Formula One
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Formula One, or Grand Prix racing, is the best known single-seater auto racing class; it involves an annual World Drivers Championship and World Constructors Championship. Many regard it as the pinnacle of auto racing; it is the most expensive sport in the world, with average annual team budgets in the hundreds of millions of US dollars. It is based around a series of races (16 in 2003, 18 in 2004) on custom-constructed road courses or closed-off street circuits. Whilst the home of the sport is undoubtedly Europe, races have also been held in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The sport is regulated by the FIA, Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, and is generally promoted and controlled by Bernie Ecclestone.
| Table of contents |
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2 The cars 3 The racing 4 Lists 5 The Future of F1 6 See also 7 External links |
History
Main Article: History of Formula One See also: Grand Prix motor racing Historically, the series evolved from pre-war European Grand Prix motor racing of the 1920s and 1930s. With the reestablishment of motor racing post-WWII, the drivers championship was formalised in 1950 and in 1958 a championship for constructors was started. Additional non-championship Formula One races were held around the world, but ended in the early 1980's. Regulations have changed greatly as car technologies have improved, with the appearance of rear-engined cars in the late 1950s, the introduction of wings in the late 1960s, then ground effect aerodynamics in the late 1970s by Lotus, followed by the 1980s era of turbocharged engines developing upwards of 1000 horsepower (750 kW). The 1980s remain the time of the most powerful circuit racing cars of all time.
The late 1980s saw the creeping inclusion of all manner of electronic driver aids to help drivers tame these twitchy beasts, including active suspension, anti-lock brakes, automatic gearboxes, four-wheel steering and traction control. Some of these were borrowed from contemporary road cars, some, like active suspension, were primarily developed for the track and later made their way to the showroom.
In any case, whilst they made the cars faster, fans perceived that the new aids were taking away the need for driver skill and so in 1989 the series changed to naturally-aspirated engines and removed many of the driver aids. Some, like traction control, launch control and automatic gearboxes have gradually returned (at the Spanish GP in 2001) due in part to rumours that teams were evading the restrictions.
Since 1984, the championship has been dominated by just three teams, McLaren, Williams, and Ferrari, who have provided the vehicle for all but two of the World Champions for that period.
The cars
Modern F1 cars are single-seat, open cockpit, open wheel, race cars that normally have substantial wings at front and rear, and position the engine behind the driver. The regulations governing the cars are unique to the championship. The current Formula One regulations specify that cars must be constructed by the racing teams themselves.
Engines
The regulations specify that the cars must be powered by 3.0 litre ten cylinder naturally-aspirated engines that have no more than five valves per cylinder. All current cars use a V10 engine, located between the driver and the rear wheels. The very best engines, widely regarded to be those of the BMW Williams team are believed to be developing around 900 horsepower (670 kW) at 19,000 rpm.
The engines produce over 100,000 BTU of heat per minute that must be dumped, usually to the atmosphere via radiators. They aspirate around 650 litres of air per second. Race fuel consumption rate is normally around 75 litres per 100 kilometers travelled.
The engines are a stressed member in most cars. This means that engine is part of the structural support framework, being bolted to the cockpit at the front end, and transmission and rear suspension at the back end.
Engines are required to last one full race weekend and if a team changes an engine they will occur a pentalty in grid positions.
Transmission
Most teams currently race with 7 speed gearboxes. All teams are using electronically controlled gear changes. This means that the driver signals a gear shift up or down, and a computer takes care of the rest (including clutch, throttle control, and the actual gear change).
Aerodynamics
The cars, like most open wheeler categories, feature large front and rear wings forcing the cars down on to the road, and the undertray is now flat to prevent downforce being provided from ground effect.
Construction
The cars are constructed from composites of carbon fibre and similar ultra-lightweight (and incredibly expensive to manufacture) materials. The minimum weight permissible is 600kg including the driver, fluids and on-board cameras. However, all F1 cars weigh significantly less than this (some as little as 440kg) so teams add ballast to the cars to bring them upto the minimum legal weight. The advantage of using ballast is that it can be placed anywhere in the car to provide ideal weight distribution.
Fuel
The fuel used in F1 cars is fairly close to ordinary petrol, albeit with a far more tightly controlled mix. Blends will be tuned for maximum performance in given weather conditions or different circuits.
Cars are fuelled during pitstops at the rate of more than 12 litres per second. This is accomplished by a fairly complex closed system, that pumps air out of the cars fuel tank as the fuel is being pumped in.
Tyres and brakes
By regulation, the tyres feature a minimum of four grooves in them, with the intention of slowing the cars down (a slick tyre, with no indentations, is best in dry conditions). They must be no wider than 355mm and 380 mm at the front and rear respectively. Unlike the fuel, the tyres bear only a superficial resemblance to a normal road tyre. Whereas a normal car tyre has a useful life of up to 80,000 kms, and even motorcycle tires are normally good for 15,000 kms, a F1 tyre is built to last just 200km. This is result of a drive to maximise the road holding ability, leading to the use of very soft compounds (to ensure that the tire surface conforms to the road surface as closely as possible).
The brakes incorporate carbon-fibre discs.
The racing
A race weekend usually begins on Friday, with free practice for the drivers to learn the circuit and for the teams to experiment with their cars to figure out the best settings for the particular track. On Saturday, two qualifying sessions take place, both of which use the same format of allowing each driver to set one lap time on an empty track. The first session is a preliminary round of qualifying that determines the order of running in the second session (with the fastest qualifier in the first session running last in the second session), which in turn determines the order the cars start on the grid. A driver or car that qualifies at the front of the grid is said to be in pole position. There are typically races for other categories (such as Formula 3000) over the weekend, to keep crowds entertained.
Historically, there were often an excess of cars that wished to compete in F1 and so teams had to pre-qualify for the opportunity to race. With the huge costs the possibility of not racing is no longer practical and the organisation that runs the championship (FOCA), sells the right to compete at F1 races to teams. Each team usually runs two entries in each race.
The race itself, held on the Sunday afternoon, begins with a warm-up lap, after which the cars are assembled on the starting grid in the order they qualified. They then go on the signal of the starting light system, which consists of five lights mounted above the start/finish line which light up at one second intervals, and then all go dark, at which point the race starts. Races are a little over 300 kilometres (180 miles) long, though occasionally some races are truncated due to special circumstances. However, no race will go on for longer than two hours.
Drivers stop for fuel and to change tyres at least once, and possibly two or three times. Timing pitstops with reference to other cars is crucial - if following another car but unable to pass, drivers will pit early in the expectation that when they rejoin the race they will land in clear track where they will be able to drive as fast as they can go, and thus make up overall time and pass the other car "in the pits".
Points are awarded to drivers and teams exclusively on where they finish in a race, with the winner receiving 10 points, the second place finisher 8 points, third 6, fourth 5, fifth 4 and sixth 3, seventh 2 and eighth 1. The winner of the annual championship is the driver (or team, for the constructor's championship) with the most points.
Despite being the pinnacle of racing in terms of budgets, and driver skill, Formula One racing has often been accused of being unexciting when compared to less-prestigious categories. The differences in driver ability are usually dwarfed when compared to the relative speed of the different makes of cars, and on-track overtaking is very rare due to the aerodynamics of trailing cars being adversely affected by the car in front (making overtaking only possible by very risky and thus rarely-taken chances, or a much faster car trailing a slower one).
The sport is lesser-known in the United States than either their mostly-domestic open-wheeler racing series (at the moment there are two major ones, IRL and Champcars) or NASCAR, but in terms of budgets and global TV audiences F1 is bigger than all three. Estimates for Ferrari's racing budget in 1999 were around 240 million USD, and even tailender Minardi reportedly spent 50 million. Estimates of TV audiences are around 300 million per race.
Lists
Currently active teams and drivers
- Ferrari (Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro)
- Williams (BMW.WilliamsF1 Team)
- McLaren (West McLaren Mercedes)
- Renault (Mild Seven Renault F1 Team)
- 7 Jarno Trulli
- 8 Fernando Alonso
- BAR, British American Racing (Lucky Strike BAR Honda)
- 9 Jenson Button
- 10 Takuma Sato
- Sauber (Sauber Petronas)
- 11 Giancarlo Fisichella
- 12 Felipe Massa
- Jaguar (Jaguar Racing Ltd.)
- 14 Mark Webber
- 15 Christian Klien
- Toyota (Panasonic Toyota Racing)
- 16 Cristiano da Matta
- 17 Olivier Panis
- Jordan (Jordan Ford)
- 18 Nick Heidfeld
- 19 Giorgio Pantano
- Minardi (European Minardi Cosworth)
- 20 Gianmaria Bruni
- 21 Zsolt Baumgartner
For teams which are no longer active, see List of Formula One constructors.
Championship Events
| Races in the Formula One championship: |
| Current championship Grand Prix events: Australian | Malaysian | Bahrain | San Marino | Spanish | Monaco | European | Canadian United States | French | British | German | Hungarian | Belgian | Italian | Chinese Japanese | Brazilian |
| Past championship Grand Prix events: Argentine | Austrian | Czechoslovakian | Dutch | Luxembourg | Mexican | Pacific Pescara | Portuguese | South African | Swedish | Swiss |
The Future of F1
Formula One went through a tough time in its history through 2003. Viewing figures dropped, and many fans simply switched off. This has largely been attributed to Ferrari's dominance of the 2002 season.
Other factors however include the use of driver aids supposingly taking the skill away from the driver and putting it in the hands of the mechanics. For this reason many rule changes have been proposed for the future. Furthermore, many of the smaller teams such as Minardi and Jordan struggle to keep up with the high cost of the sport, so it is thought that significant rule changes will help to reduce cost.
Because of these things, Max Mosley, the head of the FIA has come up with ideas for reducing the cost and technicality of the sport. New regulations and rules proposed for the future include:
- Reductions in testing time
- Scrapping of Traction Control
- Return to a single tyre manufacturer
- (more)
See also
- Formula One engines
- Formula One regulations
- List of Formula One circuits
- List of Formula One constructors
- List of racing drivers
- List of Formula One Champions.
External links
- F1-action.net - Franch Website
- Formula1.com - Official site
- GrandPrix.com - F1 news and a GP encyclopedia
- F1 Database - F1 statistics
- F1-Live - F1 news and statistics
- Chicane F1 - F1 statistics
- Planet F1 - F1 world information
- La Toile de la F1. - La Toile de la F1.
- [1] - The website of British Broadcasters of Formula One.