Unfortunately this book is a dnf at 34%

For some reason I just couldn’t get into the book no matter how hard I tried. I just didn’t know what I was reading, it just felt very forced with the F1 aspect and I’m just disappointed because I thought I would love it. This book wasn’t for me

I’m a *huge* fan of F1 - even my dog is named after an old Formula 1 icon. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to read a Formula 1 romance book 🏎 

The racing scenes in this book are done incredibly well - you can really tell that the author is a Formula 1 fan. I found myself caring about the outcomes of these fictional races with fictional teams 😅 It did have “Drive to Survive” style drama at times too, which really helped to keep my interest!

I was a little surprised with the romance in the book though. It’s being advertised as a rivals to lovers book, but I didn’t really feel rivalry between the two main characters in the book at all. Their relationship at the start felt quite platonic/friendly to me. I did feel plenty of rivalry between Diana and some of the other drivers on the grid and silly season was depicted quite well!

It was amazing to read about a woman making it into Formula 1 as a main driver - I really hope I get to see this happen. Even more, Diana is from an area where women weren’t even allowed to drive until this millennium. Her family was super supportive and I really enjoyed how she held her own in a very male dominated field. It explores the sexism and misogyny in motorsport and we saw how much harder Diana had to work to prove herself compared to her male colleagues.

The MMC, Miguel, comes from an established Formula 1 family and is top of his game. It was nice to see what an absolute softie/sweet guy he was. He has a relationship towards the beginning of the book with a woman through an arrangement with their families that he tries to make work. This felt like it didn’t quite fit in the story in my opinion, but it did show us the kind, non-competitive side of him.

I did enjoy the dual POV - dual POV is always my preference in books, I like knowing what both sides are feeling. Though I struggled with the pacing. There were some time jumps between the chapters, which makes sense when races are 1 to 2 weeks apart, but I think seeing more of what was going on between races would have helped their relationship feel more “real”. I also would have loved more spice, but that’s just personal preference! There is one scene, but it’s very short/surface level 🌶

If you love Formula 1, I think you’ll really like this.

the writing style wasn’t really for me there just seemed to be long paragraphs of unnecessary descriptions one minute then the next there was little to no detail. but i did enjoy the f1 aspects and it has become a recent interest of mine

Best book i have ever read , the romance is so cute and the author nailed it . For my f1 girlies go for it

I enjoyed this book quite a lot, especially as someone who had never paid much attention to F1 until picking this up. But I didn't enjoy it for its romance - I was more interested in the storyline. Diana is an incredible character and watching her arc and career unfold was much more enticing than the romance, which came across as almost forced and unnecessary. In my opinion, the two main characters worked better as close friends, and this book should've been a literary fiction rather than a romance.

I was super excited to read this, but unfortunately it was not quite what I expected. I really enjoy sports romances and I was excited to read one about F1. Some positives were definitely all the intense and action packed racing scenes and how it’s focused on Diana, the FMC, and how she is a female F1 driver. There is also Paula, Miguel’s sister, who is apart of his racing team and she was one of my favorite characters in the book.

The relationship between the main characters is definitely a slow burn which I liked ,but I wish there was more tension because I started to doubt why I wanted them to be together in the end and wasn’t as invested in their relationship. I think this book was definitely lacking in the romance aspect, which I was more looking forward to. I just did not think these main characters had chemistry and so I was not excited when they just got together more than half way through the book. Overall, I love the concept of this book and the strong female characters, but the rest just did not pull me in.

I'm a massive F1 fan, and I totally felt absorbed into the fast paced world of Formula 1 within the pages of this book.

It is clear that the nitty gritty of the racing has been well researched and I was cheering on our drivers in each race. But being a fan of the sport what slightly annoyed me was the inclusion of an Indian Grand Prix, there hasn't been one since 2013 in the country, and there certainly wasn't one in 2022, let alone on the sort of circuit that was being described, i've not even heard rumours of. And that took me out of the book and my enjoyment of the story while I tried to confirm my suspicions that this didn't exist.

After all if you are going to name a 2022 F1 race schedule, swapping out the real life Bahrain Grand Prix, for a fictional Indian one doesn't really make sense. The rest of the races I believe where there, but not necessarily in the right order. Jarred me slightly that there was a GP in Europe as only the second race of the season, they never move to Europe that soon, not even in the first proper season more or less fully back after the pandemic.

But honestly those are my only negatives and if you aren't a F1 fan those are things you would never pick up on.

What I did love is Diana, who manages to get an F1 seat for the season. Being an Arabic woman in a male dominated field, given she had grown up in Saudi Arabia where women weren't even able to drive until fairly recently, makes her an inspirational character and one that I wish existed in real life.

Some of what she faces and what she is trying to do with the sport, reminds me of things I've heard Lewis Hamilton say, while he tries to get more racial inclusion in the sport. But it's doubly hard as she is female and half the field were at least initially really horrible towards her.

Everything she has to put up with in the team and the sport felt incredibly realistic and entirely believable.

Then there is Miguel, out male lead, part of a F1 legacy family, it's in his blood. But he is passionate about the sport, and there is an instant connection between him and Diana. But he has a sort of arranged marriage coming up, and his priorities have changed a bit this season, making him grow up a bit.

I absolutely loved Miguel's sister Paula who who is a strong woman, and a race engineer, the one on the radio to him all race . I loved her in this role and it's another area that is women

There are occasional bits of exploring some of the destinations they are racing in which spoke to my armchair travel part of the brain, while the sport and racing thrilled me.

I just really hope one day there will be someone like Diana in F1, as it's what the sport needs.

This was an enjoyable book, and I'm always eager to read more stories set in the world of F1

Thank you to Avon and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

I’m a sucker for anything F1 related so this book was right up my alley. Also it is South Asian, yes please! I really liked this and I liked how it centred around a female driver.

If you are new to F1 I think this might be a really great introduction. Also, if you like slow burns perhaps this would be right up your alley. I thought the pacing was a bit slow in the beginning. I wonder if it was setup for a possible series because all the characters seem to have a POV and some things felt a bit open ended. The one thing that stuck out to me is how dangerous the sport can be and may impact your relationships.

I really wanted to love this book but unfortunately it just wasn’t quite for me. I love sports romance books and there were elements of this novel that I thought were strong, but overall it fell a little flat for me.

The twist with both main characters being F1 drivers was actually really interesting. I’ve only read F1 books before where it’s only been the guy as the driver, so I liked that unique twist to the story!

I didn’t really feel the chemistry between Diana and Miguel. It felt like they barely spent any time together and then were suddenly together. I got about 60-65% of the way through and there were barely any moments of communication between the characters that they liked each other. I sometimes like a slow burn but I do feel like their romance came a little out of nowhere.

What I will say is that this is very F1 heavy, so if you’re a sports lover and have a real interest and love in F1, you really will love those elements of the book! They were actually some of my favourite moments, especially having a female F1 driver!

I personally think that we need to leave third act breakups in the past unless there’s a real significance to the story for it to be there, because I’m still wondering why there was a third act breakup in this book. It felt very confusing and was just another example of the lack of communication.

Overall, there were elements to the story that I enjoyed, as mentioned above, however this wouldn’t be an F1 *romance* that I’d recommend. If this was marketed as more of an F1 story and then there happens to be romance included, my rating might have been higher and I may have gone into the book with a different mindset, but the romance plot fell short.

Okay so let me start by saying i love a sports romance like every other girly HOWEVER the amount of car jargon that flew over my head with this one was a bit much lol. I did like the relationship but felt it focused a little too much on certain parts than others.

Thanks so much for letting me ARC!

Something just didn’t click for me with this book. Between the unexplained (and unnecessary) arranged marriage between Miguel and Jatziry, the fact that no one in F1 seemed to be aware that a woman was competing and winning in F2 and the lack of chemistry between Miguel and Diana I found it a bit lacking.

There was also a lot of characters which made it hard to really keep track of everything that was happening and an excess of information about things that weren’t really relevant to anything and just added to the confusing nature of the story.

I did think that it handled the racing aspects and the navigation of a very male dominated world as a female (although it did sometimes feel like it went to unnecessary extremes).

It wasn’t what I expected and unfortunately it wasn’t for me

I am absolutely obsessed with this F1 romance. Miguel and Diana were both delightful and super freaking cute.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - Such a cute F1 romance with amazing characters and an amazing storyline.
🌶️- super cute fluffy romance. Slow burn 🔥 but super freaking adorable and light 🥰

Diana is a race car driver making her way into the male dominant world of F1. She is an absolute boss slaying at racing and attempting to prove that women can be successful F1 drivers!

Miguel’s protective nature over Diana throughout the book is so adorable and I loved him so so much. Despite some of the men within the F1 being selfish and in desperate need of a reality check *cough* Nic *cough* he always had her back and that was everything!!

Diana is a boss ass FMC. She is a girl boss in a man’s world navigating her way through desperate to prove herself and do her parents proud. Her background and hardships with getting into F1 racing is so empowering and I absolutely loved her tenacity and determination 🫶

Honestly Miguel was everything… I was worried he’d be super cocky towards Diana but their history 🥹 and him falling first was so good!

This book was so much fun to read. It was funny, entertaining and adorable 🫶

3.5⭐️

I’m a huge fan of F1 & romance books so it was an automatic request for me!
I did enjoy reading this but it felt just a little too ‘wattpad’ for me in places. This could be an issue with my writing style preference.

I would recommend f1 girlies to give it a read as I’m sure they’ll appreciate the race and background details🫶🏻

Thanks Avon UK for the arc!🎀

Okay I read Offtrack was it was published independently but now reading it again which has so many changes that Esha took care of from the feedback received, I am in awe of her for writing such a great book which is not only romance centric in terms of formula 1 romance but feels like reading the script of Drive to Survive. I loved how much independent growth of characters was focused on.

This was my first forray into motor sports.

And I can't say I was a fan.
Being used to sport romances I get a lot of names being used in a book but this one was just too many. It was very confusing to keep up with and who was who and who was on what team.

I felt like I needed a cheat sheet. But then they go and swap teams and the.i just got confused all over again.

While a lot of the car jargon went over my head I did actually enjoy the sports/ competition aspect of this novella. The love story though left a lot to be desired and there was little to zero chemistry between the couple. They had more chemistry with their cars.....

Thank you for giving me this arc.
2.5/5⭐️

I was extremely excited to read this since it would be my second F1 romance book.

My opinion I love the new take of a female driver as we know the sport is male dominated. Which is probably the strongest part of the book. I felt like I didn’t see the chemistry between the two.

I did not know what to expect when I started this book. I had previously read F1 romances and I really did not gel with some, but fell in love with others.

This F1 romance was an enjoyable read. I warmed to Diana and loved how tough she was - she was not taking rubbish from anyone and it made her an extremely likeable female main character. She knew her worth and the exploration of gender stereotypes in this novel made my blood boil (I think this was the desired effect!). This book was powerful on that account.

I just personally think it fell quite short and I wanted more out of Diana and Miguel. I just felt like we were slightly robbed of their story. This being said, as a pair, I warmed to them a lot and enjoyed it when they were together.

A cute romance read and definitely one for the F1 legends as it was very heavy on this!

2.5*

I was really looking forward to this story having recently finished another F1 romance novel but this one just fell a little flat for me unfortunately!

The F1 side of things was arguably better written than some of the others but the actual romance storyline and character development felt a bit strenuous and I did find myself skim reading a lot towards the end.

There was things about this book that I enjoyed. The representation of women in F1 is so, so important and it's great that Esha highlights this. The BIPOC representation again is missing in F1, and bringing this to the forefront is great.
Most of the F1 side of the book was well done. I liked the characters, but found their romance could have been better chemistry developed. Some of the metaphors used were cringy to me.
A good effort but slightly misses the mark.