THEY might look like amazing devices with their huge wings, aerofoils and chunky tyres, but can Formula One racing cars really be considered art?

There is, of course, an artistry to designing a successful racing car.

Everything has to come together to create a car capable of accelerating, cornering and stopping better than any other on the grid.

Judged solely on their success, some of the cars featured in this book were not works of art. Some were too fragile, such as the Leyton House CG901 which fitted drivers like a second skin to the extent that they couldn’t change the steering angle once they were in a corner – “You just had to commit to the corner and hold the steering there, hoping you’d got the angle right and weren’t going to fly off the circuit,”

said driver Ivan Capelli – others like the Alfa Romeo 159 were too powerful (400 bhp in 1951 was so explosive it was banned) and some, like the six-wheel Tyrrell P34 were just too wacky to ever succeed.

But all of them are fascinating examples of the race car’s evolution and this beautifully-illustrated book brings out every fascinating detail.

Of course, in the view of Formula One’s most famous exponent – Enzo Ferrari – the racing was always about the car and not the driver. But, in some cases, a car only looked like a thing of beauty when it was driven by a gifted driver. The Williams FW07, for instance, looks almost clumsy under the harsh glare of a museum’s spotlights, but with Alan Jones behind the wheel it could be made to dance around a circuit like a prima ballerina on stage.

This book looks at 18 of these incredible machines from an artistic perspective. It’s a fascinating study and the revelatory text gives the reader fresh insight into what makes a winning car.