Nigel Roebuck

Having not bought Autosport for a while now (there is another thread for Autosport) I hear the great man is no longer writing for them? Is this true and if so why?

Theyve finally cottoned onto his recycling scheme?

Unfortunately his colomns do still appear. The problem with them is once you see the topic, you already know what he's going to say.

Unfortunately his colomns do still appear. The problem with them is once you see the topic, you already know what he's going to say.
:rofl:

Unfortunately his colomns do still appear. The problem with them is once you see the topic, you already know what he's going to say.


deja vu?

I guess I havn't read enough to become bored with him.

I still think he's great. :(

Must say that his column is one of the things which makes me buy Autosport from time to time.

Jim

Roebuck is the reason I buy Motorsport and is a major factor in my continued subscription with Autosport. So I am sad he is leaving.

Whether I agree or disagree with his point of view, he is still terrific reading and one of very few who can bring the sport and its personalities alive.

He is, without doubt a brilliant and extremely knowledgable writer whose passion and love of the sport are obvious.
The one thing I can't stand though is when he brings politics into his columns and moans about Blair, brown, new labour etc. I may well agree, but it aint what I buy Autosport for.

To be honest that has never bothered me although I can understand why it would annoy some (no, actually, many) people.

Long may he continue to have the odd line about the government to put it in context of modern day. Or just to have a joke. I may well disagree with some, but I like it. Hopefully his style won't have to be spun like a Labour party press release in the future. :)

Roebuck wrote the a lot of the season review in Autosport this year. Although I presume he didn't write the part that had Mark Webber fuel corrected to 5th on a grid. (What coefficients, was everyone fuel corrected or just Mark, what certainty is attached to that value, etc, blummin' etc.)

I had heard that Roebuck was going, but haven't seen confirmation or even a date.

It is true that he often repeats certain themes or anecdotes in his columns, but when you write a column every week regarding F1, this is bound to happen from time to time. I've heard rumours that he is leaving Autosport, and I will be genuinely saddened if he does.

I hadn't heard, but if Nigel's leaving then the last reason I've clung on to the subscription has gone to. Lucid, erudite, knowledgeable and with a passion for the sport he is pretty much the last vestige of the magazine I used to buy.

Towards the end of my Autopsort reading days I found I was only reading Nigel and Marcus Pye which I couldn't justify the cost or waste of paper of the rest of it.................
ps Simon Arron in Motorsport News is the stuff of Roebuck type legend with his pithy F1 driver reports worth the money alone.

Simon Arron in Motorsport News is the stuff of Roebuck type legend with his pithy F1 driver reports worth the money alone.

:yeah: Always raises a chuckle or two, his verdict on Ralf is usually accurate ;)

I've always enjoyed his columns. Yes, he does cover some topics again and again, but I feel this is usually from the perspective of new events occuring. For instance, he'd often comment on Schumacher's driving ethics, and when Schumacher did something to again make you question them, Nigel Roebuck would bring up old ground in the column, but also add the new information into his argument.

I always feel in that way he's a bit like us forum users, you know, re-hashing old arguments with the perspective of time going by and new events taking place:D

Nigel Roebuck has also written some good books. Two in particular stand out - "Inside Formula 1" is a collection of his best Fifth Column pieces from around 1980-1988. A later work was "Chasing The Title". Both are worth getting hold of.

Towards the end of my Autopsort reading days I found I was only reading Nigel and Marcus Pye which I couldn't justify the cost or waste of paper of the rest of it.................
ps Simon Arron in Motorsport News is the stuff of Roebuck type legend with his pithy F1 driver reports worth the money alone.

Roebuck used to be brilliant, but as his mates left the sport he seemed to lose the connection with drivers that used to make his work special - and I think his reputation was very tarnished by the hugely pro-Prost anti-Senna polemics of the 88-91 era (his attempt to recast them both as flawed geniuses just doesn't hold water).

Erudite? Yes. Aware that there's a world outside racing? Yes. Strong opinions? Yes. All good things. Inside F1 (a collection of his Fifth Columns) and Grand Prix Greats are superb books, wonderfully readable. But they were written before the rot set in.

But it became very hard to read Roebuck over the last decade or so - his race reports were perfunctory with more emphasis on politics (racing or real), and Fifth Column was often entertaining but usually just a fossick in the gander-bag of his memories - to reuse one of my own clichés China Daily apparently used to keep stock paragraphs from Mao's speeches typeset so they could just paste them together; NSR seemed to do that with his reminiscences.

He's still capable of writing beautifully, but I think he got so disillusioned with contemporary F1 that his whole approach to journalism suffered badly.

I hope that NSR at the Green'un will be able to write at length, go back and revisit his friends and his memories, and become the writer he used to be. (It's very amusing reading Competition Car from '73 or so - Roebuck was a cynical soul then but there was a lightness of touch that's disappeared from his writing over the decades. There's definite evidence of this in some of his contributions to MS over the last few years. Can we start the Campaign For Real Roebuck?

What I hope never to see again is Roebuck using his column to make laboured and obvious points about his bugbears of the New Labour government and smoking bans. While I loathe the former and think both are fundamental infringement of civil liberties, I don't use word-count that should be about racing to pontificate on them ;)

If I want blistering, acerbic cynicism these days Mike Lawrence is the man, anyway - absolute stark raving genius. ;)

:yeah: Always raises a chuckle or two, his verdict on Ralf is usually accurate ;)

I was very amused to see that in one of those FIA/AMD surveys, Franck Montagny was a more popular Grand Prix driver than Ralf Schumacher. Says a lot.... ;)

There's a lovely Mike Lawrence column on pitpass.com called "Ralf's A Little S**t". You may or may not agree ;)

What I hope never to see again is Roebuck using his column to make laboured and obvious points about his bugbears of the New Labour government and smoking bans. While I loathe the former and think both are fundamental infringement of civil liberties, I don't use word-count that should be about racing to pontificate on them ;)Generally used to not only demonstrate New Labours failings, but also a similar aspect that has crept into modern motor racing.

Perhaps some New Labour type of spin or censorship is needed to remove things you don't want him to write?

http://www.ten-tenths.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2065707#post2065707

I chuckled a few years ago when for a few weeks a picture of Roebuck in his Autosport column was one of him enjoying a cigarette................

Yes, it was probably something that upset Gordon Brown and it won't be soon until New Labour ban photos of people smoking.

Yes, it was probably something that upset Gordon Brown and it won't be soon until New Labour ban photos of people smoking.
Must find one of me enjoying a good smoke to annoy him!

Nigel Roebuck has also written some good books. Two in particular stand out - "Inside Formula 1" is a collection of his best Fifth Column pieces from around 1980-1988. A later work was "Chasing The Title". Both are worth getting hold of.

I forgot to mention "Grand Prix Greats". Roebuck also wrote a book about Mario Andretti, and may also have done a biography of Chris Amon (?).

Roebuck used to be brilliant, but as his mates left the sport he seemed to lose the connection with drivers that used to make his work special - and I think his reputation was very tarnished by the hugely pro-Prost anti-Senna polemics of the 88-91 era (his attempt to recast them both as flawed geniuses just doesn't hold water).

Erudite? Yes. Aware that there's a world outside racing? Yes. Strong opinions? Yes. All good things. Inside F1 (a collection of his Fifth Columns) and Grand Prix Greats are superb books, wonderfully readable. But they were written before the rot set in.

But it became very hard to read Roebuck over the last decade or so - his race reports were perfunctory with more emphasis on politics (racing or real), and Fifth Column was often entertaining but usually just a fossick in the gander-bag of his memories - to reuse one of my own clichés China Daily apparently used to keep stock paragraphs from Mao's speeches typeset so they could just paste them together; NSR seemed to do that with his reminiscences.

He's still capable of writing beautifully, but I think he got so disillusioned with contemporary F1 that his whole approach to journalism suffered badly.

I hope that NSR at the Green'un will be able to write at length, go back and revisit his friends and his memories, and become the writer he used to be. (It's very amusing reading Competition Car from '73 or so - Roebuck was a cynical soul then but there was a lightness of touch that's disappeared from his writing over the decades. There's definite evidence of this in some of his contributions to MS over the last few years. Can we start the Campaign For Real Roebuck?

What I hope never to see again is Roebuck using his column to make laboured and obvious points about his bugbears of the New Labour government and smoking bans. While I loathe the former and think both are fundamental infringement of civil liberties, I don't use word-count that should be about racing to pontificate on them ;)

If I want blistering, acerbic cynicism these days Mike Lawrence is the man, anyway - absolute stark raving genius. ;)

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I forgot to mention "Grand Prix Greats". Roebuck also wrote a book about Mario Andretti, and may also have done a biography of Chris Amon (?).

Roebuck did all the interviews and research for an Amon biography (not exactly a problem, Amon was the first driver he befriended) but in a typical piece of Amon luck the publisher went t*ts-up and the book remained unpublished.

It would be nice to have something that gets a bit deeper into Chris's character than Eoin Young's Forza Amon, which concentrates so much on what's going on on-track to the detriment of Chris as a person that at one point it tells us CAA was getting a divorce - without having bothered to tell us he'd ever got married...

Well, it's official. Next week's issue will be Roebuck's last. I'll genuinely miss his column.

Sad day

What is Mr Roebuck being replace with? Page 3 models??

I am presuming its his choice to leave?

Is it his last Fifth Column or just the last Ask Nigel?

You can still see him in Motor Sport every month, but I presume he prefers nostalgia to the acidity of contemporary F1.

Is it his last Fifth Column or just the last Ask Nigel?

According to the mag - 'Next Week - Nigel Roebuck's Final Words: The 'legendary scribe bows out after three decades at Autosport'.

You can still see him in Motor Sport every month, but I presume he prefers nostalgia to the acidity of contemporary F1.Indeed. His penultimate column is all about old stuff, something he is criticised for above, but it is so relevant to today it hurts!

So then, time to cancel the subscription? :Shrug:

So then, time to cancel the subscription? :Shrug:

Depends who takes his place, I guess. Maybe they'll draft Simon Arron in from MN (that's just pure idle speculation, by the way). At least we can console ourselves that next week's issue should be bursting at the seams with Roebuck related material.

Actually, I've just had a thought - You might end up opening up the Dec 20th edition to see....Fifth Column by Ted Kravitz, or Mark Blundell "I'd like to start by saying that I is well pleased to be the one what has replaced Nigel Rosebuck at Autosport".

No No No leave Simon Arron at Motorsport News top bloke

Tony Dodgins surely will be the replacement?

Well, I'll miss Roebuck for sure. Is he continuing to write for Motorsport? His pieces in there are nice and weighty of late.

I'd prefer Jonathan Noble to Tony Dodgins.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of Roebuck in Motor Sport, which will be good.

I'd prefer Adam Cooper over them all.

or Mark Blundell "I'd like to start by saying that I is well pleased to be the one what has replaced Nigel Rosebuck at Autosport".What I done did was replace Nigel.I'd prefer Adam Cooper over them all.He is a good writer.

So, tomorrow is the day. As the last words of Autosport Roebuck dwindle down, it will generate an atmosphere like a funeral. I may even burn the issue when I'm finished and scatter the ashes in my garden. And then breakdown, sobbing uncontrollably.

Is it still a double issue tomorrow then? If so, how will they fill it seeing as the F1 review has been done? Bigger pictures in the top 50 drivers? ;)

Is he continuing to write for Motorsport?

Isn't he becoming editor of Motorsport?

Autosport website running the top 50 Fifth Columns and other assorted articles. :cool:

I'd prefer Adam Cooper over them all.
Me too although he is a big mate of Irvine...............

Me too although he is a big mate of Irvine...............Despite that he is a good writer ;)
Isn't he becoming editor of Motorsport?Before I begin to answer the question, though, I'd like to make it clear that I am not - in spite of the rumours (and, no doubt, the wishes of some!) - retiring.

This is indeed my last week of working for Autosport (both the magazine and the website), but in the New Year I'm going off to be editor-in-chief of Motor Sport, and will continue to go to the races, and to write columns and features, as always.http://www.autosport.com/asknigel/index.html/id/23047

:)