Formula One, abbreviated to F1, and currently officially referred as the FIA Formula One World Championship is the highest class of auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The "formula" in the name refers to a set of rules to which all participants and cars must comply. The F1 season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix, held on purpose-built circuits, and to a lesser extent, former public roads and closed city streets. The results of each race are combined to determine two annual World Championships, one for the drivers and one for the constructors, with both drivers and constructor teamsrequired to be holders of valid Super Licences, the highest class racing licence issued by the FIA.
Formula One cars race at high speeds, up to 360 km/h (220 mph) with engines revving up to a limit of 18,000 RPM. The cars are capable of pulling in excess of 5 G-forces in some curves. The performance of the cars is highly dependent on electronics (although traction control and driving aids have been banned since 2007), aerodynamics, suspension and on tyres. The formula has seen many evolutions and changes through the history of the sport.
Europe is Formula One's traditional centre, where all of the teams are based, and where around half the races take place. However, the sport's scope has expanded significantly in recent years and Grands Prix are held all over the world. Events in Europe and the Americas have been dropped in favour of races in Asia and the Middle East - of the eighteen races in 2008, nine are outside Europe.
Formula One is a massive television event, with millions of people watching on TV each race worldwide, the Formula One Group being the legal holder of the commercial rights. As the world's most expensive sport,its economic effect is significant, and its financial and political battles are widely covered. On average about 55 million people all over the world watch Formula One races live. 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. However, mostly since year 2000, due to the always increasing expenditures, several teams, including works teams from car makers and those teams with minimum support from the automotive industry or other F1 teams, have gone bankrupt or been bought out by companies that want to easily establish a racing team within the sport.
History
The Formula One series has its roots in the European Grand Prix Motor Racing (q.v. for pre-1947 history) of the 1920s and 1930s. The "formula" is a set of rules which all participants and cars must meet. Formula One was a new formula agreed after World War II in 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 races were held for many years but, due to the rising cost of competition, the last of these occurred in 1983.
The sport's title, Formula One, indicates that it is intended to be the most advanced and most competitive of the FIA's racing formula.
Qualifying
A knock-out qualifying system determines the starting order of the race. The qualifying session is split into three phases. In the first phase, all twenty cars are permitted on the track for a twenty minute qualification session. Only their fastest time will count and drivers may complete as many laps as they wish. At the end of the first session, the slowest five cars are eliminated and will take no further part in qualifying. These cars will make up the last five grid positions in the order of their times.
The times for the fifteen remaining cars are reset for the next fifteen minute session. The slowest five cars will make up the grid in positions 11 to 15 in the order of their times set in this session.
The recorded fastest times for the ten remaining cars are then wiped in preparation for the final (ten minute) session referred to as the 'Pole Position Shootout'. At the end of this period, the cars will be arranged on the grid in positions one to ten in accordance to their fastest lap time. In the first two 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 start the race with whatever fuel was left in the car at the end of the final qualifying session.For all the sessions, if a driver starts a timed lap before the chequered flag falls for the end of that session, their time will count even if they cross the finishing line well after the session has ended.
The race
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 pass him, then he must start from the back of the grid. If he manages to drive off and at least one car is behind him, he is permitted to 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 indicates the start of the race. The race distance is equal to the least number of complete laps which exceed a distance of 305 km (190 mi) (although Monaco is 260 km (160 mi)), and are limited to two hours. 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. Teams are supplied with tyres exclusively from Bridgestone. Bridgestone have developed four tyre compounds of which they then select two for the teams to use at a given race event. Drivers must use both tyre compounds during a race for at least one stint except when it rains and drivers switch to either intermediate or extreme wets, then they are no longer required to use both sets of dry tyres. Creating the usage of both types of tyres was introduced in the hope of bringing more excitement to the sport. The softer of the available compounds for the weekend's tyres can be seen with a green stripe on the tyre's sidewall. When a driver comes around to lap another, the latter must move out of the way within three blue flags (waved by the trackside marshals), or face a penalty from the race stewards.
Points system
Various systems for awarding championship points have been used since 1950. From 2010, it is possible that the winner of the two annual championships may be the driver with the most wins and the team with the most points at the end of the season. In the case of a tie in wins, the drivers' championship would be awarded to the driver having the higher number of points; if these are equal, second place finishes are considered, and so on. The scoring system where by the driver with the most wins (as opposed to most accumulated points) becomes world champion was due to be introduced for the 2009 season, however following protests from F1 teams and drivers this rule change has been deferred until a possible 2010 introduction. The points system therefore remains unchanged for 2009.
To receive points a racer need not finish the race, but at least 90% of the winner's race distance must be completed. Therefore, it is possible for a driver to receive some points even though he retired before the end of the race. In that case the scoring is based on the distance completed in comparison to other drivers. It is also possible for the lower points not to be awarded because insufficient drivers completed 90% of the winner's distance. The system could be revised prior to the start of the 2010 season.
| 1st place | 10 points |
| 2nd place | 8 points |
| 3rd place | 6 points |
| 4th place | 5 points |
| 5th place | 4 points |
| 6th place | 3 points |
| 7th place | 2 points |
| 8th place | 1 point |
Constructors
Since 1984 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.
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.
Early manufacturer involvement came in the form of a "factory team" or "works team" (that is, one owned and staffed by a major car company), 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 now form half the grid with Ferrari, BMW, Renault, Toyota and Honda either setting up their own teams or buying out existing ones. Mercedes-Benz owns 40% of the McLaren team and manufactures the team's engines. Factory teams currently make up the top competitive teams; in mid-2008 factory teams occupied the top 5 positions in the Constructors' Championship. Ferrari holds the record for having won the most Constructors' Championships (fifteen).
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, but lost its last customers after the 2006 season. Beginning in 2007, the manufacturers' deep pockets and engineering ability took over, eliminating the last of the independent engine manufacturers. It is estimated that the big teams spend €100 to €200 million ($125-$250 million) per year per manufacturer on engines alone.
In the 2007 season, for the first time since the 1984 rule, two teams used chassis built by other teams. Super Aguri started the season using a modified Honda Racing's RA106 chassis (used by Honda in the 2006 season), while Scuderia Toro Rosso used a modified Red Bull Racing RB3 chassis (same as the one used by Red Bull in the 2007 season). Such a decision did not come as a surprise because of spiraling costs and the fact that Super Aguri is partially owned by Honda and Toro Rosso is half owned by Red Bull. Formula One team Spyker raised a complaint against this decision, and other teams such as McLaren and Ferrari have officially confirmed that they support the campaign. Because of this use of other teams' chassis, the 2006 season could have been the last one in which the terms "team" and "constructor" were truly interchangeable. This attracted the Prodrive team to F1 to the 2008 season, where it intended to run a customer car. After not being able to secure a package from McLaren, Prodrive's intention to enter the 2008 season was dropped after Williams threatened legal action against them. Now, it seems that customer cars concept will be formally banned in 2010. [37]
Although teams rarely disclose information about their budgets, it is estimated that they ran from US$66 million to US$400 million each.[38]
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 and secure the benefits that the team already had, such as TV revenue.
Drivers
Each driver is assigned a number. The previous season's champion is designated number 1, with his team-mate given number 2. Numbers are then assigned in order according to each team's position in the previous season's constructors' championship. The number 13 is not used.
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, on both occasions) and 2 (Prost himself and Ayrton Senna—replaced after his death by David Coulthard and occasionally Nigel Mansell–respectively). The number 13 has not been used since 1976, before which it was occasionally assigned at the discretion of individual race organisers. 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 and 28, regardless of their finishing position in the world championship.
Michael Schumacher holds the record for having won the most Drivers' Championships, with seven. Jochen Rindt became the only posthumous World Champion after a fatal accident at the 1970 Italian Grand Prix.
