17 F1 Romance Books and the Last One Isn’t Even on Earth
17 F1 romance books from a reader who loves the sport, sorted by mood, from beginner picks to a sapphic racing academy and F1 in space.
F1 romance books went from a niche corner of sports romance to their own full shelf in about three years, and I have some opinions about which ones should be on your TBR. The good books understand that racing is a sport about tiny margins, brutal team politics, and people who have decided that going very fast is worth dying for, and they let that shape the love story instead of decorating it. This list has seventeen, ranging from a fake dating documentary shoot to a championship season told entirely in secret, plus one that takes the whole thing into zero gravity.
I have been going to races since 2005, so I call myself a bit of a connoisseur. These are grouped by what you are in the mood for rather than ranked, so read the section headers and skip to the one that sounds like something you want right now.
This post contains affiliate links. That means we receive a small commission at no cost to you from any purchases you make through these links.
Start Here If You’re New to F1 Romance Books
These are the easiest ones to start into the trope if you are new to it, whether or not you know a thing about racing. One of them has a heroine learning the sport from scratch, so the explanation comes to you naturally through the story. The rest carry you on character and momentum without needing you to care about lap times. FYI, one here is young adult. Start anywhere in here and you will not be lost.
Cross the Line by Simone Soltani
Dev Anderson is a Formula 1 driver with a public image problem, and Willow Williams is the woman hired to fix it. She is also his best friend’s little sister, and the two of them kissed once and have been aggressively not discussing it ever since. The setup could have been thin, but Soltani gives Willow an actual career stake instead of making her just a device for Dev’s redemption, and the professional boundary tension worked. This is the slowest burn on the list and a great place to start for a beginner to this sport. Plus, there are more books already out in this series so you can dive right in.
Slipstream by Madge Maril
Lilah Graywood is a documentarian who may be losing her company, her boyfriend, and her project at the same time, and ends up spending a summer in the Formula 1 paddock filming a driver who needs the exposure badly. Arthur Bianco has been relegated to a reserve driver and has baggage of his own (they always seem to have some), and they concoct a fake relationship to get Lilah’s revenge and Arthur’s redemption. This is also a good entry point if you’ve never watched a race in your life. For fans of Netflix’s Drive to Survive and Ali Hazelwood.
Not So Fast by Karen Booth
Mia Neal hosts a Formula 1 podcast and has spent a good chunk of it being publicly unkind about one specific British driver. Xander Bishop is that driver, his career is in real trouble, and the two of them get thrown together in a way that makes her salty takes suddenly very awkward. This is the enemies to lovers done right! Booth is so good at writing her characters as people with careers that matter to them and not just obstacles to the romance.
Formula Fling by Sawyer Bennett
Posey Evans writes historical romance and wants to write racing romance instead, so she fakes press credentials to embed with a struggling team and learn the sport from the inside. Lex Hamilton is the bad boy driver she’s assigned to shadow, and he is not thrilled about it. The secret identity setup gives this more tension than the usual publicist-and-playboy premise. And listen, Sawyer Bennett writes great sports romances that you’ll easily want to eat up in one sitting.
Formula He’s the One by Andie J. Christopher
Heads up: this one is young adult. Everything else on this list is adult romance, so if you are expecting the heat level of the rest of the page, adjust accordingly here.
Tessa James grew up the daughter of an IndyCar legend, planning to be the first full-time woman on the Formula 1 grid, until the crash that killed her mother ended her father’s career and parked her behind the front desk of his machine shop. A friend drags her to Monaco for the Grand Prix and she ends up in the orbit of Pietro Deveraux, who is racing royalty in a way she never was. It moves from Monaco to Indianapolis in an exhilarating summer escape. But also dealing with more emotional undertones ala Abby Jimenez.
If you want Christopher without the YA, Faster is her adult racing romance.
Women of the Grid
Of course, that takes us to the most interesting thing happening in F1 romance books right now, and that is the number of books putting women in the garage as drivers, engineers, and team principals rather than as girlfriends. Real Formula 1 may not see that so often. Worth mentioning there’s a book in the next section set in an all-female racing academy if you want more.
Offtrack by Esha Patel
Diana Zahrani is the first woman to race in the top class in a hundred years, which means every result she posts is treated as a referendum on whether she belongs there. Miguel de la Fuente is the championship favorite who does not take her seriously, and the season forces them into each other’s orbit over and over. Patel does not soften what the sport is like for Diana, and the book is better for it. And of course, great banter.
Lights Out by Kayla James
Blake gets her Formula 1 seat and discovers her teammate is the driver she grew up idolizing. Ryder is trying to rebuild a family name after a bad season and a legendary father, which means the person best positioned to help her is also the person with the most to lose if she outperforms him. Teammate dynamics are superb.
Double Apex by Josie Juniper
Phaedra Morgan is a race engineer and a math prodigy, and Cosmin Ardelean is the new driver whose reputation precedes him in ways that make her job harder. They land on an arrangement meant to smooth out the working relationship, which goes exactly as well as arrangements ever do. Very few books in this category are willing to let a woman be the smartest technical person in the garage, so I love that about this.
Drive Me Crazy by Lizzy Dent
Chloe Coleman is one of the first female team principals in Formula 1, inheriting a team that finishes near the back and refusing to accept. Matt Warner is the driver she signs, a former champion who hasn’t won since a crash put his teammate in the hospital, and who happens to be the childhood crush she never quite got over. The underdog team structure makes this work. You’re rooting for a garage full of people and the paddock politics. Also, Dent worked in motorsport before she wrote fiction and it shows in the details.
Would you like to save this?
Enter your email below, and we’ll send this post straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll join fellow readers and receive my book recommendations each week!
Checkered Hearts by A.G. Starling
Rocco Vittori and Nico Angelini have been insulting each other on social media for years without ever meeting in person. Then they get put on the same new team, competing for the same lead driver seat, and the online feud turns into something considerably more complicated in the garage. Nico is the only woman on the grid. If you liked Double Apex, this is a good one to pick up next, with sharp banter and real competition. It’s the first in a series too.
Queer Formula 1 Romance
This is definitely an underserved sub-category and hopefully we get more books in the near future. But I’ve picked three books for your list and they run from bright and banter driven to genuinely heavy. I have put them in that order on purpose, so read the descriptions before you pick something.
Pole Position by Rebecca J. Caffery
Yes, yes, everyone does the Heated Rivalry meets Formula 1 comparison. Pole Position by Rebecca J. Caffery combines the adrenaline of Formula 1 with the charm of Red, White and Royal Blue. Kian Walker, a four-time championship winner with a legendary racing pedigree, wants nothing less than to be compared to his unreliable father. Enter Harper James, the cocky and hot headed rookie who’s set to be Kian’s new teammate. With their clashing personalities and undeniable chemistry, the tension on and off the track is electrifying. This is a spicy enemies to lovers, also a bit of grumpy x sunshine and it will have your heart racing at 220mph.
Make Your Move by Melissa Brayden
Reese Maddox has been getting by on raw talent and swagger until that stops being enough, and she lands at Formula Next, an all-female academy built to feed drivers into Formula 1. Sloane Foster was going to be the next big thing until a crash ended her career, and she is now on the other side of the garage coaching the people chasing what she lost. Age gap, coach and protégé, forced proximity, and a heroine working through real panic attacks.
I have not read this one yet but it’s one I am excited to pick up because a sapphic F1 romance with a academy setting is not something I was going to leave off my TBR.
Crash Test by Amy James
Travis Keeping is twenty four, halfway through a championship winning season, and secretly in love with a Formula 2 driver named Jacob Nichols. When a crash puts Jacob in a coma, Travis has no standing to be at the hospital, no one to tell, and a season that will not stop for him. The book tells the story by filling in the gaps of their relationship more as memory than feeling.
I am still including this book on this list because I genuinely think it will work for some people. It’s definitely the heaviest read on this list and maybe not my personal favorite because the romance connection felt weak. But I also think it’s the one that does the best job at showcasing the sport and dealing with the emotional turmoil of the story.
Grab this book on Amazon or read my full Crash Test by Amy James book review
Formula 1 Racing Romance Nostalgia
These three were written by authors who were doing racing romance before it became “a category with its own shelf “a thing”. Sure, they read differently from the newer trade releases, but I think that’s a reason they are worth your time rather than a strike against them. Backlist is where the good stuff hides.
Revved by Samantha Towle
Andi Amaro is a race mechanic with a firm personal rule about not dating drivers. Carrick Ryan is Irish, charming, and precisely the kind of man the rule exists to protect her from. What I like here is that Andi’s job is not backdrop and she’s a badass in a male dominated field. I know this one is older than most of this list but it holds up.
Grab this book on Amazon or read my Revved by Samantha Towle book review
Off the Grid by K. Bromberg
Spencer Riggs is arrogant, talented, and entirely aware of both. The woman he cannot stop circling is the boss’s daughter, keeping a promise to her late father by holding a team together she never asked to run. You get the forced proximity as they have to travel from race to race together through the season. And Bromberg is the pioneer of racing romance. If you want more of her in this world, the Driven series is where it started. You can read my Driven by K. Bromberg book review here. And fun fact, Driven was also made into a movie by PassionFlix.
Racer by Katy Evans
Racer Tate is fast, reckless, and addicted to the part of the sport that could kill him. The heroine is sent to keep him in one piece and on schedule, which is a losing proposition from the first page. This is the most old-school entry on the list, written before F1 romance was big and Katy Evans was known for the angst. It delivers a intense, physical and high-drama love story.
The One That Breaks the Format
Everything else on this list is set on Earth, as you would expect. This one is not. I put it last because I know it’s the usual one you would come here for. But it is the single most inventive book in this whole list.
Formula Zero by Meredith Lanzen
Madeline Clarke races in the solar system’s most elite zero-gravity circuit, she is not performing well, her boss is a problem, her estranged father is a legend of the sport and also a problem, and her childhood best friend Julian Casperi is a rising star she has spent years not speaking to. Then a near-fatal accident on the track puts them back in the same room. This is Formula 1 in space, and I mean that literally. The racing is real racing, with strategy and engineering and teams, just conducted outside of…Earth. Plus it’s a childhood friends to rivals to lovers arc with yearning!
This is pick if you want to swing for the fences and read outside of the norm And if you’ve read enough F1 romance books that they start to feel samey, this is the one that will fix that.
The whole garage, not just the grid
Formula 1 might be fun but it is one corner of a much bigger sports world. If you want the same speed with a wider range, NASCAR, street racing, and the kind of underground circuits that don’t make it to television, that is a different list. A few of them are the books that got me into this whole trope in the first place, long before Drive to Survive made the sport fashionable. When you have worked through some of these and you want more, go straight to my full list of car racing romance books next. Then come back and tell me in the comments which driver you would actually want to date.
Pin It Later
