Formula 2010

[Eustolia Pennycuff]

FormulaOne, commonly known as Formula 1 or F1, is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fdration Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the world's premier forms of racing since its inaugural running in 1950. The word formula in the name refers to the set of rules all participants' cars must follow. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix. Grands Prix take place in multiple countries and continents on either purpose-built circuits or closed public roads.

A point-system is used at Grands Prix to determine two annual World Championships: one for the drivers, and one for the constructors (the teams). Each driver must hold a valid Super Licence, the highest class of racing licence the FIA issues, and the races must be held on grade one tracks, the highest grade rating the FIA issues for tracks.

Formula One cars are the world's fastest regulated road-course racing cars, owing to very high cornering speeds achieved by generating large amounts of aerodynamic downforce. Much of this downforce is generated by front and rear wings, which have the side effect of causing severe turbulence behind each car. The turbulence reduces the downforce the cars following directly behind generate, making it hard to overtake. Major changes made to the cars for the 2022 season have resulted in greater use of ground effect aerodynamics and modified wings to reduce the turbulence behind the cars, with the goal of making overtaking easier.[1] The cars depend on electronics, aerodynamics, suspension, and tyres. Traction control, launch control, and automatic shifting, and other electronic driving aids were first banned in 1994. They were briefly reintroduced in 2001, and have more recently been banned since 2004 and 2008, respectively.[2]

The first world championship race, the 1950 British Grand Prix, took place at Silverstone Circuit in the United Kingdom on 13 May 1950.[6] Giuseppe Farina, competing for Alfa Romeo, won the first Drivers' World Championship, narrowly defeating his teammate Juan Manuel Fangio. Fangio won the championship in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1956, and 1957.[7] This set the record for the most World Championships won by a single driver, a record that stood for 46 years until Michael Schumacher won his sixth championship in 2003.[7]

This era featured teams managed by road-car manufacturers, such as Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Maserati. The first seasons featured prewar cars like Alfa Romeo's 158, which were front-engined, with narrow tyres and 1.5-litre supercharged or 4.5-litre naturally aspirated engines. The 1952 and 1953 seasons were run to Formula Two regulations, for smaller, less powerful cars, due to concerns over the dearth of Formula One cars.[13][14] When a new Formula One formula for engines limited to 2.5 litres was reinstated for the 1954 world championship, Mercedes-Benz introduced its W196, which featured things never seen on Formula One cars before, such as desmodromic valves, fuel injection, and enclosed streamlined bodywork. Mercedes drivers won the championship for the next two years, before the team withdrew from all motorsport competitions due to the 1955 Le Mans disaster.[15]

The first major technological development in the sport was Bugatti's introduction of mid-engined cars. Jack Brabham, the world champion in 1959, 1960, and 1966, soon proved the mid-engine's superiority over all other engine positions. By 1961 all teams had switched to mid-engined cars. The Ferguson P99, a four-wheel drive design, was the last front-engined Formula One car to enter a world championship race. It entered the 1961 British Grand Prix, the only front-engined car to compete that year.[16]

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.

In 1968, sponsorship was introduced to the sport. Team Gunston became the first team to run cigarette sponsorship on its Brabham cars, which privately entered in orange, brown and gold colours of Gunston cigarettes in the 1968 South African Grand Prix on 1 January 1968.[17] Five months later, the first works team, Lotus, followed this example when it entered its cars painted in the red, gold, and white colours of the Imperial Tobacco's Gold Leaf livery at the 1968 Spanish Grand Prix.

Aerodynamic downforce slowly gained importance in car design with the appearance of aerofoils during the 1968 season. In the late 1970s, Lotus introduced ground-effect aerodynamics, previously used on Jim Hall's Chaparral 2J in 1970, that provided enormous downforce and greatly increased cornering speeds. The aerodynamic forces pressing the cars to the track were up to five times the car's weight. As a result, extremely stiff springs were needed to maintain a constant ride height, leaving the suspension virtually solid. This meant that the drivers depended entirely on the tyres for any small amount of cushioning of the car and driver from irregularities of the road surface.[18]

Beginning in the 1970s, Bernie Ecclestone rearranged the management of Formula One's commercial rights; he is widely credited with transforming the sport into the multibillion-dollar business it now is.[19][20] When Ecclestone bought the Brabham team during 1971, he gained a seat on the Formula One Constructors' Association, and in 1978, he became its president.[21] Previously, the circuit owners controlled the income of the teams and negotiated with each individually; Ecclestone persuaded the teams to "hunt as a pack" through FOCA.[20] He offered Formula One to circuit owners as a package they could take or leave. In return for the package, almost all that was required was to surrender trackside advertising.[19]

FISA imposed a ban on ground-effect aerodynamics during 1983.[25] But by then, turbocharged engines, which Renault had pioneered in 1977, were producing over 520 kW (700 bhp) and were essential to be competitive. By 1986, a BMW turbocharged engine achieved a flash reading of 5.5 bar (80 psi) pressure, estimated[who?] to be over 970 kW (1,300 bhp) in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix. The next year, power in race trim reached around 820 kW (1,100 bhp), with boost pressure limited to only 4.0 bar.[26] These cars were the most powerful open-wheel circuit racing cars ever. To reduce engine power output and thus speeds, the FIA limited fuel tank capacity in 1984, and boost pressures in 1988, before banning turbocharged engines completely in 1989.[27]

The development of electronic driver aids began in the 1980s. Lotus began to develop a system of active suspension, which first appeared during 1983 on the Lotus 92.[28] By 1987, this system had been perfected and was driven to victory by Ayrton Senna in the Monaco Grand Prix that year. In the early 1990s, other teams followed suit and semi-automatic gearboxes and traction control were a natural progression. The FIA, due to complaints that technology was determining races' outcomes more than driver skill, banned many such aids for the 1994 season. This resulted in cars that previously depended on electronic aids becoming very "twitchy" and difficult to drive. Observers felt the ban on driver aids was in name only, as they "proved difficult to police effectively".[29]

On the track, the McLaren and Williams teams dominated the 1980s and 1990s. Brabham was also competitive during the early 1980s, winning two Drivers' Championships with Nelson Piquet. Powered by Porsche, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz, McLaren won 16 championships (seven constructors' and nine drivers') in that period, while Williams used engines from Ford, Honda, and Renault to also win 16 titles (nine constructors' and seven drivers'). The rivalry between racers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost became F1's central focus during 1988 and continued until Prost retired at the end of 1993. Senna died at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix after crashing into a wall on the exit of the notorious curve Tamburello. The FIA worked to improve the sport's safety standards since that weekend, during which Roland Ratzenberger also died in an accident during Saturday qualifying. No driver died of injuries sustained on the track at the wheel of a Formula One car for 20 years until the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, where Jules Bianchi collided with a recovery vehicle after aquaplaning off the circuit, dying nine months later from his injuries. Since 1994, three track marshals have died, one at the 2000 Italian Grand Prix,[31] one at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix[31] and one at the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix.

Results were mixed, as the lack of mechanical grip resulted in the more ingenious designers clawing back the deficit with aerodynamic grip. This resulted in pushing more force onto the tyres through wings and aerodynamic devices, which in turn resulted in less overtaking, as these devices tended to make the wake behind the car turbulent or 'dirty'. This prevented other cars from following closely due to their dependence on 'clean' air to make the car stick to the track. The grooved tyres also had the unfortunate side effect of initially being of a harder compound to be able to hold the grooved tread blocks, which resulted in spectacular accidents in times of aerodynamic grip failure, as the harder compound could not grip the track as well.

Drivers from McLaren, Williams, Renault (formerly Benetton), and Ferrari, dubbed the "Big Four", won every World Championship from 1984 to 2008. The teams won every Constructors' Championship from 1979 to 2008, as well as placing themselves as the top four teams in the Constructors' Championship in every season between 1989 and 1997, and winning every race but one (the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix) between 1988 and 1997. Due to the technological advances of the 1990s, the cost of competing in Formula One increased dramatically, thus increasing financial burdens. This, combined with the dominance of four teams (largely funded by big car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz), caused the poorer independent teams to struggle not only to remain competitive but to stay in business. This effectively forced several teams to withdraw.

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