All You Need To Know About Formula One (Part One)

Formula One  is the highest class of single-seat auto racing that is sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The FIA Formula One World Championship has been the premier form of racing since the inaugural season in 1950, although other Formula One races were regularly held until 1983. The "formula", designated in the name, refers to a set of rules, to which all participants' cars must conform. The F1 season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix, held throughout the world on purpose-built F1 circuits and public roads.

The results of each race are evaluated using a points system to determine two annual World Championships, one for drivers, one for constructors. The racing drivers are required to be holders of valid Super Licences, the highest class of racing licence issued by the FIA. The races are required to be held on tracks graded 1, the highest grade a track can receive by the FIA. Grand Prix racing began in 1906 and became the most popular type internationally in the second half of the twentieth century. The Formula One Group is the legal holder of the commercial rights.

With the cost of designing and building mid-tier cars being of the order of $120 million, Formula One's economic effect and creation of jobs is significant, and its financial and political battles are widely reported. Its high profile and popularity have created a major merchandising environment, which has resulted in great investments from sponsors and budgets in the hundreds of millions for the constructors. Since 2000 the sport's spiraling expenditures and the distribution of prize money which favors established top teams have forced complaints from smaller teams and led several teams to bankruptcy.

History 

The Formula One series originated with the European Grand Prix Motor Racing  of the 1920s and 1930s. The formula is a set of rules which all participants' cars must meet. Formula One was a new formula agreed upon after World War II during 1946, with the first non-championship races being held that year. A number of Grand Prix racing organisations had laid out rules for a world championship before the war, but due to the suspension of racing during the conflict, the World Drivers' Championship was not formalised until 1947. The first world championship race was held at Silverstone, United Kingdom in 1950. A championship for constructors followed in 1958. National championships existed in South Africa and the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. Non-championship Formula One events were held for many years, but due to the increasing cost of competition, the last of these occurred in 1983.

Return of racing  

The first World Championship for Drivers was won by Italian Giuseppe Farina in his Alfa Romeo in 1950, barely defeating his Argentine teammate Juan Manuel Fangio. However Fangio won the title in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957, his streak interrupted  by two-time champion Alberto Ascari of Ferrari. Although the UK's Stirling Moss was able to compete regularly, he was never able to win the world championship, and is now widely considered to be the greatest driver never to have won the title. Fangio, however, is remembered for dominating Formula One's first decade and has long been considered the "Grand Master" of Formula One.

This period featured teams managed by road car manufacturers Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Maserati; all of whom had competed before the war. The first seasons were run using pre-war cars like Alfa's 158. They were front-engined, with narrow tyres and 1.5-litre supercharged or 4.5-litre normally aspirated engines. The 1952 and 1953 world championships were run to Formula Two regulations, for smaller, less powerful cars, due to concerns over the paucity of Formula One cars available. When a new Formula One, for engines limited to 2.5 litres, was reinstated to the world championship for 1954, Mercedes-Benz introduced the advanced W196, which featured innovations such as desmodromic valves and fuel injection as well as enclosed streamlined bodywork. Mercedes drivers won the championship for two years, before the team withdrew from all motorsport in the wake of the 1955 Le Mans disaster.

The Garagistes  

The first major technological development, Bugatti's re-introduction of mid-engined cars, occurred with the Type 251, which was unsuccessful. Australian Jack Brabham, world champion during 1959, 1960, and 1966, soon proved the mid-engined design's superiority. By 1961, all regular competitors had switched to mid-engined cars. The Ferguson P99, a four-wheel drive design, was the last front-engined F1 car to enter a world championship race. It was entered in the 1961 British Grand Prix, the only front-engined car to compete that year.

The first British World Champion was Mike Hawthorn, who drove a Ferrari to the title during the 1958 season. However, when Colin Chapman entered F1 as a chassis designer and later founder of Team Lotus, British racing green came to dominate the field for the next decade. Including Brabham, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, John Surtees, Graham Hill, and Denny Hulme, British teams and Commonwealth drivers won twelve world championships between 1962 and 1973.

During 1962, Lotus introduced a car with an aluminium-sheet monocoque chassis instead of the traditional space-frame design. This proved to be the greatest technological breakthrough since the introduction of mid-engined cars. During 1968, Lotus painted Imperial Tobacco livery on their cars, thus introducing sponsorship to the sport.

Aerodynamic downforce slowly gained importance in car design from the appearance of aerofoils during the late 1960s. During the late 1970s, Lotus introduced ground-effect aerodynamics  that provided enormous downforce and greatly increased cornering speeds. So great were the aerodynamic forces pressing the cars to the track, extremely stiff springs were needed to maintain a constant ride height, leaving the suspension virtually solid, depending entirely on the tyres for any small amount of cushioning of the car and driver from irregularities of the road surface.

Part Two tomorrow...

Tipster Street.