History of Formula One

Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1, and officially referred to as the FIA Formula One World is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA).

The "formula" in the designation refers to a set of regulations with which all participants' cars must comply. It is almost certainly the most vastly watched televised spectator sport in the world after football.

Formula One can be seen live or tape delayed in almost every country and territory across the world and attracts one of the largest global television audiences. The 2008 season attracted a global audience of 600 million viewers per race.

It is a enormous television event; the cumulative television audience was calculated to be 54 billion for the 2001 season, broadcast to two hundred countries.

This is a long way indeed from its early beginnings. The very first Formula One World Championship Motor race took place at Silverstone in the United Kingdom in 1950 . In those initial days, teams who no longer contend on the modern F1 circuit dominated proceedings with the very first World Championship being won by Italian Giuseppe Farina in an Alfa Romeo.

His team mate, the legendary Juan Fangio, won the title almost continuously until 1957 and, in fact, his record of five World Championship wins held until 2003 when Michael Schumacher won his sixth title.

It was during this period that probably the greatest driver never to win the World Championship was contending - the U.K.’s Stirling Moss.

One team that did compete in those early years was Ferrari, or Scuderia Ferrari to give the team its full title, whose rearing horse logo is followed by the red shirted fans or "tifosi" around the world. In fact, during the last few years the sport has been dominated by Ferrari who until recently has been one of the few teams to manufacture the complete car, engine and all.

However the U.K. team of Maclaren, using engines from Mercedes Benz, have proved extremely successful. A different very successful team during the 2010 season proved to be Red Bull racing using engines provided by Renault.

It is interesting to note that in the cases of both Maclaren and Red Bull, they have proved much more successful than the teams fielded by their engine suppliers, Mercedes and Renault. This almost certainly goes a long way to supporting the argument that it is the aerodynamic characteristics of the car that win races.

After a number of years in which we have seen the number of teams has stayed quite stationary or even declined, 2010 saw a resurgence in the number of cars on the grid with new entries from Lotus, Virgin Racing, and Hispania Racing bringing the number of starters to 24.

The calendar of races is also in a constant state of change with Korea joining for the 2010 season and India being added in 2011 as Formula 1 becomes more and more a world- wide spectacle as it moves away from its time-honoured European heartland.

But wherever the teams race and whatever the number of cars on the starting grid it will continue to set the pulses racing as those 5 red lights go out!

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with London Olympic dates. Click a link to find out more 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.