#offtrack

🏎️Non-Spoiler Review🏎️

Regarding technical accuracy, the book is pretty good, though to be honest the bar is very low. During races, Patel correctly depicts warmups, tire/ pit strategy, DRS, etc.– none of which are in Throttled and maybe only a few of which are in Pole Position. A couple crashes/ on track incidents even mirror real-world events. Even the radio chatter and jargon largely sounds right. There are only a few minor errors in terminology/ accuracy, and they didn’t distract me from the story in the way the inaccuracies did in the two other F1 romances. A couple events are a bit implausible, such as Diana’s accelerated rise in motorsport and a few too many plot-important loose tires. However, nothing is entirely, obviously wrong in ways that are common in other F1 books.

In terms of paddock politicking, media shenanigans, and motorsport culture, Offtrack is far and away more accurate than other F1 romances. Offtrack’s F1 grid feels fleshed-out and realistically interconnected, unlike the cardboard worldbuilding of Pole Position and Throttled. The drivers deal with marketing events, sensationalist press, and the pressure to preserve the team’s image. Diana specifically notes the double standard for women applied by fans and the media. There are messy driver swaps, and the entire third act is largely about contract renewal/ silly season. Again, a couple mild inaccuracies (such as Miguel getting an online college degree during his career or going to public school as a kid), but nothing absurd.

Further, Offtrack depicts/ criticizes the social inequality within motorsport. Miguel is from a rich racing family, and the story also mentions pay drivers in passing. Meanwhile, Diana has had to fight for a place on the grid because of her gender, nationality, and lack of a wealthy or influential family. Other women, such as Miguel’s sister and race engineer Paula, also experience structural and interpersonal sexism. There’s also a very good de-romanticization of WAG life, though it’s only a minor part of the story. 

The story is way more girl-power than most sports romances, where the female lead has no personal aspirations and basically becomes a male athlete's accessory. This is unabashedly Diana’s story, and Offtrack does a good job about NOT having Diana’s life revolve around Miguel or forcing her to sacrifice her career for a man. However, I do think Patel could have portrayed more subtle and structural sexism instead of having it largely be overt and interpersonal, and there are also a couple minor lines where characters seem to look down on more feminine, “shallow” characters. I also think there could have been more thought put into how Diana is not only looked down upon as a woman, or as a woman from the Emirates, but as a woman of color specifically.

It’s mainly in the storytelling department where things get “offtrack.” 358 pages is too long. And while Miguel and Diana’s relationship is not a toxic cringefest like a lot of other romance books, I didn’t really buy their chemistry, and I think Patel’s writing comes off as a bit flat or juvenile when trying to build romantic tension. Also, there isn’t much effort to imagine how Diana and Miguel’s professional rivalry would cause problems between them in their relationship, which felt a bit odd given how much both of them want the championship. I think fanfics/ fans have done a much better job about thinking about how being a racing driver permanently reshapes one’s mentality, even about interpersonal relationships. Realistically, Diana and Miguel would struggle way more to build a normal relationship given how important their careers are to both of them, and the fact that they are basically fraternizing with an enemy.

Additionally, the character/ story arcs are largely underdeveloped. One character basically flip-flops from a sweetheart to a total jealous asshole in the span of a couple chapters. Meanwhile, there’s attempts in the middle to give Miguel a bit of a crashout over interpersonal drama in his life, but Patel doesn’t really commit to it. There are some attempts at creating tension for Diana, seemingly making her choose between following her professional dreams and her values, but not much seems to come of it. The rest of the story is uplifting and has some fun moments, but it’s pretty predictable, and there isn’t much tension to speak of.

🏎️ Full In-Depth Summary, With Spoilers 🏎️

The novel opens with Miguel’s perspective in the prior (2021) season. Miguel hails from the wealthy de la Fuente racing family of Spain– both his father and grandfather were F1 drivers, though neither won the Championship, placing high pressure on Miguel to do what they couldn’t. He races for the prestigious, very Italian carmaker Scuderia Revello. 

Carlos/ Ferrari/ the Sainz family:

Miguel’s sister Paula is his race engineer– she is great at her job and is probably my favorite character. Paula is depicted as encountering sexism from her own traditional father and the motorsport industry generally– Miguel notes (correctly) that “racing is a uniform sport. It is fueled by a community that discourages change.” There is a line about Paula’s push for more female engineers failing because women didn’t want to deal with the drivers “diva like behaviour,” which seems like a missed opportunity to examine structural sexism, but oh well.

At the US Grand Prix, Miguel watches with shock as Eduardo “Eddie” Palmas, a respected veteran driver and Miguel’s mentor, experiences a horrific crash that clearly parallels the one experienced by Romain Grosjean. Eddie chooses to retire at the end of the season, leaving his seat at Jolt Archambeau Racing open to a newcomer in the 2022 season.

We are also introduced to some other important people in Miguel’s life. Niccolo “Nic” Necci is close friends with Miguel from their time at backmarker team Vittore; Andrea (thank GOODNESS Kimi doesn’t use his birth name) is Miguel’s cartoonishly sleazy Italian teammate at Revello; and Jatziry is Miguel’s girlfriend / family friend with whom he’s been set up with by his parents since childhood. I already had my antennae up for a possible annoying love triangle, but thankfully the drama is minimal, even though being assigned-WAG-at-birth is WILD.

Jolt’s missing-driver quandary is conveniently solved by Diana Zahrani, an up-and-coming Emirati racer who won the Formula 2 championship but hasn’t had any luck finding a full-time racing seat. (Theo Pourchaire and Felipe Drugovitch can relate, though so can the many other woman racers, who often struggle to get signed regardless of talent.) Diana notes that being a non-European woman without a rich family notably decreases her odds of getting signed, which is very real. (Patel writes in the author's note that Diana is partially based on Amna al-Qubaisi,who is also Emirati.)

Diana’s seat is publicly announced at a beginning-of-the-year media event with a lot of fanfare and lights, and everyone (including Miguel and Nic) is shocked that she’s a girl, even though they were told her last name ahead of time. This felt a little stupid to me because there’s like no way F1 drivers are not following the feeders, especially F2. A woman not only in F2, but WINNING F2, would be a phenomenal deal.

Unfortunately, Diana immediately faces sexism at work, from Miguel's teammate Andrea, her teammate Kasper, and Jolt’s marketing team. (Jolt’s title sponsor is an energy drink called Jolt, so… canon Red Bull sexism I guess.) I think this comes off with mixed effect. Kasper and Andrea are like comically annoying and also not very good at their jobs. I think it would be more interesting for a highly skilled driver who’s a legitimate on track threat to be misogynistic, for her to experience subtle microaggressions, or for a driver who is very popular and initially nice to her to express sexist attitudes. (A la Daniel Ricciardo dismissing Christian Horner’s harassment allegations.)

Miguel and Diana end up going to lunch because of some somewhat contrived circumstances, and they’re immediately struck by the fact that they seem familiar to each other. I personally thought this was a bit of a goofy setup and was not the hugest fan of it. They do discuss their career routes into F1, name dropping karting championships like OK Junior and KF2. Diana got a very late start in karting at age 14, which did feel somewhat unrealistic, but it wasn’t completely world breaking for me. Patel does understand the karting and feeder series ladder, unlike Throttled or Pole Position. 

The first race of the season is at Jeddah, and the race weekend is very accurate. We get those silly reflex games, pitting, DRS, tire strat, the works. One thing I did NOT like (in something that irked other reviewers) is that Diana… feels bad for overtaking drivers that she is friends with?

Overall, I think the book has the fluff fanfic problem of everyone being a little too nice to each other, but it doesn't totally ruin the book for me. Another thing that is a little odd but not ruinous is how fucking OP Diana is– she gets P3 her first ever race. Jolt is a top team, but the only people in the last thirty years who have podiumed on their first race ever are Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen. Kimi Antonelli, also thrown into a top team as a rookie, got fourth in his first race. I’ll allow her to be goated though because it’s only fair that women of color can have an F1 power fantasy. Brad Pitt gets to be the GOAT in his shitty self insert movie when he’s 62, so.

I already knew that Jolt was based on Red Bull because of the energy drink thing, but holy shit they really ARE Red Bull because after four races, they surprise-swap in Nic for Diana’s douchey, underperforming teammate Kasper. Although Nic and Diana are initially friendly/ flirty, shit immediately goes sideways. In the Spanish GP, Diana gets team-ordered to swap with Nic and lose her chance at her first win. I did like the tension of the first versus second driver politics that Diana is forced to confront. Nic also is unwilling to admit that the move was unfair, throwing their burgeoning friendship/ mild red herring flirtation under the bus. (TBH, I would have liked it better if there had also been an element of misogyny to it as well-- perhaps Nic may be nice to Diana if he thinks she's the second driver, but he's too insecure to still like her if he thinks she can beat him.)

At the next race in Monaco, Diana is very honest with the press about how disappointed she is in the team orders, which is probably unrealistic given how tight of a PR leash drivers are under, especially considering that she’s a new driver without a multi year contract. (I would have preferred this scene to be a breaking point after several instances where it’s clear the team is prioritizing Nic over her despite her superior results– it feels unearned as a scene of catharsis so early in this arc.) Nic also starts torpedoing his friendship with Miguel, bitter that Miguel got a shot with a top team before him. I like Nic’s motives, but overall his falloff seemed too quick to make sense, especially with how he's initially set up as a sweetheart.

Meanwhile, off in Miguel-land, his mother tells him that the reason Diana is familiar is because they used to kart together as teenagers, and that they definitely had a thing for each other back in the day. I’m romance book-handwaving the fact that they probably wouldn’t have been at the same level at the same time given Diana started late, but whatever. Jatziry also breaks up with Miguel because, well, being a WAG objectively sucks. Miguel has been so busy with his career that he never spends any time with her, people only talk to her to get access to Miguel, and she knows that he will always put his career ahead of her. (This is probably one of the most realistic and accurate takedowns of WAGdom I’ve read, which is refreshing given that most sports romances tend to glamorize it.) Plus, they don’t really have feelings for each other, and she suspects that Miguel has eyes for Diana anyway.

Queen.

Anyway, Miguel supposedly crashes out a little bit and starts behaving more recklessly, but this arc is kind of underdeveloped. He and Jatziry weren’t that deeply connected, so why is the breakup of all things causing a crisis in him? He actually does better on track because of his increased risk-taking, winning three races back to back.

On a lighter note, there is a hilarious scene where in Montreal, the ENTIRE front of the field ends up in a six-car pileup in turn one of the first lap, causing a random kid in the midfield to get his first victory. It's pretty silly and maybe a little unrealistic, but not absolutely implausible, given that there WAS an enormous pileup in F2's Monaco race this year, as well as the 15 DNF accident in the 1998 Spa race.

In the only possible fallout of Miguel’s recklessness, Nic and Miguel collide and both DNF in the Indian GP, and Miguel admits to Nic that he likes Diana enough that he would put her ahead of his career. It’s sweet but kind of comes out of left field, given that he and Diana haven’t really talked in ages, and that Miguel and Jatziry broke up Because he wasn’t willing to put her ahead of his career. It would have worked better for me had Miguel reflected on his mistakes with Jatziry, but it just seems kind of random and unrealistic given how deeply people in any hypercompetitive field are told to always put that career over everything else.

Sidenote, I think the reason a lot of sports romances come off as unrealistic to me is that the characters have to put the relationship and their partner first in their lives for it to be a proper ending-- romance has to "win." However, for people with very intense careers, like athletes, it seems a bit crazy for them to declare that a person they just met a few months ago is more important than their life’s dream. Fanfiction writers, in my experience, are often a lot better at portraying how dating a competitor would lead to a lot of problems, and how the mentality you’re raised with as an athlete to put your sport first makes it difficult to form normal relationships with people.

Miguel surprises Diana by paying for her family’s flights to the US GP, something that she can’t afford given that she’d need a full time travel nurse for her paraplegic father. (This was cute, and I liked her relationship with her parents– they’re very sweet!) And Diana gets her first win in COTA! Slay! Unfortunately, she encounters a bunch of sexist remarks from another driver in a media panel. Again, I think that drivers ARE probably sexist, I just think they’d be too media trained to explicitly say that another driver doesn’t deserve to be in F1. 

Also, she falls off the podium and gets an ankle injury (oop), and she attempts to hide her injury from the team because it could impact her contract. (Plenty of drivers definitely race when they really shouldn't, so this seemed realistic, ex. Carlos post appendectomy and the multi-year saga of Lance's wrist.) However, the injury does lead to some cute (but kind of overly long) fluff where Miguel comes to Dubai to look after her during summer break as she recovers. They finally get together, and Diana says that Miguel is her second favorite driver, after Senna. I also liked the detail that Miguel discovers that Diana’s real name is Diyana– Diana being the Anglicized version, and for the rest of the book he refers to her only as Diyana.

Unfortunately, silly season sneaks up on them– Loved the concept of this arc, because silly season is messy and I love mess. However, there are some weird plot holes. Nic gets renewed, but Diana doesn’t– which is lowkey crazy given that Diana is at least matching if not out performing him given that she has fewer years of experience. (I didn’t tally up their points exactly, but Diana has won both Austin and Spa at this point, and Nic has only won Spain.) The team principal of Jolt hears rumors that Diana is dating Miguel and says that unless they break up, she’ll lose her seat. There’s some sexist BS about how one of Jolt’s previous strategists started dating a driver and then left the team to start a family– weirdly it’s less about the fact that Diana got romantic with a competitor and more that she’s dating Anyone. But then Revello tells Diana that they want to sign her to replace MIGUEL, allegedly bc of his risky driving? Which makes even LESS sense because even though Miguel had some minor incidents and hit Nic, he’s in WDC contention that year, and Andrea is doing way worse than Miguel. 

Anyway, Revello is also truly revealed as Ferrari because they fucking blow Miguel’s WDC lead by… literally pitting him before the mechanics are ready (inininstayouting him) AND putting him on the wrong tire.

(Accuracy 100.) So now Diana has won a bunch of races and is truly within spitting distance of the championship, which is kind of wild for a rookie, but Lewis also did it so it's not totally implausible.

The final race is Diana’s home race in Abu Dhabi. She wins and gets the WDC by a hair, and Miguel is happy for her! Good for her. She does go to Revello, but then Miguel gets a seat at Heidelberg, another big 3 team, and then in the epilogue, he wins the WDC following year and they get engaged. Thee end. 

Overall, the F1 stuff is largely quite accurate, I liked the characters, and it’s cute and fun for the most part. However, I wasn’t the hugest fan of the romance or racing story and found the two aspects were somewhat conflicting. Romance books require love to “conquer all,” which is fundamentally at odds with the all consuming nature of professional sports. Thus, the relative ease of Diana and Miguel’s relationship seems a bit unrealistic given that they’re professional rivals, and the other person is standing in the way of their lifelong dream of winning the championship. Ex. Miguel is set up as someone with a deep-seated need to win the WDC to fulfil his family’s ambitions, but that’s pretty quickly dropped once he starts dating Diana. 

If the two storylines were well integrated, their parallel skill at racing would both fuel their attraction AND cause stress within their relationship as they’re forced to balance their personal lives and professional ambitions. Offtrack is certainly the best F1 romance I’ve read before, but it doesn’t really strike any new racing lines or go beyond the existing One Formula of romance novels.