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What: American Grand Prix Racing: A Century of Drivers & Cars. By Tim Considine. Classic Motorbooks, $39.95.

A United States presence in Formula One racing is nonexistent. There is no American driver, no team on the worldwide circuit, no race here.

But that doesn’t stop Grand Prix fans in this country from keeping the thought that Formula One is the highest technological class in motor racing, even if it can only be seen on predawn cable TV.

And consummate fan Tim Considine has researched Formula One to find that 147 Americans have driven in GP competition, from George Heath in 1916 to Michael Andretti and his disappointing ride in 1993.

Most knowledgeable racing fans know that Phil Hill and Mario Andretti are America’s only world champions, and that Dan Gurney was the best of those who never won one. But how many know that in 1910, David Bruce-Brown became the first American to win a GP? Or that long before Long Beach became a Formula One site in 1976, there were GP races in Santa Monica in 1914, San Francisco in 1915 and Santa Monica again in 1916.

The tabletop book, besides having 250 pictures of Considine’s heroes, also has biographical sketches of special drivers. Particularly poignant is one on Michael Andretti that details the pressures that drove him to leave before he completed his first season.

As Phil Hill wrote in the foreword, “It’s a wonderful book and a wonderful read.”