The Parc Ferme (Autosport)

Name: Modena

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Autosport
Date:	21/12/01 (149 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Content, depth in some areas, brilliant classifieds section, analysis, photography, comment, F1 coverage…

Disadvantages: …compromising other series (that few people care about), 100+ pages is sometimes just a constraint. Its price makes it out of reach regularly for people like me...

>Driver’s Briefing
Autosport is perhaps the world’s most famous motorsport magazine and is released weekly costing £2.70 which, let’s face it is way too much to pay for a weekly 100+ page magazine.

Autosport is one of those magazines I enjoy reading immensely, yet I find that I seldom purchase it, why? I have no idea, but I think price is definitely an issue. And you never read it again… (isn’t that the point of magazines?)

Also Autosport has a half decent (but underdeveloped) website at www.autosport.com

>Free Practice
Autosport is dominated by Formula 1, the front cover is always a Formula 1 story (even when the F1 season is over; okay, that may be an exaggeration) but the magazine does seem to have more F1 coverage than adverts if you catch my drift. The other main flagship series that are covered in depth are the BTTC, British F3 and Cart (if Dario Franchitti wins), quite understandable.

Let’s face it this is what the average reader wishes to read about right?

>The Grid
The magazine usually starts off with the latest F1 developments. Lots of excellent photography blended into easily digestible chunks of interesting news, no complaints here. There’s a good dozen of these pages, I think this is about right.

Then there’s what I would call the 2nd priority news, like British involvement in foreign top class racing, BTTC, F3000 and British F3.

Then there’s the third priority, which is surprisingly another other interesting motorsport news and the FIA Rally championship, I would call the Rallying third priority, but it is just at the end.

The letters section can be an interesting one, with the cartoon of the week and “star letter” and a comment by the editor. Following this, a few writers have a page of things to say, sometimes interesting, sometimes not!

Then there’s a few pages of the cover story, in my
opinion it lets me know everything I want to know about the issue and is always well written (this is usually about Formula One by the way).

Then there may be the GP review/preview, which I find fantastic (particularly the previews as I like to know about the latest developments and regulation changes and their significance). The reviews in my opinion are excellent, the charts and excellent photography could be a substitute for watching the race.

>Pit stops
We’re midway through the race now, there’s usually some tacky (or nice if you are lucky) stuff in the centre of the magazine, celebration or advertising., fair enough. There is always some fascinating info about the past (like 10 years ago that day, 20 years etc etc…)

Then there is what I like the most (apart from the F1), the GT section, it rightly starts with the ALMS series, one or two pages of that (this assumes there will be or was a race) and the FIA GT which gets little coverage (unless the number of pages is not a multiple of 4) and is focused on the GT battle. Sometimes they cannot even be bothered to display the full results! (I care about this because I am/was involved in a team that was not in the results, yet some cars that didn’t finish were displayed, but hey, every CM is money right?)

Then we enter the European/American zone. Then onto the classifieds, and the club circuit, the coverage of the club circuit is about 6 stories a page (including results).


>Advertisements
If we exclude the classified section, about 1 in 5 pages are adverts, I don’t mind reading them at all, they aren’t relevant to me (maybe more enthusiastic race fans). The classifieds section is excellent, probably the best for motorsport; with appointments, cars for sale, motorhomes for hire etc… In fact I placed an advert there to sell a Porsche 993 GT-2 on behalf of my team and it was really efficient but rather expensive, but eith
er way, it was probably the best place to advertise, though we only received 3 enquiries.

>Alternatives
Erm, there aren’t any, all the rivals are F1 obsessed!

>The Chequered Flag
You would find it strange that motorsport can grace a 100+ page magazine each week wouldn’t you? It’s a great read and has mostly what you need to know (about Formula One).

When the team I am part of was about to enter the FIA GT, there was a paragraph about it (May 3 2001, page 19) and I was really surprised they mentioned it, because we were not going to get any points or make any other sort of impact, obviously there was nothing more on this afterwards.

So what’s my opinion? For the perfect motorsport magazine, I would expect more, and if I wanted more, this would have to be a 200+ page magazine, and that would not be practical, so as it stands, I think Autosport is brilliant. However for just less than £3 it is overpriced, and this is why I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5. You can get a subscription and sae money, but I personally wouldn’t.

It’s such a shame that we are all naturally F1/British content obsessed, and quite rightly Autosport caters for that, I am sure that there are a few more readers out there that want more on other series and I think that something needs to change a little for Autosport to maintain its international status.

Autosport is the complete motorsport magazine for the average reader, it’s a shame that it has no rivals to make it work for its success.

Summary: