The history of the Grand Prix European Championship and Formula 1

The 1930s
Even before the Second World War, there was an International Grand Prix Formula, with regulations set by the world motoring federation AIACR. The specific design of these formulas could, however, vary considerably. For example, from 1922 to 1925 engines were limited to a maximum of two litres of displacement combined with a minimum weight of 650 kg, and until 1924 the racing cars also had to be manned by two people (driver and mechanic). In 1926, the displacement limit was lowered to 1.5 litres, still without any distinction between naturally aspirated and supercharged engines. In 1928, a switch was made to a so-called free formula, under which only minimum and maximum weights for the racing cars — between 550 and 750 kg — and a minimum race distance of 600 km were prescribed. This formula, however, proved no more successful than the fuel-consumption formula introduced for 1929 and 1930, under which racing cars, while retaining the minimum race distance of 600 km, were not permitted to consume more than 14 kg of fuel and oil per 100 km driven. For 1931, the technical restrictions were therefore dropped entirely, while at the same time the minimum race duration was raised to ten hours, with two drivers taking turns at the wheel of each racing car. Yet this formula too was abandoned after just one year, and the race duration for 1932 was set at a minimum of five and a maximum of ten hours. It was only with the racing formula introduced from 1934, which prescribed a minimum weight of 750 kg and a minimum width of 85 cm for the racing cars, that a period of stability was achieved once again — one in which the racing cars of the two German teams, Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, soon came to hold a dominant position.

For 1938, a “proper” racing formula was introduced once again for the first time, in which the engine displacement and minimum weight of the racing cars were related to each other on a sliding scale, with a distinction now also made between supercharged and naturally aspirated engines for the first time. In reality, it quickly became apparent that the German Silver Arrows remained the only truly competitive cars, fully exploiting the prescribed limit with their supercharged three-litre engines and 850 kg minimum weight. Neither the racing cars with 4.5-litre naturally aspirated engines favoured by French teams, nor the Voiturettes popular in Italy and Great Britain with 1.5-litre supercharged engines, for which the minimum weight was only 560 kg, were able to achieve more than the occasional notable result.

However, since only the organisers of the Grandes Épreuves were bound to apply the International Formula, racing in the three countries had, since the mid-1930s, increasingly shifted towards these other categories in order to avoid the overwhelming racing teams from Germany. As a result, the Voiturette class in particular had effectively already developed into a kind of unofficial second racing formula.

The 1940s
With the resumption of Grand Prix racing after the war, in which the "Silver Arrows" could of course no longer take part, the governing motorsport body, by then renamed the FIA, issued a new International Racing Formula for 1947, which essentially combined the two most widespread racing car categories in Europe. With an engine capacity limit of 1.5 litres for supercharged and 4.5 litres for naturally aspirated racing cars, both the French racing and sports racing cars and the Italian and British voiturettes were eligible to compete, allowing race organisers to put together respectable starting fields using the numerous racing cars often still left over from the pre-war era. Nevertheless, the FIA evidently also saw the need to add a further "smaller" formula alongside this new International Grand Prix Formula from 1948, in which racing cars with supercharged engines of up to 666 cc and naturally aspirated engines of up to 2 litres were eligible to compete. To distinguish between them, these two categories were initially also named "Formula A" and "Formula B", before the designations "Formula 1" and "Formula 2" became established as the course continued.

The Birth of Formula 1
Formula 1 is the top-tier racing series in formula motorsport, organised by the FIA. It is known as the premier class of motorsport, as it demands the highest technical, driving and financial standards of any racing series placed on drivers and constructors alike. It is also known simply as F1. The F1 World Championship is officially called the FIA Formula One World Championship; until 1980 it was known as the Automobile World Championship. Formula 1 has been contested annually as a world championship since 1950 and currently consists of 22 individual races, each held as a Grand Prix or Grosser can be described as a prize. The Drivers' and Constructors' World Championships are determined in parallel, although in the past races with other types of car, such as Formula 2 and Champ Car, sometimes counted towards the Drivers' World Championship. Moreover, not all races involving F1 cars were automatically championship rounds. For example, up until the early 1980s there were numerous races at Goodwood, Oulton Park or Stuttgart's Solitude, at which no championship points were awarded, only prize money. With the first sprint race in its roughly 70-year history, Formula 1 is breaking new ground at the British Grand Prix. The sprint format is intended to return motorsport to its core: the winner should be decided on the track, free of tactical constraints and the usually mandatory pit stops.

The 1950s
The first race counting towards the new Formula 1 World Championship was held on 13 May 1950 at Silverstone as the British Grand Prix. The cars of this era resembled cigars on wheels, with the engine mounted ahead of the driver. In the first two seasons, 1950 and 1951, the supercharged Alfetta cars from Alfa Romeo, producing around 450 hp, continued to dominate. These racing cars were further developments of pre-war designs and still bore strong similarities to those models. However, Alfa Romeo withdrew from GP racing at the end of 1951 after two successful decades. Since only the former Alfa race director Enzo Ferrari was still able to field competitive F1 cars, the Drivers' World Championships of 1952 and 1953 were run for the less expensive Formula 2 cars as an interim solution. As Ferrari had already dominated the Formula 2 classification in the two previous years, Ferrari driver Alberto Ascari won the World Championship unchallenged on both occasions. In 1954, new, more cost-effective regulations came into force (F1 with naturally aspirated engines up to 2500 cm³ or supercharged engines up to 750 cm³, F2 up to 1500 cm³), prompting Mercedes, among others, to make its return. Mercedes fielded the W196 in various configurations, including a fully enclosed-wheel version known as the streamlined variant. However, this car remained an exception in Formula 1, which was really built around cars with exposed wheels. Up until and including 1957, it was permitted to change drivers during a race. The points for the position achieved were then split between the drivers involved. As a result, drivers who had retired from a race but were well placed in the championship would take over their still-racing teammates' cars in order to secure World Championship points after all. From 1950 to 1960, World Championship points were also awarded for the Indianapolis 500, even though it was run under entirely different rules. During these years, Ferrari made a few attempts to be competitive there, but all of them failed due to the very different conditions. There were also isolated attempts by American drivers to compete at Monza with their Champ Car racers, which likewise proved unsuccessful. The points system for constructors was not introduced until the 1958 season, with the British manufacturer Vanwall claiming the first title. At the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix, Stirling Moss won for the first time in a Cooper-Climax, whose engine was mounted behind the driver. This layout set the trend for the future.

The 1960s
From 1961 to 1965, the former Formula 2 regulations were elevated to the F1 standard, much to the annoyance of the small British teams, who by then dominated the field. The British teams initially threatened to leave Formula 1. However, by early 1961 it was already clear that all the English teams would continue to take part in Formula 1. Once again, Ferrari was successful in stepping in with an existing Formula 2 car. As Porsche had already been building F2 racing cars for several years, the step up to Formula 1 seemed a natural one. However, the four-cylinder engine used until then, still derived from Volkswagen, was not competitive in 1961. The Porsche 718 chassis, too, was too bulky compared with the sleek cars of the competition. With the new and elegant Porsche 804 model featuring an eight-cylinder engine, Porsche did, however, manage two wins. At the end of the season, though, Porsche withdrew from Formula 1 due to the high costs and lack of relevance to production models, and refocused on its traditional sports car scene. The Lotus 25, driven among others by Jim Clark, is the first Formula 1 car with a one-piece aluminium monocoque. In the first half of the 1960s, several drivers alternated in holding the Drivers' World Championship title. Since racing sports cars, and even some production vehicles, had more power at this time than the so-called premier class with its fragile 1500cc eight-cylinder engines producing just 220 bhp, the regulations were changed again for 1966 — namely by doubling the engine capacities (3000cc for naturally aspirated engines, 1500cc for supercharged units). Although the rule change had already been decided in November 1963, only three engine types tailored to the new conditions were available at the start of the season. These were the engines from Repco, Ferrari and Maserati. The Repco and Ferrari engines were newly developed; the Maserati engine, on the other hand, was a bored-out version of the twelve-cylinder unit that had been used in a few races back in 1957. Ferrari reserved the new twelve-cylinder engine for its works team, Maserati equipped the Cooper team exclusively, and the Repco engine was used solely by Brabham, who had commissioned its development. The engine situation was regarded as unsatisfactory, especially by the British teams. In the summer of 1966, Colin Chapman, head of the Lotus team, publicly appealed to the car industry and the British government to develop, or support the development of, an engine that was both powerful and readily available for the British teams. These efforts led to the development of the Cosworth DFV, which from 1967 was initially available to Lotus and later to all teams as a customer engine. The DFV, which was used in various stages of development until 1985, is by far the most successful engine in Formula 1 history. Another innovation that has shaped Formula 1 racing ever since was the introduction of spoilers and wings in the 1968 season. This achieved an increase in downforce, allowing the cars to take corners at significantly higher speeds thanks to improved grip. In the following season, after a number of accidents, the FIA banned the use of tall wing structures, which established the configuration now standard today, consisting of a front and a rear wing. Only at the start of the 1980s, at the height of the wing-car era, were front wings temporarily dispensed with, as the cars already generated sufficient downforce from ground effect, and front wings also obstructed the airflow beneath the car's floor.

After Porsche had already built a four-wheel-drive Formula 1 car back in 1947, several British teams also began experimenting with four-wheel-drive racing cars in the 1960s. In 1969, a total of four teams (Lotus, Matra, McLaren and even engine manufacturer Cosworth) tested four-wheel-drive single-seaters in Formula 1 without notable success, and only Colin Chapman dared to try again in 1971 with another four-wheel-drive car.

The 1970s
From 1970 to 1982, the Cosworth engine – already successful straight out of the gate in the Lotus 49 back in 1967 – dominated Formula 1, with several teams using this compact and reliable powerplant to win a total of 155 races and 12 drivers’ world titles. Only Ferrari, with a somewhat more powerful V12, managed to claim 3 world titles as well; Maserati, Honda, B.R.M. and Brabham-Alfa Romeo, also running V12s, added a handful of individual race wins. One technical curiosity was the Lotus 56, powered by a gas turbine, which was tested in several races during the 1971 season.

In the 1970s, long historic circuits such as the Nürburgring, with a track length of 22.835 km, and Spa-Francorchamps, at 14.12 km, came to an end, as they no longer met the rising safety standards. In addition, the great length of these circuits meant that the time taken for rescue and ambulance vehicles to reach accidents was unacceptable. In a similar way, other race tracks such as Monza and Silverstone were slowed down and defused through the addition of chicanes. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw technical revolutions. Following Mario Andretti's World Championship win in the Lotus 79, so-called ground-effect racing cars came to dominate, generating strong dynamic downforce through sidepods with an inverted wing profile and a car floor sealed at the sides by movable side skirts. This made significantly higher cornering speeds possible. Some at times bizarre designs, such as the so-called "vacuum-cleaner Brabham", with which Niki Lauda was able to win a race, the six-wheeled Tyrrell in the 1976 and 1977 seasons, or the twin-floor Lotus, were exaggerated interpretations of the regulations and were soon banned or no longer permitted.

From 1977, Renault introduced turbo engines, with which the first victory was achieved in 1979. Even in 1982, the easier-to-drive, more cost-effective, more reliable and more economical naturally aspirated engines still had the upper hand in the final reckoning, despite an increasingly clear performance deficit.

The 1980s
In 1981, McLaren became the first team to use a carbon-fibre monocoque, which became the Formula 1 standard in the years that followed. In addition, Formula 1 cars without front wings made a brief comeback in the early 1980s.
From 1983 onwards, the more powerful turbos, which could briefly unleash well over 1,000 hp in practice, finally took over for good, pushing the naturally aspirated cars back through the starting grid. Exorbitant power figures should be treated with caution, however, as hardly any dynamometer was designed to measure such high engine outputs. In any case, the top speeds were nowhere near as high as double or triple the engine power would suggest. Peak output was soon reduced through boost pressure limits, and during races drivers also had to watch their fuel consumption, as tank sizes were capped or reduced. The proven Cosworth units, producing around 500 hp, were then carried over into Formula 3000, which replaced the old Formula 2 and its 320 hp racing engines. 1986 marked the high point of the so-called turbo era. Every car on the grid ran this type of engine, which was now mandated by the regulations. Even one of the most powerful racing cars in F1 history, the Benetton-BMW with an estimated 1,350 hp in practice, was driven by Gerhard Berger that season. Berger later reported that the car "could barely run for all its power". After the season, however, it was decided to ban turbo engines until 1989. The 1988 season, the last for the time being in which turbo engines were permitted, ultimately marked a transition: some top teams already switched back to naturally aspirated engines that season to gain early experience with the "new" units, while others continued racing with their existing turbo power for one more year. McLaren dominated the season with its Honda turbo, winning 15 of 16 races and making one final statement. From 1989 onwards, the elaborate turbos were finally banned as planned, and only naturally aspirated engines up to 3,500cc were allowed (to distinguish them from the F3000 cars with 3,000cc), built in V8, V10, V12 and even W12 configurations.

The 1990s
The early 1990s were shaped by electronic developments such as active suspensions, traction control and ABS, with Williams-Renault having the best technology. Tyrrell and other teams introduced the high nose for the first time, pointing the way for a major design trend of the 1990s and 2000s. This achieved better airflow beneath the car and simultaneously reduced drag. This design approach prevailed in the medium term, so that by 1996 the last constructions with low noses had disappeared from the paddock. From 1995, engine capacity was reduced back to 3000 cm³, and power output dropped from around 750 to 650 hp. For the first time, teams used lateral wind deflectors between the front axle and sidepods. The cars themselves were packed with electronics, but for the 1994 season the governing body banned numerous driver aids, making the cars harder to drive again and, in some cases, unpredictable. The Benetton B195 is unlike any other car for Formula 1 design of the mid-1990s. In response to the fatal accidents of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger during the 1994 season, cockpits were enlarged in 1995 and further protected with higher side walls in 1996. For the 1998 season, Formula 1 cars became narrower to reduce cornering speeds, and grooved tyres were mandated – three grooves at the front, four at the rear. From the following year onwards, tyres with four grooves were used uniformly, both front and rear. And the noses gradually became somewhat lower again. In 1996, Ferrari also switched from the traditional but heavy and thirsty V12 to the now-dominant V10. By 1997, the previous power level of around 750 hp had already been reached again, with engine speeds rising to more than 17,000 rpm. At the start of the 2000s, cars increasingly gained additional small winglets on the sidepods, and aerodynamics became ever more complex.

The 2000s
Only V10 engines with a displacement of 3,000 cc were permitted from now on. Since no team had used V8 engines since 1998, this change to the regulations merely reflected an adjustment to the current state of affairs. Furthermore, it was decreed that from this year on, all Formula 1 engines had to run on fuel closely resembling the normal petrol familiar from filling stations. From the 2005 season, the number of cylinders was initially limited to V10, and then to V8 from 2006. Furthermore, the units had to last two race weekends (up to 1’200 km) without being changed, in order to cut costs and curb a further increase in performance (around 900 hp at 19’000/min). By the end of the 2005 season, however, investigations by an independent engine engineer found that the best teams had already achieved around 925 hp at 19’800/min once again. A loophole in the regulations that allowed teams to fit a new engine for the next race by feigning retirement in the final lap was closed after the first race of the season by tightening up the rule. Drivers can then use this power as a brief additional performance boost. By increasing mechanical grip and reducing aerodynamic grip, significantly more overtaking manoeuvres were expected, as vehicles in the slipstream would no longer have quite such pronounced, tricky handling. Further changes included a wider front wing as well as a narrower but taller rear wing. As it was relatively easy during those years to build vehicles below the minimum weight, artificial weights were fitted at points optimised for vehicle dynamics. In economic and business terms, the 2000s were characterised by a strong influence of automotive groups on racing affairs.

The 2010s The start of the 2010s was marked by a wealth of rule changes. In the 2010 season, the points system was adjusted. A win now earned 25 points, and for the first time the tenth-placed driver also received a point. Refuelling during the race, which had been permitted since 1994, was banned again for safety reasons. In the 2011 season, the adjustable rear wing, also known as the Drag Reduction System (DRS), was introduced. This gives the driver the ability to flatten the rear wing of their car at selected points on the track when they are within a certain gap of the driver ahead (currently less than one second), resulting in a higher top speed. Another innovation that season was the standard tyre supplied by Pirelli. The 2014 season marks one of the most significant shake-ups of the regulations in this sport. Instead of the 2.4-litre V8 engines used since 2006, only V6 turbo engines with 1.6 litres of displacement are now permitted. In addition, fuel consumption is limited to 100 kg per race. The points system was also slightly modified for the 2014 season, with double the usual number of points awarded in the final race. This rule was scrapped again after the 2014 season, meaning that from the 2015 Formula 1 World Championship onwards, normal points were once again awarded in the final race. For the 2017 season, a far-reaching revised technical regulation came into force, intended to make the cars more spectacular and significantly faster. As early as 2015, the target set was lap times five to six seconds faster. The maximum width of the vehicles has been increased to 2000 mm, and the front and rear wings as well as the diffuser are now permitted to be significantly larger. In addition to these aerodynamic measures, tyre width was increased to 305 mm at the front axle and 405 mm at the rear axle, in order to also increase the vehicles' mechanical grip. Since these measures result in increased consumption, the permitted fuel tank capacity was increased to a maximum of 105 kg of fuel. For the 2018 Formula 1 season, a roll bar known as the Halo system was introduced to protect drivers from head injuries, following the death of driver Jules Bianchi in 2014. The one to benefit from The Halo system first proved its worth with Romain Grosjean, who crashed into the barriers in Bahrain in 2020 and survived. In In economic terms, the 2010s saw a gradual return of the influence of car manufacturers, though it never reached the level seen in the 2000s.

The 2020s
The 2020 season was overshadowed by the Covid-19 crisis. The start of the season, originally due on 13 March, was postponed because of the pandemic and took place on 5 July in Spielberg, Austria. Tyres are now among the most important components of a Formula 1 car. Grip, i.e. tyre traction, is a key factor in, for example, cornering speed, which in turn affects overall lap time. The importance of good tyres is also evident from the fact that in 2006, on some circuits with many fast corners, such as the Circuit de Catalunya, overall times rose only slightly, or in some cases even fell further, compared with the previous year, despite the introduction of V8 engines around 200 bhp weaker. More recently, calls have been growing for Formula 1 to be adapted to reflect the state of climate science and developments in alternative drive technologies. In the early 2000s, many sponsors began withdrawing from Formula 1, turning instead to more environmentally friendly sports.

Romain Grosjean survived a severe fire accident at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix with only minor injuries. After making contact with Daniil Kvyat, his car crashed almost head-on into a barrier at 221 km/h and broke through it. The car was torn in two, and leaking petrol immediately ignited a huge fire. Grosjean escaped the wreck under his own power after 28 seconds in the flames and suffered minor burns to his hands.

The history of the Grand Prix European Championship and Formula 1

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