AUTOCOURSE 2022-23 ANNUAL: The World's Leading Grand Prix Annual

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This consists of the full results table for the season, featuring each driver and accompanied since 1996 by a group photo of all the drivers in one of the Grands Prix. Other statistics are also given, such as overall career details for each driver and their average qualifying position over the season. Well, for what little it might be worth, it is good to see some actual enthusiasts involved in such a venture in these days where faceless, souless corporate types run things. You are certainly correct as to the damage being two-fold, the Hazleton product simply getting worse and worse in recent years -- and it was clear that AH was not getting much help from those at "corporate." The neglect of the other titles is enough to make you realize just how thin the edge is nowadays. No #1 if Pironi had finished the season just for Gilles alone, as much as I am a Gilles fan, that would have been too much. But taking the Pironi situation within the decion as well, I felt it to be a good decision to leave the #1 open that year. Annuals of motor racing The 50th anniversary edition of Autocourse, covering the 2000 season. Pictured on the cover is Michael Schumacher, the World Drivers' Champion that year.

A bit of drift to say I'm in a similar position. At work I learned enough FORTRAN to write programs (as we called 'em) to deal with various aspects of aircraft performance, but at home I used BASIC, using interpretor for developing and compiler for active use. All our motor race handicapping was computerised that way and when I tried to retire I had to continue as my successor's IT man using an old early laptop with DOS driving a postscript printer. The brilliant Brazilian may justifiably claim to be the best driver of his era, yet Senna's level of achievement varied more dramatically in 1993 than ever before. His wins at Interlagos, Donnington Park and Suzuka served to confirm his matchless genius in the wet, and his victory at Adelaide was surely the most decisive success achieved by anybody all year. Yet there was a mid-season trough during which his frustration at not having the best car produced a string of uncharacteristically indifferent performances.

From what I remember (don't have the book available here) The #1 spot was left open in respect to both Pironi and Villeneuve since Pironi was in a good position to become the champion. But since there was doubts about what Gilles may have achieved during the year if given the opportunity... The problem of course is that I have no idea of the top tens pre-1990. So I can work out the current crop of drivers points - MS, MH, DC, RB etc, but not the likes of Senna, Lauda etc. Motor racing’s other major categories are also fully covered: WEC and Le Mans sports car successes; the closely-fought Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships, featuring emerging young talent from around all continents of the world; and the tightly fought Formula E series for electric powered single seaters.

I vaguely recall that they may even have had a normally-aspirated "championship" in 1987? Not that it was considered particularly important, but I guess Palmer was getting credit for winning that. Maybe someone else recalls more about that.AUTOCOURSE includes all the hectic action from the top Touring Car series – the World Touring Car Cup and the British Touring Car Championships as well as the DTM Series running GT cars from Audi, Mercedes, BMW and Ferrari. The problem is the balance between F1 and "everything else". Personally I'd like to see more "everything else", particularly sports cars and GTs; and now the "ladder" below F1 is more complex than ever before, how's Autocourse going to cover it? - it's clear that GP2 is not the only way to the top now. A driver of such staggering potential that he is widely disliked in the pit lane. Rivals, frustrated by his innate skill, question his Formula 3 tactics under pressure but when it comes to using his car - controlling it with deceptive ease - Ayrton Senna has no peers. Despite his inexperience, showed remarkable calm at Rio and Estoril and the manner in which he overcame an open dislike of Detroit to take pole gave some indication of a committment to succeed which is frightening in its intensity. And succeed he will, judging by the ability to shake off a disastrous day of practice at Spa, claim a place on the front row and then lead with ice-cold confidence. It has been a character building season for the man who led at Imola, Monaco, Detroit, Silverstone, the Nurburgring, Brands Hatch, and Adelaide, only to be criticised for the slightest indiscretion. He *knows* he is the best - but rivals who vaguely understand him say he will go to pieces if this belief is blown apart unexpectedly. Was his uncharacteristic performance at Adelaide a case in point? Highly respected Mark Hughes looks at the technical developments behind all the competitors in his team-by-team review, enhanced by Adrian Dean's beautiful F1 car illustrations.

From the other side of the Atlantic, Gordon Kirby provides his usual insightful analysis of the US racing scene which majors on the compelling action of the ever-growing Indycar series and the gruelling NASCAR series. As I mentioned in the sister thread on RC, target number one is to ensure that the titles will all be published on their former traditional dates - which, in most cases, is pre-Christmas - and guaranteeing that all the previous traditional quality levels will be restored, if not surpassed. As for the Gapchart program, I was still developing and updating it myself, but as I said, it was written in Basic and modern computers no longer have a DOS command level, so it's no longer accesible. I have since tried to emulate a few functions in an Excel sheet, but it's slow going as I don't have that much time and energy to spend on the project at the mo. Yet another project for another rainy day... The nuances of F1’s designs and development are analysed team by team by the much-respected Mark Hughes, enhanced by Adrian Dean’s handsome F1 car illustrations. I would like to see less on F1, cos it's everywhere. F1 Racing, Autosport &c. Keep the lap charts (and lap times would be interesting) and team analyses, I'd maybe have less on the race itself and more on the surrounding issues (those little boxes), and a lot more on the other formulae - the coverage of the Split has been minimal when it should have had something pretty in-depth.

This sounds like the 'debate' that autosport readers had with John McIlroy on Ten-Tenths last year - many of us were saying 'less F1, more words' and John was -- probably perfectly defensibly from a mass-market point of view -- making it blatantly clear that for every reader who wanted that there were dozens of casual fans who'd be entirely turned off by it....)

Motor racing’s other major categories are also fully covered: Toyota’s WEC and Le Mans sports car successes; the closely-fought Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships, featuring emerging young talent from around all continents of the world; and the tightly fought Formula E series for electric powered single seaters. This is the longest section of the annual, and contains a report on each Grand Prix in the Formula One season, including qualifying, photos, comprehensive results and sidebars for more in-depth news stories. World champion for the third time in his eight year career, the enigmatic Brazillian softened his few remaining asperities to emerge a more complete and rounded performer than ever before. There were certainly fewer signs of the impulsiveness which had occasionally got him into hot water in the past, and his tactical abilities took on a fresh dimension as he squared up to a title contest in which he did not always have the advantage of superior technical equipment.I'm realistic enough to assume that the mass-market wants at least as much F1 as there is now, though. I actually enjoyed the level of detail in the Official Bernie Formula One Annuals of 2001 and 2002 - there was a huge amount of coverage of qualifying and race reports team by team. The team review section, split into drivers, technical, and commercial aspects was very good - it was a lot more comprehensive than Autocourse. That level of detail is what I would like to see in the Autocourse team review - but not necessarily the race by race results for each team - It did get into a bit of overkill as they also summarised the overall race separately. Fridays and Saturdays tend to get neglected, as do the minor placings on the race day. Autocourse is a series of annuals covering motor racing, and Formula One in particular. The annuals cover a long period of the sport's history, from 1951 to the present day, and, as such, are highly collectible.