Introduction
Formula One – often abbreviated to F1 – is the highest international class of single seat, open wheel motor racing. Open wheel means the cars have wheels outside of their main body.
From relatively modest beginnings when F1’s inaugural season was first staged in 1950, the series has evolved to become a global sport, with a worldwide TV audience close to 450 million.
Part of its attraction is that F1 is seen as a glamorous sport, with a combination of fast cars, young drivers who always seem to be surrounded by beautiful girls, and races which are staged in some of the most eye-catching locations in the world – Monte Carlo, Singapore, Miami, and, from next year, Las Vegas.
Top F1 drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc are not only household names, but they are among the top paid sportsmen in the world. And most people will know some of the champions of yesteryears like Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, even if they have never seen a single race in their life.
A brief history of F1
Almost from the dawn of the motor cars, people have wanted to race each other. Initially though, there were no limitations on the size or the power of the cars which resulted in some very unequal contests.
During World War II racing was suspended, but, when it resumed, the sport’s governing body, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) introduced a set of rules designed to ensure a more level playing field by introducing limits on the size and powers of engines.
A key figure in the history of the sport was Bernie Ecclestone, a former driver and team owner, who went on to become the chief executive of the Formula One group for many years, during which time he transformed it from a niche activity into a global sport by negotiating a series of lucrative commercial deals with television companies, track promoters, sponsors, and other business partners.
Motorsports in general
Formula One is just one form of auto racing, which is just one form of motorsport. “Motorsports” is the umbrella term for the taxonomy of competitive sporting events that involve the use of motorized vehicles.
Auto racing can be divided into two sub-categories:
- Open wheel racing – which includes Formula One and the IndyCar series
- Enclosed wheel racing – which includes things like stock car racing, sports car racing, and off-road racing
Stock car racing is organized by NASCAR and is the most popular form of auto racing in the US. They primarily race on oval tracks and their cars resemble the production cars that everyday people drive. The most popular NASCAR race is the Daytona 500, held each year in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Some other types of motorsports include motorcycle racing, motorboat racing, drone racing, snowmobile racing, truck racing, and drag racing.
The cars
In F1, the cars are the essence of the sport, and enormous sums of money are spent on ensuring that they are as aerodynamic and fast as possible.
Originally all were manually operated, but now they are increasingly reliant on electronics with technology like semi-automatic gearboxes and assisted steering, as well as aid to facilitate overtaking.
Each year the FIA publishes a series of technical regulations which lay out in minute detail the specifications of the engine, bodywork, and every other part of the car. In a sport where the margins are measured in fractions of a second, the teams are constantly looking for loopholes in these rules, which may give them an advantage in the race.
Tires
Tires play a vital role in Formula One, because they can determine how fast a car can go in different conditions and also have a major part to do with safety and grip on the surface of the track.
F1 tires have only a superficial semblance to those used on a normal road car. Whereas those on a normal car might last up to 50,000 miles before they have to be changed, an F1 tire will last less than the distance of a race. Instead, an F1 car might change tires several times in the course of a single race, either because the conditions have changed, or because the driver is looking for more grip.
The drivers
To race in Formula One is considered to be among the elite as far as driving is concerned, and, although most drivers are in their 20s, they would have had a long apprenticeship before being signed up by one of the teams.
Most start in karting when they are just six or seven years old, and then work their way up through the junior classes of motor racing, such as F3, and F2, the levels just below Formula One. F1 is highly competitive, and currently with just 20 race seats to go round, many highly talented drivers just never make it to F1. There are only ten teams in F1 with each team racing two cars per race. Even being a reserve driver is a highly coveted position.
It also tends to be a young person’s sport. Max Verstappen, for example, was driving an F1 car before he was old enough to drive a family car on the road legally. A few drivers remain in the sport until their early 40s – Fernando Alonso is a current example – but they are few and far between, because reaction speeds tend to slow as people get older.
No women drivers
F1 is also predominantly a male sport. In its history, only five women have ever competed in F1 races, none of them with any success. The FIA admits that this is a situation that needs to be rectified, and there are development programs in place to help encourage women into the sport.
However, one of the team principals recently opined that it could be another 20 years before one of the top teams features a women driver.
Lack of diversity
In fact, F1 has been accused of a lack of diversity in general, with most people working in it being white males. Lewis Hamilton, the only black driver on the grid, has been trying to change this by starting an engineering program designed to encourage those from multi-ethnic backgrounds into the sport. It may take years, though, for this to have any discernible effect.
Most winningest drivers
The most successful driver in the history of the sport is Lewis Hamilton, who has 103 race wins to his name, with Michael Schumacher second on the all-time list with 91 wins. No other driver has managed more than 53 wins in their career. Hamilton and Schumacher have each won the drivers’ championship seven times – a controversial decision by the race official at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021 denied Hamilton what would have been a record eighth title.
The races
Each Grand Prix race requires the cars to complete a pre-set number of laps, with a time limit of two hours. A Grand Prix is any auto race that is one of many in a world championship series. A series being a sequence of different races that make up a season. Grand Prix races are held in various countries under international rules.
The number of races depends on the season, but the 2022 season contains 22 races in all. These take place in five continents – Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America – and some 20 countries. The new owners of the sport, Liberty Media, want to expand the sport even further, and there are plans to add new countries and venues in the coming years, although this may be at the expense of some of the more historic tracks.
The most famous races include the Monte Carlo, British and Belgian Grand Prix.
A race weekend
A Formula One Grand Prix usually takes place over three days (usually Friday to Sunday), with a series of practice and qualifying sessions prior to the race on Sunday. The following is a breakdown of a typical race weekend.
Friday
A race weekend will typically begin on a Friday with two practice sessions, which teams use to get used to the track and experiment with different configurations.
Saturday
There will then be a third practice session on Saturday morning, before qualifying, which sees the cars compete against the clock over single laps.
The faster the timed lap, the higher up the grid they start in the race itself.
Sunday
Sunday is race day. All of the races occur on Sunday.
Recent changes
To try and make the race weekend more exciting for the uninitiated, some races have replaced some of the practice sessions and timed qualifying, with a qualifying sprint race itself. The order they finish in the race determines where they line up on the starting grid and, to make it more competitive, the top three finishers all score points which go to the overall championship as well.
Pit stops
During a race, if the driver needs to change tires, the car will drive off the circuit to the pit area located alongside it, where the pit crew will change all four tires. A top pit crew can change all the tires on a car in less than three seconds. At one time, fuel was also put into cars during pit stops, but, after a number of fires, this was discontinued on safety grounds. Cars also make pit stops for mechanical adjustments or driver changes. The driver usually waits in the vehicle while adjustments are made.
The pit area is usually accessed via a pit lane which runs parallel to the start/finish straight away on the track. The pit crew can contain up to twenty mechanics, depending on the series regulations.
The term pit stop is also generally used to describe a short break in a journey.
Stop go penalties
F1 is a sport full of rules and regulations. Drivers can commit fouls, for example, by causing a crash or blocking another driver. In such circumstances, the race stewards may award what is effectively a time penalty, also called a stop go penalty.
If this happens, the driver must bring his car into the pit lane, stop in his pit box, and remain stationary for the length of his penalty, before resuming his race. While he is serving the penalty, his mechanics are not allowed to touch his car to make alterations or change the tires.
In very exceptional cases, drivers may be disqualified altogether. The last time this happened was 2011, when both Saubers were disqualified post-race for an infringement of one of the technical regulations.
Points
The top ten finishers in a race all score points. There are 25 points on offer for the winner, 18 for second place, and 15 for the third. Positions 4 through 10 earn 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 respectively. There is also an additional point awarded for the fastest lap of the race.
The most a team can gain from any race weekend is 44 points – 25 points for winning the race, 18 for coming in second, and a further point for the fastest lap. If both cars finish outside the top ten or fail to finish, however, then no points will be scored.
Podium
The top three finishers get to stand on the podium at the end of the race. This is where they receive trophies and also get to spray champagne over each other!
Safety
Formula One is inherently a dangerous sport because of the speed of the cars, all competing for the same space on crowded tracks, often with a full load of combustible fuel on board. In the early days of the sport, fatalities and serious injuries were common, and it was not uncommon for four or five drivers to be killed every year.
Fortunately, safety in the sport has increased enormously and is continually being developed further, from the design of the cars and tracks, to the clothing worn, and the provision of marshals and stewards. It means that the French driver, Romain Grosjean, could emerge from the fireball that engulfed his car at the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2020 relatively unscathed, an incident that would have surely led to his death even ten years earlier.
The sport can never be entirely safe, but it is a lot less dangerous than it was in the past.
The two championships
There are actually two parallel championships running in F1 at any one time, the drivers’ and the constructors’ championship.
The drivers’ championship is self-explanatory. Over the course of a season, an individual driver will accrue points, and the man who has the most points at the end of the season is crowned the world champion.
Although most of the headlines are grabbed by the drivers’ championship, within the sport itself, it is the one for the constructors that carries far more weight in terms of prize money and prestige. Points are awarded to a constructor on the basis of where the two cars in each team finish each race.
The teams
An F1 team may consist of several hundred people, most of whom are never seen at a race weekend but are busy back in the factory, working on the design, and performance of the cars, engines and tires. There will also be the back office staff – finance, legal, marketing, admin etc.
Teams will usually have a Team Principal – similar to a manager in football – and they are supported by Chief Engineers, Race Engineers, and Strategy Officers, responsible for tactics during a race itself. Teams will also take their own IT consultants, cooks, masseurs and doctors to every race.
Each team will have two main drivers plus a contracted reserve who will step in if needed in case of injury or illness.
Although independent teams manned by privateers were once common in the sport, the rising costs involved meant that they have now been phased out in favor of the major auto manufacturers, who are looking for synergies with their everyday business.
There have been constant acquisitions and rebranding over the years. For example, the current Mercedes team began life as Tyrell, then became British American Racing, then Brawn, and finally Mercedes.
Teams may change over the years and, in previous years, there have been more than ten teams competing. However, the costs involved in the Formula One nowadays are a serious barrier to entry in the sport, and potential new entrants need significantly deep pockets, and will have had to raise a significant budget from sponsors.
Current teams
There are currently only ten teams in all of F1 that compete against each other over and over again. Each team has two cars on the grid for every contest.
Out of the ten teams, the three leading teams currently are Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari. The others are Alpine (formerly Renault), Alpha Tauri (Red Bull’s junior team), McLaren, Williams, Aston Martin, Haas and Alfa Romeo.
Most successful teams
The most successful team of all time is Ferrari, who have won 16 constructors and 15 driver titles, and enjoyed a golden era when Michael Schumacher drove for them in the early 2000s. They are followed by Williams with nine constructors’ and seven driver titles, although the last of those was in 1997.
In recent years Mercedes have enjoyed a period of dominance winning eight consecutive constructors’ titles, although they will not be adding to that this year. Red Bull seem almost certain to claim it.
The race tracks
Unlike NASCAR raceways, which are primarily oval in shape, all F1 circuits have a different shape. That is part of the allure of F1. Each circuit requires its own driving strategy.
There are no rules dictating the shape an F1 track must be. However, there are some regulations the track must abide by, like straights can’t be longer than 2 km, and the tracks must be at least 3.5 km long in total.
You can see the shapes of the different F1 Circuits here.
There are two main categories of circuits:
- “Street” which are held on closed city streets
- “Race” which are held on tracks in a racing facility
The Indian Grand Prix
Between 2011 and 2013 India staged a Grand Prix at the Buddh International Circuit located in Uttar Pradesh in the National Capital Region at Greater Noida.
The circuit was designed by famous German racetrack designer Hermann Tilke and is 3.185 miles long. The track is spread across 875 acres of land and forms part of Jaypee Green Sports city.
Sebastian Vettel, driving a Red Bull, won the race in the three years it was held, and he still holds the lap record there.
The race was itself set to return to the F1 calendar after a one year hiatus in 2015, but then it became embroiled in a tax dispute between the FIA and the government of Uttar Pradesh, a major in India. As a result, although other motorsport races continue to be staged there, F1 has not returned.
As to whether the sport will ever return to India, former Indian F1 driver, and now commentator, Karun Chandhok believes it unlikely. He believes that, for it to happen, it will require a major change of heart by the Indian government who will need to back it.