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"F1" redirects here. For other uses, see F1 (disambiguation).
Formula One, abbreviated to F1, and also known as Grand Prix racing, is the highest class of auto racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motor sport's world governing body. The "formula" in the name is a set of rules which all participants and cars must meet. The F1 world championship season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix, held usually on purpose-built circuits, and in a few cases on closed city streets. The results of each race are combined to determine two annual World Championships, one for drivers and one for constructors. It is a massive television event with millions of people watching each race in more than 200 countries. The cars race at high speeds, often well above 300 km/h (190 mph). The formula introduces a number of restrictions and specifications that cars must meet. These are designed, amongst other things, to keep the ever-increasing cornering speeds in safe ranges. The performance of the cars is highly dependent on electronics, aerodynamics, suspension and tyres. The formula has seen many evolutions and changes through the history of the sport. There have been many different types of engines; normally aspirated, supercharged and turbocharged, ranging from straight-4 to H16, with displacements from 1.5 litres to 4.5 litres. The maximum power achieved in the history of the series was around 1200 bhp in racing trim, during the 1980s turbo era.
Europe is Formula One's traditional centre and remains its leading market. However, Grands Prix have been held all over the world, and with new races in Bahrain, China, Malaysia and Turkey since 1999, its scope continues to expand. As the world's most expensive sport, its economic effect is significant, and its financial and political battles are widely observed. Its high profile and popularity makes it an obvious merchandising environment, which leads to very high investments from sponsors, translating into extremely high budgets for the constructor teams. In recent years several teams such as Prost and Arrows have gone bankrupt.
The sport is regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (International Automobile Federation more commonly abbreviated as FIA), with its headquarters in Place de la Concorde, Paris. Its current president is Max Mosley. Formula One's commercial rights are vested in the Formula One Group, now owned by Alpha Prema. Although now a minority shareholder, the sport is still generally promoted and controlled by Bernie Ecclestone. Since CVC's purchase the complicated (and according to some sources such as The Economist "mirky") business structure has been simplified, leading to suggestions that the Formula One Group could soon be floated. [1]
[edit] Racing and strategy
A Formula One Grand Prix event spans an entire weekend, beginning with two free practices on Friday, and one free practice on Saturday. Third drivers are allowed to run on Fridays for teams that finished the preceding season in 5th place or lower. After these practice sessions, a qualifying session is held.
The format of this qualifying session has been through several iterations since 2003. Attempts were made to reinvigorate interest in the qualifying session by using a "one-shot" system in which each driver would take turns on an empty track to set their one and only time.
For the 2006 season a knockout qualifying system has been introduced. The FIA revised the 2006 procedures starting with Round 11, the 2006 French Grand Prix.[2] In the first phase, all 22 cars are permitted on the track for a 15-minute qualification session. Only their fastest time will count and drivers may complete as many laps as they wish. In the original format, the clocks were stopped immediately at the end of the session, which meant that drivers on a timed lap did not have their time registered once the 15 minutes were up. From Round 11, any car running a timed lap at the time of the chequered flag is entitled to complete the lap. The slowest six cars can take no further part in qualifying, these cars will make up the last six grid positions in the order of their times.
The times for the sixteen remaining cars are reset for the next 15-minute session. In the original format, the clocks were stopped immediately at the end of the session. From Round 11, cars running timed laps at the chequered flag are allowed to complete the lap. The slowest six cars will make up the grid in positions 11 to 16 in the order of their times.
The times for the ten remaining cars will be reset for the next session. The shootout session lasted 20 minutes under the original regulations, changed to 15 minutes from Round 11. For the final period, the cars will be arranged on the grid in positions one to ten in the order of their times. In the first two 15-minute sessions, cars may run any fuel load and drivers knocked out after those sessions may refuel ahead of the race. However, the top-ten drivers must begin the final 15-minute session with the fuel load on which they plan to start the race. They will be weighed before they leave the pits. Whatever fuel they use in the 15 minutes may be replaced at the end of the session provided that the laps they complete are all within 110% of their best session time; outlaps (a lap that started in the pitlane) and inlaps (a lap that ended in the pitlane) are permitted to be no more than 120% of the driver's best session time. Any fuel for a lap outside of the 110% time will not be replaced. As with the first two 15 minute sessions, if a driver starts a timed lap before the chequered flag falls for the 15 minute session, their time will count even if they cross the finish line after the session has ended.[3]
The race begins with a warm-up formation lap, after which the cars assemble on the starting grid in the order they qualified. If a driver stalls before the parade lap, and the rest of the field passes him, then he must start from the back of the grid. As long as he moves off and at least one car is behind him, he can retake his original position. A racer may also elect to start from pit-lane if he has any last minute problems with the car. If they choose to do this, they must wait for all cars to pass pit-lane before they may begin the race.
A light system above the track then signals the start of the race. Races are a little over 305 kilometres (190 miles) long and are limited to two hours, though in practice they usually last about ninety minutes. Throughout the race, drivers may make one or more pit stops in order to refuel and change tyres. Drivers have access to seven sets of dry-weather tyres, four sets of wet-weather tyres and three sets of extreme-weather tyres for the entire weekend. Drivers must choose the dry-weather compound they will use for the race ahead of qualifying.
The FIA awards points to the top eight drivers and their respective teams of a grand prix on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis (the race winner receives ten points, the first runner-up eight, and so on). The winner of the two annual championships are the driver and the team who have accumulated the most points at the end of the season. If any drivers and/or teams have the exact amount of points and are both competing for the driver and/or team championships, the driver and/or team who has won more Grand Prix races during the course of the season is declared the winner.
[edit] Drivers and constructors
Formula One teams must build the chassis in which they compete, and consequently the terms "team" and "constructor" are more or less interchangeable. This requirement distinguishes the sport from series such as IRL, Champ Cars, and NASCAR, which allow teams to purchase chassis, and "spec series" such as GP2, which require all cars be kept to an identical specification. In its early years, Formula One teams sometimes also built their engines, though this became less common with the increased involvement of major car manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Toyota, and Honda, whose large budgets rendered privately built engines less competitive (and redundant).
Early manufacturer involvement came in the form of a "factory team" (that is, one owned and staffed by a major car company), such as those of Alfa Romeo, Ferrari (FIAT) or Renault. Companies such as Climax, Repco, Cosworth, Hart, Judd and Supertec, which had no direct team affiliation, often sold engines to teams who could not afford to manufacture them. As the manufacturers' deep pockets and engineering ability took over, almost all engines are now produced by major manufacturers.
After having virtually disappeared by the early 1980s, factory teams made a comeback in the 1990s and 2000s, and now form half the grid with Toyota, Ferrari (FIAT), Honda, Renault and BMW either setting up their own teams or buying out existing ones. Mercedes-Benz (DaimlerChrysler) owns 40% of the McLaren team and manufactures the team's engines. The remaining teams buy engines from the factory teams or from Cosworth, currently the only commercial engine manufacturer.
The sport's 1950 debut season 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 only still-active team which competed in 1950, and as of 2006 eleven teams remain on the grid, each fielding two cars. Although teams rarely disclose information about their budgets, it is estimated that they range from US$75 million to US$500 million each.
Entering a new team in the Formula One World Championship requires a £25 million (about US$47 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.
Each car is assigned a number. The previous season's World Drivers' Champion is designated number 1, with his teammate given number 2. Numbers are then assigned according to each team's position in the previous season's World Constructors' Championship. There have been exceptions to this rule, such as in 1993 and 1994, when the current World Drivers' Champion (Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost, respectively) was no longer competing in Formula One. In this case the drivers for the team of the previous year's champion are given numbers 0 (Damon Hill, in both occasions) and 2 (Prost himself and Ayrton Senna - replaced after his death by David Coulthard - respectively). The number 13 has not been used since 1974, before which it was occasionally assigned at the discretion of individual race organizers. Before 1996, only the world championship winning driver and his team generally swapped numbers with the previous champion – the remainder held their numbers from prior years, as they had been originally set at the start of the 1974 season. For many years, for example, Ferrari held numbers 27 & 28, regardless of their finishing position in the world championship. As privateer teams quickly folded in the early 1990s, numbers were frequently shuffled around, until the current system was adopted in 1996.
Michael Schumacher holds the record for having won the most Drivers' Championships (seven) and Ferrari holds the record for having won the most Constructors' Championships (fourteen). Jochen Rindt became the only posthumous World Champion after a fatal accident at the 1970 Italian Grand Prix.
[edit] Grands Prix
The number of Grands Prix held in a season has varied over the years. Only seven races comprised the inaugural 1950 season; over the years the calendar has almost tripled in size. Though the number of races had stayed at sixteen or seventeen since the 1980s, it reached nineteen in 2005.
Six of the original seven races took place in Europe; the only non-European race that counted towards the World Championship in 1950 was the Indianapolis 500, which, due to lack of participation by F1 teams, since it required cars with different specifications from the other races, was later replaced by the United States Grand Prix. The F1 championship gradually expanded to other non-European countries as well. Argentina hosted the first South American grand prix in 1953, and Morocco hosted the first African World Championship race in 1958. Asia (Japan in 1976) and Oceania (Australia in 1985) followed. The current eighteen races are spread over the continents of Europe, Asia, Oceania, North America, and South America.
Traditionally, each nation has hosted a single grand prix that carries the name of the country. If a single country hosts multiple grands prix in a year, they receive different names. For example, every year two grands prix take place in Germany, one of which is known as the European Grand Prix.
The grands prix, some of which have a history that predates the Formula One World Championship, are not always held on the same circuit every year. The British Grand Prix, for example, though held every year since 1950, alternated between Brands Hatch and Silverstone from 1963 to 1986. The only other race to have been included in every season is the Italian Grand Prix. The World Championship event has taken place exclusively at Monza with just one exception: in 1980, it was held at Imola, now host to the San Marino Grand Prix.
One of the newest races on the Grand Prix calendar, held in Bahrain, represents Formula One's first penetration into the Middle East with a high tech purpose-built desert track. The Bahrain Grand Prix, along with other new races in China and Turkey, present new opportunities for the growth and evolution of the Formula One Grand Prix franchise whilst new facilities also raise the bar for other Formula One racing venues around the world.
[edit] Circuits
A typical circuit usually features a stretch of straight road on which the starting grid is situated. The pit lane, where the drivers stop for fuel during the race, and where the teams work on the cars before the race, is normally located next to the starting grid. The layout of the rest of the circuit varies widely, although in most cases the circuit runs in a clockwise direction. Those few circuits that run anticlockwise (and therefore have predominantly left handed corners) can cause drivers neck problems due to the enormous lateral forces generated by F1 cars pulling their heads in the opposite direction to normal. Many corners have become well known in their own right, such as the high-speed Eau Rouge at Spa-Francorchamps, the Parabolica at Monza and, before the addition of chicanes to tame it, the Tamburello corner at Imola. Others, like thirteenth turn at Indianapolis (road course configuration), are simply straights for the drivers, even having taken in consideration the G-forces acting on the suspension. Also particularly lamented are the circuits at Zandvoort in the Netherlands and Kyalami in South Africa, neither of which are now used by F1.
Most of the circuits currently in use are specially constructed for competition. The only real street circuit is the Circuit de Monaco, used for the Monaco Grand Prix, although races in other urban locations come and go (Las Vegas and Detroit, for example) and proposals for such races are often discussed – most recently for London and Beirut. Several other circuits are also completely or partially laid out on public roads, such as Spa-Francorchamps. The glamour and history of the Monaco race are the primary reasons why the circuit is still in use, since it is thought not to meet the strict safety requirements imposed on other tracks. Three-time World champion Nelson Piquet famously described racing in Monaco as "riding a bicycle around your living room."
Circuit design to protect the safety of drivers is becoming increasingly sophisticated, as exemplified by the new Bahrain International Circuit, designed – like most of F1's new circuits – by Hermann Tilke. Whereas in the 1950s a driver was lucky to find a strategically placed bale of straw to absorb an impact, modern Formula One circuits feature large run-off areas, gravel traps and tyre barriers to reduce the risk of injury in crashes. This is an ongoing task – after the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at Imola during the 1994 season, the FIA mandated further changes to circuits. These were mostly aimed at better matching the speed of a car with both the available space to slow down in before reaching a barrier and the ability of those barriers to safely absorb the energy of a crash.
Several of the new circuits in F1, especially those designed by Tilke, have been criticized as lacking the "flow" of such classics as Spa-Francorchamps and Imola. His redesign of the Hockenheim circuit in Germany for example, while providing more capacity for grandstands and eliminating extremely long and dangerous straights, has been frowned upon by many who argue that part of the character of the Hockenheim circuits were the long and blinding straights into the Black Forest. These newer circuits, however are generally agreed upon to meet the safety standards of modern Formula One better than the older ones.
[edit] Cars and technology
Modern Formula One cars are mid-engined open cockpit, open wheel single-seaters. The chassis is made largely of carbon fibre composites, rendering it light but extremely stiff and strong. The whole car, including engine, fluids and driver weighs only 605 kg. In fact this is the minimum weight set by the regulations – the cars are so light that they often have to be ballasted up to this minimum weight.
The cornering speed of Formula One cars is largely determined by the aerodynamic downforce that they generate, which pushes the car down onto the track. This is mostly provided by 'wings' mounted at the front and rear of the vehicle, and to a lesser extent by ground effect created by the movement of air under the flat bottom of the car. The aerodynamic design of the cars is very heavily constrained to limit performance and the current generation of cars sport a large number of small winglets and turning vanes designed to closely control the flow of the air over the car.
The other major factor controlling the cornering speed of the cars is the design of the tyres. Tyres in Formula One are not 'slicks' (tyres with no tread pattern) as in most other circuit racing series. Each tyre has four large circumferential grooves on its surface designed to further limit the cornering speed of the cars. Suspension is double wishbone or multilink all round with pushrod operated springs and dampers on the chassis. Carbon-Carbon disc brakes are used for reduced weight and increased frictional performance. These provide a very high level of braking performance and are usually the element which provokes the greatest reaction from drivers new to the formula.
Engines are mandated as 2.4 litre normally aspirated V8s, with many other constraints on their design and the materials that may be used. The 2006 generation of engines rev close to 20,000 rpm and produce up to 800 bhp. The previous generation of 3-litre V10 engines are also allowed, albeit with their revs limited and with an air restrictor to limit performance. Engines run on unleaded fuel closely resembling publicly available petrol. The oil which lubricates and protects the engine from overheating is very similar in viscosity to that of water.
A wide variety of technologies – including active suspension, ground effect aerodynamics and turbochargers – are banned under the current regulations. Despite this the 2006 generation of cars can reach speeds of up to 350 km/h (around 220 mph) at some circuits (Monza).[4] A Honda Formula One car, running with minimum downforce at the Bonneville Salt Flats achieved a top speed of 400 kph in early 2006.[citation needed] Even with the limitations on aerodynamics, at 160 kph, aerodynamically generated downforce is equal to the weight of the car and the often repeated claim that Formula One cars are capable of 'driving on the ceiling' remains true in principle, if not in practice. At full speed downforce of 2.5 times the cars weight can be achieved. The downforce means that the cars can achieve a lateral force of around four and a half times the force of gravity (4.5 g) in cornering - a road car might achieve around 1 g. Consequently in corners the driver's head is pulled sideways with a force equivalent to 25 kilograms. Such high lateral forces are enough to make breathing difficult and the drivers need supreme concentration to maintain their focus for the 1 to 2 hours that it takes to cover 305 kilometres.