I really wished that Diyana and Miguel spent more time together. It felt a bit like they spent infinitely more time speaking about each other than they did to each other. Because of that, it was hard to feel any chemistry between the characters, and the romance felt more like a b-plot than the main plot of the novel. I also spent way too long in this book worried that Mig was going to "let" Diyana win after he had said he'd give up P1s for her. Overall, the book felt a bit unpolished, and I don't think I'll reach for it again.

I have no idea what the original story read like but the rewritten update of this book was so great in so many ways. The love that develops between the two main characters, their one struggle and stories outside of their relationship, I loved all of it! I would highly recommend this book for any of my friends who love a F1 romance book!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Thank you Avon Books and NetGalley for the eARC of Offtrack! All opinions in this review are my own.

I have two favorite things about Offtrack. The first is that the book starts immediately in the car and continues to have a lot of on-track action throughout the book. The second is that although Diana is in her first season of Formula 1, she is not on some midfield team, but on a competitive team that allows her to fight for points and wins.

These two aspects made Offtrack such a rewarding read for an F1 fan. Although it is still a romance at its core, the author makes sure to develop characters beyond Diana and Miguel. I also loved the frame of Miguel being in an arranged engagement and that him and Diana are on rival teams.

I am so glad that I don't have to wait long for the next book in the series!

Offtrack claims P1 for fans of both motorsports and contemporary romance. The author’s deep knowledge of Formula 1 is showcased with accurate technical language and depictions of the racing world, making the sport feel authentic and alive on the page. The choice to center the story around a female driver adds a meaningful layer, highlighting the ongoing gender disparity in motorsports, which I found refreshing.

While the premise is engaging, the chemistry between Diana and Miguel doesn’t quite hit as strongly as I had hoped. Despite the exciting backdrop of a fast-paced racing season, their relationship lacked the intensity I was looking for.

Very cute read! the F1 was so well written, I really loved that aspect of the book most. Very much recommend!!

FMC Diana Zahrani is F1 racing's newest rookie and is seen by most in the sport as just a pretty face. No one is more dismissive of Diana than Miguel de la Fuente, one of the premiere drivers on the circuit. An enjoyable enemies to lovers, slow burn, sports romance.

Sports Romance are all the craze now. There are three things though that set this book apart!
1. Its written by a south asian, there are 0 sports romance books out there written by diverse authors
2. This book has a female lead F1 driver who is also a POC which again is groundbreaking! Never seen it before… Esha you have carved the way for other diverse authors to follow!
3. Its about the love and passion for your job and career but also a second chance romance where the MMC goes on a journey to find he can love and still have a healthy competition with the love of his life.

Well written and captivating!

Offtrack by Esha Patel is a fun sports romance. I'm not so much into racing, but this book almost made me a fan of Formula 1. Romantic, emotional and inspiring. I enjoyed this book so much that it was difficult to put down. Great read. Thank you, Netgalley and Harper 360 | Avon Publishing for giving me the ARC in exchange for my honest feedback

very very unfortunate dnf @ 61% 😐 i didn’t even want to dnf but this book isn’t bringing me joy AT ALL so it needs to be put away and i need to be put out of my misery.

i had such high hopes for this book and i kept pushing through in hopes of SOMETHING happening between miguel and diana but NOTHING was happening. no lingering glances, no dates, no stolen kisses. “f1 romance” but WHERE IS THE ROMANCE. fine if it’s a slow burn but let’s be so fr even slow burns have had SOMETHING happening by the 60% mark.

i can appreciate the emphasis on the racing, i find that quite well done. but i also find it to be quite repetitive. every single chapter is some variation of race/press conference/f1 event. i felt like there was no chance for character growth or to see who these characters are OUTSIDE of racing.

i just refuse to keep picking up this book only to fall asleep ten minutes later. i literally had to fight my eyelids to read this book.

I've never been a huge Formula 1 fan but this book definitely gave it an interesting spin! Honestly, it was more about F1 than the romance.

The characters were cute, fun, and made you feel like you were on the F1 track. I don't know that I'd read it again or recommend it.

I love a good sports romance but this wasn't the vibe for me. It could've had me because I am a sucker for enemies to lovers. It was just a little too focused on the sport and not enough about their characters outside of F1.

I received this arc for free in exchange for an honest review! Thank you to Harper 360!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this! I had tried to read the original book and ended up not finishing, but enjoyed reading the most updated version! I’m a huge fan of F1 and romance, so I was very excited for this. I love the characters and their chemistry and how independent and strong they are. I enjoyed the story line and love having a female F1 driver. Overall, I felt some parts of the story jumped around or felt like it was missing something so for that I give it a 3.5, but otherwise enjoyed reading it! :)

3.75 stars! Okay if you love the "sports" part of sports romance, this is the book for you. The best way to describe the plot is 80% Formula 1 documentary, 20% "Where's the trophy, he just comes running over to me."

While I was reading this book, I honestly forgot it was a romance lol. It was really enjoyable because I love the sports aspect of sports romance. As I said, it felt like I was watching a Formula 1 documentary featuring a female driver and other drivers on the grid. It was kind of giving the F1 version of Hard Knocks (the NFL docu-series). The author really a did a deep dive into the sport, and I appreciate all of the research that went into writing this. I was on the edge of my seat during the race scenes—it literally felt like I was at the races myself.

Though the romance aspect of this book fell a bit flat. I felt like Diana and Miguel didn't have any romantic chemistry. Platonically though, they were great friends. And the slow burn was really slow burn (like 70+ percent into the book). And I didn't like the arranged marriage subplot. It felt like it didn't fit with the story. But I'll definitely continue reading this series...here for the F1 lol.

Thank you so much to Harper360 for sending me an ARC of Offtrack. As always, my reviews are one hundred percent voluntary and all opinions are my own :)

3.5 stars! I am a huge F1 girlie and enjoyed the world that Esha portrayed with women as a part of this male dominated sport. It was a bit slow to start, but she really wrapped everything up nicely! Fairly F1 technical, but that did not bother me at all! Real world problems handled in a way that normal people would manage them. I look forward to her next book, Overdrive!

I’m a big sports romance fan and I had high hopes for this book but this was my first F1 read. Maybe because it was the first time I was reading about Formula One racing it took me a while to get into the book so I might give it another go but it just seemed to not grab my attention.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tropes:
~ Enemies To Lovers
~ Underdog
~ Sibling Rivalry
~ Mentor Figure
~ Redemption Arc
~ High-Stakes Competition

This book was so intricately woven when it came to the world of formula 1 racing. It helped me understand the dynamics of what it takes to be a racer and really was character driven with tons of development and details in every direction. At first I did not know what the book was going to be like because there was a lot of backstory to get through but as it went on I started to understand how these drivers have to make split second decisions and be in tip top shape to do what they do. I loved that the author successfully spun the wheel 🛞 of the storyline in ways that only someone who did immense research or had first hand experience would understand. I was not expecting to learn so much about F1 and it really shocked me!
I will admit that I didn’t enjoy the book at first because it was a really slow paced book in my opinion which is ironic because they are racing. Since the book was very character driven, I think that could be why it took so long to get to the end but it was a very interesting read overall.

Thank you to the author for sharing this story with the world. Special thanks to the Publisher and the Author for providing a complimentary digital Electronic Advanced Reader Copy (E-ARC) of this novel via NetGalley. This is my fair, honest, and personal review. All opinions are mine alone and were not biased in any way.

I got this as an arc and I really wanted to love it. I am an F1 girly however as someone who usually reads books within a day or two, this took me four days to read, and I just didn’t care for it. I felt like the main characters went from nothing to forever really fast. I just think that if you are looking for an F1 romance, there are probably better options.

The future is female in Patel’s F1 novel!

“Offtrack” follows Diana Zahrani, Formula One’s first female driver, and Miguel de la Fuente, World Championship favorite, as they race through the season. But when sparks fly, they must decide for the sake of their team where their priorities lie: on track, with the championship, or offtrack, with each other.

I loved reading from Diana’s point-of-view because she is such an empowering character! F1 is a male-dominated sport, so to see her persevere despite the misogynistic culture and the obstacles imposed on her is inspiring. She does not do so without struggle. Her perspective highlights the immense pressure she experiences, yet her love for the sport never wavers, which made her more real in my eyes.

Diana’s fellow competitors do not take her seriously. Miguel, however, recognizes that she is a fierce competitor and that is what I love about their relationship. Beyond that, the romance definitely takes a back seat to both characters’ 2022 season. Normally, I am totally okay with subtle relationship development, but because of the slow placing, that aspect of the story lost me. It paled in comparison to the well-researched F1 elements and almost felt forced, especially with the dreaded third act break-up that occurred with ten chapters to go. Nevertheless, I appreciated the friendship that blossomed between them and the way they put each other in their place on the track.

3.5/5 stars

Offtrack by Esha Patel is the story of two Formula 1 drivers: Diyana Zahrani, the first woman to compete in F1 in many years, and Miguel de la Fuente, whose family has reigned as F1 champions for generations. Diyana’s story is focused on being a woman in this elite sport that’s overwhelmingly dominated by men and misogyny (to the point that the thought of the newest F1 driver being a woman hadn’t even *occurred* to the other drivers). Miguel, on the other hand, has been one of F1’s top drivers but has yet to score his championship and uphold the legacy left by his father and grandfather. Miguel is sure that he will win— that is until Diyana takes one of the 20 other seats in F1 and shakes up his entire world.

This was my second ever F1 romance, and I’m not a sports girlie (of really any kind— it’s just not my thing unless it’s in a romance book lmao). But reading the races in this book was absolutely exhilarating. There were a few times I was taken out of the story, simply because the F1 and car-specific jargon was so new to me, making google my best friend whlie reading this book— but I feel like that’s more reader error than the book’s fault (although it does make me question where the line is for explaining hyper specific sports-related jargon and continuing as if the reader is already up to par with the language). Once I was into it though and got over the initial learning curve, I was very into and having a lot of fun reading the sport!

As for the romance— I’m not entirely sure I bought into the build up of the romance between Miguel and Diyana. First of all, while I understand the beginnings of the potential love triangle with Nic and Diyana to show how the sport can change a person’s attitude, I didn’t love that it was included at all; I feel like that change could have been shown without ading him as a romantic prospect. I also wasn’t a fan of how Miguel was arranged to be married to Jatziry up until about 49% into the book. I understand that Miguel feels that he has the weight of his entire family’s legacy upon his shoulders; however, given that this is a romance between Miguel and Diyana, not Jatziry, I do think that his story could have held up without including her at all. Jatziry simply felt unnecessary. Furthermore, I will be the first to admit that slow burns aren’t my favorite, but if they’re written well and believable, I’m almost always down for it. And yet, it was, perhaps, the obstacles of these other people that kept me from really feeling the romance between Miguel and Diyana. Despite this book being dual pov, I, as a reader, did not got enough pining, nor time on page of them sharing physical space as they fell in love. The pining was there, (and don’t get me wrong, I’m a HUGE fan of subtle pining) yet it still felt lacking.

The real star of this book was Diyana and her journey in her rookie year of this elite sport. Reading her experiences and the simultaneous grace and bullheadedness she had to take her and keep her seat in this overwhelmingly male-dominated elite sport that’s not without misogyny, was a genuine joy. She is everything I could ever hope to be like one day.

This book made me more excited to read even more F1 romances. Thank you, Netgalley and Harper 360 | Avon, for the ARC!

I have never met an F1 book that I haven't liked.. until this one. I felt like the actual writing about F1 was amazing and so detailed but there was absolutely zero chemistry between the two main characters. I was so excited to receive this ARC but I ended up having to DNF at 24% and I rarely DNF books. I also felt like this book was promoted as a dual POV but ended up being multiple POV's which I did not really enjoy. I really wanted to love this but it just wasn't for me, if you really love F1 as a sport you still might really enjoy this book!
Thank you to Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book offered a great future for F1. As a fan of the sport, I enjoyed how the attention to detail making the season portrayed feel incredibly realistic. Esha Patel created a idea of what the future of the sport could be. I loved how she portrayed Diyana's journey to get on the grid and how she continued to be treated differently than the male drivers. She also showed a world where F1 is less a white mans sport which was great to see. I do think that the reality of a relationship between drivers would really be like. I believe there would be many more problems than Miguel and Diyana faced as a couple, and what they did face, they recovered from very quickly. I loved their connection and tension, but wish the reality of their situation was a little more true to what would actually happen.

Overall I found this book enjoyable to read as an F1 fan, but wished there was a slightly more developed conflict and resolution.