Today we continue with our look At Formula One...
The format of the race has changed little through Formula
One's history. The main changes have revolved around what is allowed at pit
stops. In the early days of Grand Prix racing, a driver would be allowed to
continue a race in his teammate's car should his develop a problem—in the
modern era cars are so carefully fitted to drivers that this has become
impossible. In recent years, the emphasis has been on changing refuelling and
tyre change regulations. From the 2010 season, refuelling—which was
reintroduced in 1994—has not been allowed, to encourage less tactical racing
following safety concerns. The rule requiring both compounds of tyre to be used
during the race was introduced in 2007, again to encourage racing on the track.
The safety car is another relatively recent innovation that reduced the need to
deploy the red flag, allowing races to be completed on time for a growing
international live television audience.
Points system
Various systems for awarding championship points have been
used since 1950. The current system, in place since 2010, awards the top ten
cars points in the Drivers and Constructors Championships, with the winner
receiving 25 points. If both a team's cars finish in the points, they both
receive Constructors Championship points. The total number of points won at
each race are added up, and the driver and constructor with the most points at the
end of the season are World Champions. A driver can switch teams during the
season and, for the Drivers Championship, keep all points gained at the
previous team.
A driver must be classified to receive points. In order to
be classified, a driver need not finish the race, but complete at least 90% of
the winner's race distance. Therefore, it is possible for a driver to receive
points even if they retired before the end of the race.
In the event that less than 75% of the race laps are
completed by the winner, only half of the points listed in the table are
awarded to the drivers and constructors. This has happened on only five
occasions in the history of the championship, and it has decided the
championship winner on one occasion. The last occurrence was at the 2009
Malaysian Grand Prix when the race was called off after 31 laps due to
torrential rain.
Constructors
Since 1981, Formula One teams have been required to build
the chassis in which they compete, and consequently the terms "team"
and "constructor" became more or less interchangeable. This
requirement distinguishes the sport from series such as the IndyCar Series
which allows teams to purchase chassis, and "spec series" such as
GP2, which require all cars be kept to an identical specification. It also
effectively prohibits privateers, which were common even in Formula One well
into the 1970s.
The sport's debut season, 1950, saw eighteen teams compete,
but due to high costs many dropped out quickly. In fact, such was the scarcity
of competitive cars for much of the first decade of Formula One that Formula
Two cars were admitted to fill the grids. Ferrari is the oldest Formula One
team, the only still-active team which competed in 1950.
Early manufacturer involvement came in the form of a
"factory team" or "works team", such as those of Alfa
Romeo, Ferrari, or Renault. After having virtually disappeared by the early
1980s, factory teams made a comeback in the 1990s and 2000s and formed up to
half the grid with Ferrari, Jaguar, BMW, Renault, Toyota, and Honda either
setting up their own teams or buying out existing ones. Mercedes-Benz owned 40%
of the McLaren team and manufactures the team's engines. Factory teams make up
the top competitive teams; in 2008 wholly owned factory teams took four of the
top five positions in the Constructors' Championship, and McLaren the other.
Ferrari holds the record for having won the most Constructors' Championships .
However, by the end of the 2000s factory teams were once again on the decline
with only Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Renault lodging entries to the 2010
championship.
Companies such as Climax, Repco, Cosworth, Hart, Judd and
Supertec, which had no direct team affiliation, often sold engines to teams
that could not afford to manufacture them. In the early years, independently
owned Formula One teams sometimes also built their engines, though this became
less common with the increased involvement of major car manufacturers such as
BMW, Ferrari, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, and Toyota, whose large budgets
rendered privately built engines less competitive. Cosworth was the last
independent engine supplier. Beginning in 2007, the manufacturers' deep pockets
and engineering ability took over, eliminating the last of the independent
engine manufacturers. It is estimated the major teams spend between €100 and
€200 million per year per manufacturer
on engines alone.
In the 2007 season, for the first time since the 1981 rule,
two teams used chassis built by other teams. Super Aguri started the season
using a modified Honda Racing RA106 chassis, while Scuderia Toro Rosso used the
same chassis used by the parent Red Bull Racing team, which was formally
designed by a separate subsidiary. The usage of these loopholes was ended for
2010 with the publication of new technical regulations, which require each
constructor to own the intellectual property rights to their chassis, which
prevents a team using a chassis owned by another Formula One constructor. The
regulations continue to allow a team to subcontract the design and construction
of the chassis to a third-party, an option used by the HRT team in 2010.
Although teams rarely disclose information about their
budgets, it is estimated they range from US$66 million to US$400 million each.
Entering a new team in the Formula One World Championship
requires a £25 million up-front payment
to the FIA, which is then repaid to the team over the course of the season. As
a consequence, constructors desiring to enter Formula One often prefer to buy
an existing team: B.A.R.'s purchase of Tyrrell and Midland's purchase of Jordan
allowed both of these teams to sidestep the large deposit and secure the
benefits the team already had, such as TV revenue.
Drivers
Every team in Formula One must run two cars in every session
in a Grand Prix weekend, and every team may use up to four drivers in a season.
Most modern drivers are contracted for at least the duration of a season, with
driver changes taking place in between seasons, in comparison to early years
where drivers often competed at an ad hoc basis from race to race. Each
competitor must be in the possession of a FIA Super Licence to compete in a
Grand Prix, which is issued to drivers who have met the criteria of success in
junior motorsport categories and having achieved of running in a Formula One
car. Drivers may also be issued a Super License by the World Motor Sport
Council if they fail to meet the criteria. such as rFactor Pro, which is used
by most of the F1 Teams. Although most drivers earn their seat on ability,
commercial considerations also come into play with teams having to satisfy
sponsors and financial demands.
Each driver chooses an unassigned number from 2–99 upon entering Formula One, and keeps that
number during their time in the series. The number one is reserved for the
reigning driver's champion, who retains their previous number and may choose to
use it instead of the number one. At the onset of the championship, numbers
were allocated by race organisers on an ad-hoc basis from race to race, and
competitors did not have a permanent number throughout the season. Permanent
numbers were introduced in, when teams were allocated numbers in ascending order
based upon the constructors standings. The teams would hold those numbers from
season to season with the exception of the team with the world drivers
champion, which would swap its numbers with the one and two of the previous
champion's team. New entrants were allocated spare numbers, with the exception
of the number 13 which had been unused since . As teams kept their numbers for
long periods of time car numbers became associated with a team, such as
Ferrari's 27 and 28.
A total of 32 separate drivers have won the world
championship, with Michael Schumacher holding the record for most championships
with seven, as well as holding the race wins and pole position records. Juan
Manuel Fangio has won the next most, with five championships won during the 1950s,
as well as having won the greatest percentage of wins, with 24 out of 52
entries. Jochen Rindt is the only posthumous World Champion, after his points
total was not overhauled despite his fatal accident at the 1970 Italian Grand
Prix. Drivers from the United Kingdom have been the most successful in the
sport, with 14 championships from 10 drivers, and 214 wins from 19.
Feeder series
Most F1 drivers start in kart racing competitions, and then
come up through traditional European single seater series like Formula Ford and
Formula Renault to Formula 3, and finally the GP2 Series. GP2 started in 2005,
replacing Formula 3000, which itself had replaced Formula Two as the last major
stepping-stone into F1. Most champions from this level graduate into F1, but 2006
GP2 champion Lewis Hamilton became the first F2, F3000 or GP2 champion to win
the Formula One driver's title in 2008. Drivers are not required to have
competed at this level before entering Formula One. British F3 has supplied
many F1 drivers, with champions including Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna and Mika
Häkkinen having moved straight from that series to Formula One. More rarely a
driver may be picked from an even lower level, as was the case with 2007 World
Champion Kimi Räikkönen, who went straight from Formula Renault to F1.
Part Five Tomorrow...
Tipster Street.
No comments:
Post a Comment