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Formula One

History of Formula One

Formula One started in 1946 offi-cially with the Commission Spor-tive Internationale (CSI) and Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's (FIA) Rules. 1946 – 1949 there were no World Championships, only Race Winners. 1950 was the first year where a Championship was held to see who the best Driver was. For-mula One Championships be-came the most important aspect of winning Formula One, many people wanted to join in the races but with the rising costs of Formula One at the time, many races were done as non-championship races that then ended in 1983. The FIA organised the first ever Formula One World Champion-ship in 1950 using their rules and as a reply to Motorcycle Champi-onships that were introduced in 1949, a year before the Formula One Championship.

• Formula One racing cars must pass a series of crash and safety tests before they can do the pre-season training, ensuring that they comply with the laws and rules, making all drivers safe.

• A Formula One car cannot be wider than 180cm and 95cm tall, length is not a rule. • Teams are only allowed a certain number of tyres sets during the race weekend, 11 dry

weather tyres, 4 intermediates and 3 wets, all tyres are colour coded. • Each car is allowed a maximum of 8 engines per season, if the team needs another, a 10

place grid penalty will be added to the next race qualifying lap. • The gearbox in a car must be used for a minimum of 5 events before it can be changed or the

driver will face a 5 place grid penalty. • Drag Reduction System (DRS) can not be used before the third lap of the race, it also must be

in the DRS zone of the lap and the driver must be under one second behind the driver in front. • When being overtaken the driver in front may do one defending move, once they have de-

fended once they may not turn the opposite way to defend again. • Drivers that wish to take part in the race must set a lap within the 107% rate in the first qualify-

ing session, any driver who fails to do so will not be eligible to take part in the race.

Rules of Formula One

2 Flags • A yellow flag at any part of the race

means that there is danger ahead and the driver should slow down and not overtake.

• Two waved yellow flags means that there is great danger ahead and they may need to be prepared to stop.

• A green flag means that any danger or accident has been cleared up.

• A red flag indicates that the race has been suspended because of several different reasons such as weather or a serious incident. Drivers in the pit lane may not leave.

• A blue flag shows a driver in the pit lane that another car is approaching the track where the pit exit finishes.

• A white flag indicates a slow moving car, that may be retiring or it may be transport removing a car from a track that may have crashed or stopped.

• A chequered flag means that it is the end of the race when the first car drives across the line.

Dangers of Formula One As any other motorsport that exists, there will al-ways be certain dangers and things that could go wrong such as crashing and deaths. The total amount of deaths in Formula One is 24 in over 60 years, which may not seem like many, but the amount of drivers per year equates to 20-24 meaning that a full grid of drivers have died in total. The last death to occur was Ayrton Senna, 1994 in San Marino, it was said that his steering column had snapped and he went into a concrete wall at 140mph. Formula One as opposed to many other mo-torsports such as NASCAR, require the driver to turn sharp left and right corners, not gradually take them which adds risk, going 100mph around a sharp 45 degree corner can cause Accidents if it goes wrong.

Drivers in Formula One Since the start of the Official Formula One Champion-ship in 1950, a total of 158 drivers have been involved. The first ever world champion was Juan Manuel Fangio who started Formula One in 1950, he drove the Alfa Ro-meo. The most successful driver of all time in Formula One is Michael Schumacher, who holds the record for the most World Championships at 7, and also has 1560 Championship points throughout his 19 year career. In the 2012 World Championship there are 6 World Champions currently racing, in order of World Champi-onship victories :- Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vet-tel, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Kimi Raikkonen. 32 drivers in total have won the World Championship at least once, making up just over half of the total years Formula One has been an official Championship, making up 62 years.

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Teams

Since the Formula One Championship started in 1950, a total of 135 teams (including the 2012 roster) have been involved in the sport. The first ever teams during the first Championship in 1950 were Alfa Romeo, Mini, Milano, Talbot-Lago, ERA, Alta, Simbca-Gordini, Maserati and Ferrari. Alfa Romeo were the most successful team during the first few years of the Championship. They entered 110 races, won 10, gained 50 points and won 2 Drivers Championships. Ferrari are now the most successful team to ever be a part in Formula One with 845 Races, 219 wins, over 6000 points, 150 Driver Championships and 16 Constructor Championships. Ferrari are also the longest standing Formula one team, they joined Formula One in the first Championship year 1950.

The picture I have added below shows the team photo of the Caterham For-mula One.

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Supplier Companies

Every team has a certain car manufacturer’s engine, not every Formula One team is based on their own company manufacturer such as Red Bull, Force India and HRT. Every team can pick a supplier to get their en-gine made from as a Sponsor, such as Red Bull get their engine and components made by Renault. Below is a table showing the 2012 engines that are used in Formula One and what companies are producing them.

Formula 1 Engines

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Ferrari Mercedes Renault Cosworth

Engines

Teams Using Engines

Formula One V8 Engine

As the table shows, most teams are using the Renault Engine for their Formula One Cars. The engines that the teams use don’t exactly mean that they are the most reliable.

1st Place –25 Points 2nd Place -18 Points 3rd Place - 15 Points 4th Place –12 Points 5th Place –10 Points 6th Place –8 Points 7th Place –6 Points 8th Place –4 Points 9th Place - 2 Points 10th Place-1 Point

The section above shows the points that awarded depending on where you finish the race. Only the first 10 win-ners will gain points as the rest get none.

The photograph above shows Sebastian Vettel drinking Cham-pagne from the cup after a successful race win, Red Bull also use Renault Engines.

5 Driver Championship Table

Driver Races Entered Podiums Races Won Total Points

Fernando Alonso 192 81 30 1280

Sebastian Vettel 95 41 23 938

Kimi Raikkonen 171 68 18 728

Lewis Hamilton 104 48 20 865

Mark Webber 192 32 9 801.5

Jenson Button 224 48 14 930

Nico Rosberg 122 7 1 399.5

Romain Grosjean 20 3 0 82

Sergio Perez 32 3 0 80

Felipe Massa 167 33 11 633

Paul Di Resta 33 0 0 71

Michael Schumacher 302 155 91 1560

Kamui Kobayashi 54 0 0 100

Nico Hulkenberg 33 0 0 53

Pastor Maldonado 33 1 1 30

Bruno Senna 40 0 0 27

Jean-Eric Vergne 14 0 0 8

Daniel Ricciardo 25 0 0 6

Timo Glock 88 3 0 51

Heikki Kovalainen 104 4 1 105

Vitaly Petrov 52 1 0 64

Charles Pic 14 0 0 0

Narain Karthikeyan 42 0 0 5

Pedro de la Rosa 101 1 0 35

The table above is the 2012 standings in or-der by Position in the Championship, not by the amount of points they have attained dur-ing their whole career.

Here are the first 3 con-tenders for the World Championship in 2012, Fe r nando A l onso , Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.

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In the Formula One roster, there are cur-rently 20 race tracks that are a part of Formula One. These tracks range from Brazil to Japan all across Europe. The track on the left is of the Silverstone Circuit in the UK, it is one of the most famous and well known tracks through-out the world. Below is a table showing the race sea-son and what country the race is in, also the dates that the race will be there. The Formula One season spans over 9 months, starting in March and finishing in November. The other 3 months are used for manufacturing the next sea-son’s car, pre-season training and also for everyone to take a break.

Race Location Race Date

Australian Grand Prix March 18

Malaysia Grand Prix March 25

Chinese Grand Prix Apr 15

Bahrain Grand Prix Apr 22

Spanish Grand Prix May 13

Monaco Grand Prix May 27

Canadian Grand Prix Jun 10

European Grand Prix Jun 24

British Grand Prix Jul 8

German Grand Prix Jul 22

Hungarian Grand Prix Jul 29

Belgian Grand Prix Sep 2

Italian Grand Prix Sep 9

Singapore Grand Prix Sep 23

Japanese Grand Prix Oct 7

Korean Grand Prix Oct 14

Indian Grand Prix Oct 28

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Nov 4

USA Grand Prix Nov 18

Brazilian Grand Prix Nov 25

The circuit above is the Suzuka track in Ja-pan, the Formula One on the 7th.October was held here and is also another famous track. S o u r ce : - h t t p : / / w w w . f l i c k r . c o m / p h o t o s /

earthhopper/37862780/

The Silverstone Formula One Circuit is in the Photograph above. Source :- http://www.flickr.com/

photos/silverstonecircuit/4717342593/sizes/m/in/photostream/

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Formula One have a vast amount of sponsors that started in the 1960s with the national colours, ranging from tobacco companies to mobile phone companies, both drivers and teams have sponsors. The drivers get individual sponsors and when they attend races they want their sponsors to be shown all over the car so that they make more money and show off their sponsor. For this example I will ex-plain the Red Bull Racing 8 Car and Sebastian Vettel. On Sebastian Vettel’s RB8 there are a number of personal sponsor logos and names that they have added. Vettel is sponsored by Infin-iti Motors, he has added their logo to the front of his car and to the middle section, to show it off more. Infiniti have also made a Infiniti FX designed just for Sebastian because he is sponsored by them. Red Bull have a sponsor called Geox which make their Formula One shoes, you can find the logo for Geox on the side of the RB8 just be-low the cockpit. The most used Sponsor in Formula One used to be tobacco such as Marlboro which sponsored the 1984 Mclaren and continued for quite a number of years. Tobacco sponsors were eventually banned because it advertised unhealthy living styles and was seen as unhealthy for such a sport which demands drivers to be extremely fit. Most Formula One cars also have the Tyre Company sponsored on their car as for 2012 the company that gives Formula One the tyres is Pirelli. Formula One during 1960 is when sponsors started to arrive in Formula One because of the growing costs of the sport, drivers, teams and Formula One in general needed support in the costs and to also make profit so that they could expand.

Here is a sponsor on the back of the For-mula One Ferrari F2009/10. They were sponsored by Shell and Bridgestone, which are car product manufacturers. Source :- http://www.fl ickr.com/photos/

williamhook/4263654794/sizes/m/in/photostream/

The picture shows the Mclaren Formula 1 Overalls, they show sponsors logos, such as Vodaphone and Santander and Hugo Boss. Source Link :- http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensutherland/4795006428/

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Formula One is known as the richest sport in the world, due to the fact that each car investment is at a maximum of 100 million, depending on who wins the driver’s Championship. Every place after first goes down 10m until 10

th place which goes down less than it would from 1

st to 2

nd

as they wouldn’t get any money. Formula One makes its money mostly from sponsorships and media. It was said that in 2011 when BBC broad-casted all of the Formula One Races free of charge, it cost them 600 million GBP a year to cover the rights and licenses. Money from spon-sorships can be made or the sponsors can pay for something. It costs a company millions to put their name on a Formula One company. Deliv-ery company DHL also sponsor Formula One and have an advert say-ing about how quickly they deliver, taking a reference from Formula One as it’s the fastest motorsport in the world.

Formula One makes a huge contri-bution to the economy in many countries. When Formula One vis-its a country it brings fans and money with it, such as when fans pay for hotels and all of the basic things you would get when in another country, travel and such. Countries such as India which have a poor economy and have some money problems get funding from Formula One. For-mula One when it visits India it puts money into the economy by host-ing the event there. They pay for the venue, give money to the gov-ernment to host the event and pay for everything in advance. Formula One also has a young drivers scheme whereas if they see a driver with the potential to become successful they will pay the costs for them to do a course.

A formula One car costs roughly £5 million to make. The team that wins the Construc-tors Championship gets £100 million to spend on producing, designing, maintaining and building the car, giving them area to ex-pand and build on to make their car even better. It is said that a Formula One V6 en-gine costs roughly £80,000 to £100,000.

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Conclusion My conclusion of my Project is that I enjoy Formula One be-cause of the action and feeling it creates. I am an enthusiastic car follower and I enjoy learning about the advanced technology that is used in Formula One, such as aerodynamics. Formula One has been something I have followed since 2005, but over the last 3 years my interest has increased significantly.

Sources Some of the sources I have used were to get more in depth in-formation about the rules and regulations, Drivers history and also past teams that have competed in Formula One since the Championship has begun. Rules and Regulations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_regulations

Formula One Teams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_constructors

Formula One Flags http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/understanding_the_sport/5282.html