Such a fun read!! I loved how the world I know and love of F1 was intertwined into this story with just the right amount of romance and action. This was my first racing romance and I will definitely be reading more of them in the future. The growth of both main characters was well done and the pacing felt believable. Loved getting the little glimpse into their future in the epilogue! Would love to see more stories about the characters in this book!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for gifting me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Everyone and their mother is putting out a sports romance these days, and some are even taking it a step further to delve into the less "mainstream" sports of today. Lizzy Dent does just that with Drive Me Crazy, a sports romance centered around the world of Formula 1 racing. We do love a strong female lead, but in order for a sports romance to hit the upper echelon for me it needs to really be believable to an extent. This wasn't completely outside the bounds of reality, but the bottom line is that there just isn't much female captainship in Formula 1 as of yet and so that did make it feel a bit outlandish at points. That being said, she was a strong and likeable character that I appreciated throughout. The ending felt rushed but overall, a pretty good story with the right amount of spice.

Drive Me Crazy was such a fun, easy read—perfect if you’re in the mood for a light sports romance. It follows Chloe, a newly promoted principal of a struggling F1 team, and Matt, a driver trying to get his career back on track. They grew up together (with Chloe totally crushing on him), but drifted apart when he left to chase his racing dreams. Now they’re suddenly working together again, and sparks start flying.

Even though I know nothing about F1, I was totally into the racing aspect—it added so much excitement and energy to the story, honestly even more than the romance at times. The relationship kind of kicked into high gear out of nowhere (very on-theme for a racing book!), and I do wish we got a bit more insight into what exactly drew Matt to Chloe. Still, the ending was really satisfying and tied everything up nicely.

All in all, this is a feel-good romance with a confident, capable heroine, and I’m already looking forward to Noah’s book!

Big thanks to NetGalley and Putnam Books for the ARC!

Drive Me Crazy reunites childhood friends who always wanted to be more - but this time, he's an F1 racer and she is his boss.

I really wanted to like this book. The premise is cute, and I dig the tropes. Unfortunately, the characters have NO chill when it comes to having the hots for each other (which means it's painfully obvious to the reader and lacks genuine tension), the banter is a bit immature, and there is SO INCREDIBLY MUCH racing jargon in this book. I haven't watched a single race in any circuit in my entire life, and I found myself getting lost more in racing culture and lingo than in the story.

A for effort, but not so much for execution.

I am an avid F1 fan and appreciate the level of technical detail and references that were included in this book, but I do think that will be a waste for someone who isn’t a close follower of the sport. I do appreciate more books being written about F1 though and I hope that it will get more people interested in watching. I love how strong the FMC was and I thought the book was cute, but I just had a hard time getting this one to click. Hopefully in a few weeks I can do a reread and I will enjoy it more! Overall, a cute read!

This book was fun, but it reminded me of the 2000’s romcom. Some angst a bit of flirting, and a lovable underdog.

It didn’t compel me to feel any remarkable highs or lows, but it was cute and I enjoyed the story.

Thanks #NetGalley for the ARC

I love a good F1 romance book and I enjoyed this one!

I appreciated how determined and strong willed Chloe was in a predominantly male sport. Building the team was important to her and she wasn’t going to just step aside.

It treads familiar ground to another book on the market of the same name but still keeps to its own unique storyline.

This was a cute, easy read! I really enjoyed dipping my toe into the F1 racing world & Chloe and Matt had a sweet story. In terms of depth, it felt very surface-level, but I didn’t mind that at all! Chloe & Matt’s banter was fun at times, but I felt like it lacked a little and this made me feel like I didn’t really *know* them.
I loved all the different team members being introduced and their one-liners to Chloe or Matt, but other than that, and a little drama from a scorned media personality/childhood friend, there wasn’t much else here than a standard love story. I would recommend this book to my friends that are looking for a sweet, simple palate cleanser in-between high fantasy or complex romance stories!
Thank you to the publisher & the author for sending me this ARC. :)

This book is super cute and I love a strong female character. As a huge car girl I love seeing these tropes. I ate this up

This is my first F1 romance, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Lizzy Dent delivered a fast paced story that drove straight through my heart. Chloe Coleman is a woman at the top of her game. She just became principal to her racing team. Then in steps Matt Warner, childhood crush of Chloe, but currently an arrogant driver with a traumatic crash.

I loved the slow burn of the relationship, but it also had a head-over-heels feeling with the childhood crush aspect.

The go-kart scene sent me to my knees!

Thank you to Lizzy Dent, Putnam, and NetGalley for the ARC!

I love a good childhood friends to lovers romance AND F1 romance (especially because I don’t watch F1, which means I don’t pick apart the inaccuracies like I do other sports). This was fun and I liked Chloe and Matt’s relationship. I enjoyed their history togethe and seeing Matt deal with his issues.

On the other hand, I had a few issues. I liked Chloe’s character and understood her imposter syndrome. But I don’t feel like it was addressed. There was a team member who routinely undermined her and there was never a part where she put him in his place. She was also so naive. I saw what happened in the third act a mile away!

Still, I enjoyed this, I just think it has the setup to be even better. 3.5 ⭐️

I LOVE F1 and LOVE sports romances but this book didn’t click for me. I wish we had spent more time getting to know and like the two MCs, and their relationship back story in the beginning. Instead it felt VERY heavy on F1 technical and people references, and more about them in their careers than as humans. So it was a miss for me, I just didn’t care.

I also will say the level of technical F1 detail is going to be over the head of readers that don’t follow the sport. I was fine because I am a F1 junkie but worry about the general public!

DNF at 10% - not really my speed. (pun intended)

Definitely a good book for fans of Formula One and car racing :)

4.25 stars

This was a really cute and fun F1 sports romance.
I loved Chloe and Matt’s childhood friends to strangers to lovers storyline and how there was undeniable chemistry between them, even if their reintroduction was a little rocky.
Chloe is a woman in a male dominated field and is constantly being told that she’s basically a diversity hire but despite this she was so hardworking and good at her job and proved that she deserved to be there. I liked how she stood up for herself and didn’t let anyone get to her.
Matt was such a happy, sweet guy but he was definitely struggling in the beginning of the book. He was coming back from a bad accident and being dropped by his team and was considering retiring. Instead, he and Chloe decided to help each other out and along the way reconnect and fall in love.
I will say that for how long this book was a long it felt a little underdeveloped. There were so many big moments that were kind of skimmed past and I would’ve loved more detail about those.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Drive Me Crazy had elements I enjoyed, but overall, it didn’t stand out to me as much as I’d hoped. While I appreciated the Formula 1 backdrop and found the exploration of a male-dominated industry compelling, especially through the FMC’s determination, the romance itself fell a bit flat for me. The chemistry between the leads felt underdeveloped, and the storytelling often relied on telling rather than showing.

The MMC came across as somewhat two-dimensional, though his appeal kept him from being entirely forgettable, and sort of cemented him as someone reliable for the FMC. The ending also felt rushed, leaving me wanting more closure or depth.

Despite its flaws, the book had its moments, particularly for readers who enjoy sports romances with a strong, self-assured heroine.

Overall: 2.5/5

this had potential to be super fun and scandalous and definitely started off that way, but then it just kept looping the same track of plot points over and over again, including repeating conversations characters have on the page with other people to other people like that is so unnecessary and adding a lot of drag to what should've felt like a speedy race to the finish line. Also an insane lack of Charles Leclerc mentioned

The Arden Racing Team is a place for second chances, comebacks, and people in Formula 1 racing that the world thinks has no chance of ever making it big. Barry hires Chloe as his principal only for the news splash she would make and as a surprise announces he also bought out Matt Warner's contract as a gift to Chloe. Or did he? Matt had left Chloe in his rearview mirror when he made it to Formula 1, and she has a lot of resentment as a result. Matt suffers from guilt and trauma from an accident that took out his best friend and has been unable to race well and Chloe suffers from imposter syndrome and lets Barry and a bad strategist run roughshod over her. Can these two rally and bring Arden from the bottom into the running while fighting their attraction for each other? I loved how Chloe took a fractured team and put them together to make an amazing racing team. As they realized their love for each other, they worked out a solution to keep Chloe's reputation. Great racing story.

2 stars! Drive Me Crazy drove me a little crazy tbh. It took me several tries to get into it and struggled to get past the first page but once I did, I read it in one day… mostly because I just wanted to get it over with. Chloe got her first big gig as a principal of an F1 team, shes eager to prove herself and nothing with derail her, except possibly her childhood friend and F1 racer Matt who was newly brought onto the team without her knowing. This story had a lot of potential, I loved Chloe’s drive to prove herself in the start but it seemed to fizzle out by the end. Also the ending? Don’t even get me started. The chemistry between Chloe and Matt just wasn’t there for me, I tried so hard but this book gave me a whole lot of nothing. I will say this is my first F1 romance so if this is your sub genre maybe that would makeup for the lack of chemistry and you’d love it, it just wasn’t for me. The book felt so rushed and the ending made 0 sense. I genuinely did not think it was the end and then all the sudden it said epilogue and I was like what was that. The third act conflict barely felt like a conflict so I was still waiting for shit to hit the fan and it never did. It was an easy lighthearted story but without any major conflicts it didn’t feel like much happened. We got a little character development from Matt with the crash plot line but even that felt incomplete. My 2 stars go to the idea behind the book, it could’ve been a lot of fun, it just didn’t hit the mark.

Book Title: Drive Me Crazy
Author: Lizzy Dent
Tropes: Childhood Crush, Workplace Romance, Forced Proximity, Second Chance, He Falls First, F1 racing, She’s his Boss
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

🤩The Vibe:
This one is for the F1 girlies and the fans of slow-burn, workplace romance with real emotional depth. Drive Me Crazy brings together the adrenaline of the racetrack and the ache of past crushes colliding with adult realities. It’s got tension (in and out of the garage), complicated histories, and a leading lady who owns her space in a male-dominated field without changing who she is. Plus, the childhood crush is flipped on its head in a super satisfying way.

👩‍❤️‍👨Main Characters:
Chloe: One of the first female team principals in F1, Chloe is smart, capable, and quietly badass. She knows what she’s doing, even if she downplays it sometimes. She’s got a soft spot for the past—but she never lets it derail her present.

Matt: A disgraced former champ looking for redemption, Matt is cocky, charming, and surprisingly tender beneath the bravado. He respects Chloe, roots for her, and knows when to push and when to back off. Major green flag energy.

💕What We Loved:
• The gender role reversal: Chloe had the childhood crush, but now she’s the one calling the shots—and the one saying “no” when it counts.
• The vulnerability. Both characters go through big emotional arcs: guilt, pressure, self-worth, forgiveness. It’s more than just trackside flirting.
• The setting! F1 fans will love the behind-the-scenes look at life on and off the grid—complete with strategy meetings, press drama, and late night go karts.
• Matt’s unwavering support of Chloe’s leadership. He doesn’t want to outshine her—he wants her to shine.
• That spicy moment in Mexico? Let’s just say… the tension build-up delivered.

🚫What Didn’t Work for Me:
• Chloe’s self-doubt dragged just a bit too long. We were ready for her to take the wheel and fire that awful strategist.
• Barry’s intentions stayed fuzzy. Was he pushing Chloe to grow or just being a sexist jerk? Either way, we’re filing an HR complaint.

🤔Final Thoughts:
Drive Me Crazy is an empowering, slow-burn romance that mixes the thrills of F1 with the complexities of ambition, trust, and second chances. Chloe and Matt are the kind of characters you root for—on and off the track. If you love strong heroines, groveling heroes, and a romance that revs up over time, this one belongs on your TBR.

I received this book early as an ARC through NetGalley. Drive Me Crazy releases January 6, 2026—add it to your TBR now!

I have to start this off by saying that not only am I somewhat new to reading F1 romance, I know just shy of nothing about the sport. But let me tell you, Lizzy Dent sure does. I was not only impressed by her knowledge, but how even with all the jargon I didn’t really understand, I stayed interested the entire time. It’s easy for the “sport” of a sports romance to get overshadowed but this one played out perfectly.

Tropes included childhood best friends, unrequited love, “enemies”-to-lovers, and secret relationship. There was low steam (imo, still open door) but lots of chemistry.

A few things I loved:
* FMC in a position of power in a male dominated sport 🏎️
* Barry’s pups 🐶
* Barry in general
* Bug 🐛
* Spotlight on PTSD/mental health in men
* Big Ronny’s Ring Burner 🔥

The only reason this wasn’t a 5 star read for me was that the pacing just felt slightly off. Some parts probably could’ve been done without and others expanded on. In a similar way, a few of the side characters felt underdeveloped, while others shone bright.

I only wish we got a little bit more of a run down of how things played out between the ending and the epilogue. Despite that, it was such a great epilogue, I almost didn’t even care. So cute.

This was my first Lizzy Dent read but it’s definitely got me interested in her other work!

The Basics:
F1 Driver//F1 Team Principal
1st Person Dual POV
🌶️.5/5
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5


Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the ARC in exchange for an honest review 🤍