and have contributed to many of the world's leading publications, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. They have also been interviewed by the the BBC and CNN, among many others. In addition to their work as journalists, they founded Formula Money in 2007, the only business information service dedicated to F1, which offers consultancy to potential and existing stakeholders including teams, driver managers, broadcasters, debt holders, investors, sponsors and race hosts.