Formula One automobile racing has its roots in the European Grand Prix championships of the 1920s and 1930s, though the foundation of the modern Formula One began in 1946 with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's (FIA) standardisation of rules, which was followed by a World Championship of Drivers in 1950.
The sport's history parallels the evolution of its technical regulations. In addition to the world championship series, non-championship Formula One races were held for many years, the last held in 1983 due to the rising cost of competition. National championships existed in South Africa and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s.
History Early years and continuation of pre-World War II supercharged engines (1946–1950) Formula One was first defined in 1946 by the Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI) of the FIA, forerunner of FISA, as the premier single-seater racing category in worldwide motorsport to become effective in 1947. This new "International Formula" was initially known variously as Formula A, Formula I, or Formula 1 with the corresponding "Voiturette" formula being titled Formula B, Formula II, or Formula 2. When the 500cc formula was internationally recognised as Formula 3 in 1950 it was never titled as "Formula C" so the three International Formulae were then "officially" titled Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula 3. Formula One Retrieved from www.conceptcarz.com on 28 April 2009
In the beginning, the formula was largely based on pre-World War II regulations defined by engine capacity. The regulation expected to bring a new balance between supercharged and normally aspirated cars. Non-supercharged 4.5-litre pre-war Grand Prix cars were allowed to race against the pre-war 1.5-litre supercharged 'voiturettes', while pre-war supercharged 3-litre Grand Prix cars were banned.
There is some debate as to what can be considered to be the first Formula 1 race. The first race under the new regulations was the 1946 Turin Grand Prix held on 1 September, won by Achille Varzi in an Alfa Romeo 158 Alfetta, but this was before the Formula was officially in place. The next contender is the 1947 Swedish Winter Grand Prix which was won by Reg Parnell driving an ERA; but this race was run on ice and some consider that it therefore was not a "proper" race (there is also some doubt whether it was a Formula 1 race or a Formule Libre race). The third claimant is the 1947 Pau Grand Prix which was won by Nello Pagani driving a Maserati 4CL, which is irrefutable.
Championships for drivers or constructors were not introduced immediately. In the early years there were around 20 races held from late spring to early autumn in Europe, although not all of these were considered significant. Most competitive cars came from Italy, particularly Maserati. Some pre-war racing heroes like Rudolf Caracciola, Manfred Von Brauchitsch and Tazio Nuvolari floundered and ended their careers, while drivers like Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio rose to the front.
Era of factory Italian and Mercedes front-engine cars (1950–1957)
The Motorcycle World Championships were introduced in 1949. In 1950, the FIA responded with the first ever official World Championship for Drivers. The championship series, to be held across six of the 'major' Grands Prix of Europe plus the Indianapolis 500, was a formalization of what had already been developing in Grand Prix racing during the previous years. Italian teams of Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, and Maserati were best positioned to dominate the early years. Other national manufacturerssuch as the French manufacturer Talbot or the British BRMcompeted, although less successfully. A number of private cars also took part in local races. The Italian and German factory teams in those days often employed 2 to 3 drivers whose nationality was the same as the team's and at least 1 foreign driver; for example the Alfa Romeo team in 1950 consisted of Italian drivers Giuseppe Farina, Luigi Fagioli and Piero Taruffi; and Argentine driver Juan Manuel Fangio.
Alfa Romeo dominated in the 1950 season, winning every race but one in the championship with the pre-war "Alfetta" 158s. The sole exception was the Indianapolis 500, which was part of the championship (1950 to 1960), although not run to Formula One regulations and never contested by the teams that participated on the regular Formula One circuit (Alberto Ascari in 1952 and Juan Manuel Fangio in 1958 being the only regular Formula One drivers to compete in the Indianapolis 500 during this period). Nino Farina won the inaugural championship, followed by Juan Manuel Fangio in 1951 with the Alfa-Romeo 159, an evolution of the 158. The Alfetta's engines were extremely powerful for their capacity: in 1951 the 159 engine was producing around , albeit with a high fuel consumption of 125 to 175 litres per 100 km (2.26 to 1.61 mpg imp/1.88 mpg to 1.34 mpg US).
Enzo Ferrari, who had raced the Alfettas before the war, and his engine designer Aurelio Lampredi, were the first to understand that the 1.5-litre supercharged engine was a dead end: any increase in power meant more fuel to carry or more time lost in the pits for refuelling, so for the last races of 1950 Ferrari retired the 1.5-litre supercharged Ferrari 125, and fielded the new V12 4.5-litre normally aspirated Ferrari 375. With a fuel consumption of around the 375 offered fierce opposition to the Alfettas towards the end of the 1951 season. Alfa Romeo, at the time a state-owned company, decided to withdraw after a refusal of the Italian government to fund the expensive design of a new car. Up to that point, Alfa Romeo's involvement in racing had been carried out with a very thin budget, using mostly pre-war technology and material during the two seasons. The team had won two championships using only nine pre-war built engine blocks.
With no Alfa Romeo, and an almost undriveable, unreliable BRM, Ferrari stood to sweep the championship. The FIA was in an embarrassing position as it had already announced that current Formula One regulations would last until 1954 before switching to 2.5-litre engines. Major manufacturers were already working to develop cars for the future regulation and saw no point in developing a new car for the only two remaining years of the regulation cycle. The promoters of the World Championship Grands Prix, mindful of the lack of serious competition with the Ferrari 375, decided to adopt Formula Two regulations for two years. However, Ferrari's dominance nevertheless continued with the light 4-cylinder powered Ferrari Tipo 500, bringing Italian Alberto Ascari his two championships in the 1952 and 1953 seasons. Ferrari's Formula One cars continued to race very successfully in non-championship Formula One and Formula Libre races through this period. Ironically, during this period the only World Championship race for which Formula One cars were eligible was the Indianapolis 500. In 1952 Ferrari entered four Formula One 375s with Alberto Ascari as lead driver, but with little success.
Other than the Indianapolis 500, the World Championship was entirely based in Europe until 1953 when the season opened in Argentina. Since then, there has always been at least one race outside Europe each year. As planned, the World Championship races returned to Formula One regulations for the 1954 season, now based on a new 2.5-litre atmospheric engine regulation. This successfully brought more entrants to the field. Lancia and Mercedes-Benz joined the formula, hiring the best drivers of the era: Ascari for Lancia, Fangio for Mercedes. Featuring desmodromic valves, fuel injection, parts made from magnesium and exotic alloys, "streamlined" bodywork and other advanced features, the brand new Mercedes W196 began the 1954 season with Fangio taking pole position at the Grand Prix de l'ACF at Reims-Gueux with the first lap over in Formula One, before winning the race after a duel with other Mercedes driver Karl Kling, who finished second.
The Mercedes cars swept the next two seasons with Fangio and Stirling Moss winning all but three of the races. However, at the end of the 1955 season Mercedes left the formula after the disastrous crash of one of their cars at Le Mans killed 82 people. The company would not return to Formula One for thirty years. After Le Mans, four of the year's remaining Grands Prix were cancelled. The Monaco Grand Prix saw a spectacular incident when Ascari crashed his Lancia into the harbour after missing a chicane. Ascari was pulled out of the water alive and apparently well. However, there was speculation that he had sustained an undetected internal injury when he was killed four days later at Monza while testing a sportscar. After Ascari's death, Lancia followed Mercedes out of the formula, passing their engines, cars, information and technology to Ferrari. The 1956 season saw Fangio make good use of the Lancia-inspired Ferrari D50 to win his fourth championship. In the 1957 season, driving for Maserati, Fangio took his fifth championship, a record which would not be beaten for 46 years.
"Garagistes" and the rear-mid engine revolution (1958–1961) See 1958 season, 1959 season, 1960 season and 1961 season. 1958
1958 was a watershed year in many ways for Formula One. 47-year-old Juan Manuel Fangio raced only twice, setting pole and fastest lap in his home race, then retiring after a fourth-place finish at the 1958 French Grand Prix. 1958 also marked an influx of English speakers in Formula One, with five British drivers and an American occupying the first six places in 1958, after the sport had historically been dominated by speakers of Romance languages and German. Nearly the same applied for car manufacturers, as barely-known British makers of chassis and engines won all rounds except for two won by Scuderia Ferrari. Some had succeeded in 1500cc Formula Two with new approaches, like making or buying only a chassis, then using a third party engine, mainly the Coventry Climax FPF DOHC 4-cylinder, which Cooper had installed behind the driver in a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout that would dominate F1 from 1959 onwards. In single seaters with front engine, the driver either had to sit very high on top of a symmetric drive train, or beside the drive shaft in an asymmetric construction. Such complicated front engine layouts were used until 1960, even though the Auto Union racing cars of the 1930s had demonstrated the benefits of having the driver sitting low in front of a compact drivetrain unit that utilized a limited-slip differential, an old Porsche innovation that had been neglected.