History of Formula One

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.

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. [ 2 ] When the 500cc formula was internationally recognised as Formula 3 in 1950 it was n...

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, the race being 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 i...

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 (Fall) in Europe, although not all of these were considered significant. Most competitive cars came from Italy, particularly Maserati. Races saw pre-war heroes like Rudolf Caracciola , Manfred Von Brauchitsch and Tazio Nuvolari end their careers, while drivers like Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio rose to the front.

The Motorcycle World Championships was 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 in effect 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 manufac...

Alfa Romeo dominated all before them 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 bother with the Indianapolis 500 d...

No Alfa Romeo, a supporting cast of privateer Lago-Talbot entries and an almost undriveable, unreliable BRM would make Ferrari effectively invincible. 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 atmospheric engines. Major manufacturers were already working to develop cars for the future regulation and it was obvious that nobody would develop a new car for only two years. The promoters...

Discounting 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 came to the formula, hiring the best drivers of th...

The Mercedes cars swept the next two seasons with Fangio and Moss winning all but three of the races. However, at the end of the 1955 season Mercedes vanished as swiftly as they had come. They had proven the superiority of their technology, but the crash of one of their sportscars that year at Le Mans , killing 83 people, was also a significant factor. The company would not return to Formula One for forty years. [ 5 ] After Le Mans, four of the year's remaining Grands Prix were cancelled. The Mo...

Although the basic formula remained unchanged in 1958, races were shortened from around 500 km/300miles to 300 km/200 miles and cars had to use avgas instead of various fuel mixtures using methanol as the primary component. 1958 saw the introduction of an International Cup for F1 Manufacturers, [ 7 ] with points allocated on an 8, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 basis to the first six cars in the race (i.e. unlike in the Drivers' Championship, there was no point for fastest lap). Furthermore, points were only awa...

With Fangio retired, Mike Hawthorn in a Ferrari took the 1958 Drivers' Championship – becoming the first English driver to earn a title. The British Vanwall team took the maiden Constructors' Championship that season , but ruined their Drivers' Championship aspirations by taking points off one another. Stirling Moss , despite having many more wins than Hawthorn, lost the championship by one point. It was high sportsmanship that cost Moss the 1958 title. When Hawthorn was threatened with disquali...

1958 was a watershed in another crucial way for Formula One. Against a small field of Ferraris and Maseratis, Stirling Moss won the Argentine Grand Prix driving a mid-engined Cooper entered by the private team of Rob Walker , and powered by a 2-litre Coventry-Climax Straight-4. This was the first victory for a car with the engine mounted behind the driver in Formula One. [ note 2 ] It was also the first World Championship GP win for a private entrant (excepting the Indianapolis 500 where all the...

For 1960 while Enzo Ferrari adopted a conservative attitude, claiming "the horses pull the car rather than push it." It was probably disinformation: at the same time Ferrari was preparing for 1961 by designing mid-engined F2 and F1 cars. The Italian front-engined red cars were not only being effectively beaten by the British teams but thoroughly outclassed- the British rear mid-engined cars had considerably better road holding than the front-engined cars. Although down on power, the British cars...

The mid-engined revolution rendered another potentially revolutionary car obsolete. The front-engined four-wheel drive Ferguson P99 raced in British Formula One races in 1961 , winning the non-Championship Oulton Park International Gold Cup [ 8 ] under heavy rain. The car was too heavy and complex compared to the new breed of mid-engined machines. By 1961, British specialist teams such as Lotus, Cooper and BRM, and later McLaren, Tyrrell and Williams- organizations created purely for producing, ...

In 1962, the Lotus team ran the Lotus 25 powered by the new Coventry-Climax FWMV V8 engine. The car had an aluminium sheet monocoque chassis instead of the traditional spaceframe design. This proved to be the greatest technological breakthrough since the introduction of mid-engined cars, but the Lotus was unreliable at first. Jim Clark finished second that year leaving the title to Graham Hill and his new V8 powered BRM .

As soon as the car and the engine became reliable, the era of the Lotus and of Jim Clark began. Clark won the title twice in three years, 1963 and 1965 , the latter being the only occasion to date of a driver winning both the Championship and the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race in the same year. For 1964 Lotus introduced the new Lotus 33 and Ferrari made considerable technological and financial effort to win the title. Ferrari used no less than three different engines in the season – the existing V6,...

1966 saw a 'Return to Power' as Formula One changed the engine rules once again, allowing engines of 3.0-litre normally aspirated, or 1.5-litre supercharged or forced induction. 1966 was a transitional year for most teams, however, the year did see the first use of composite materials , a technology which would later revolutionise the sport. The McLaren M2B , designed by Robin Herd , used an aluminium-wood laminate known as Mallite for much of its monocoque, although the car's design did not mak...

Ferrari was the great favorite with a 3-litre version of his well tested powerful sports car V12 design, but the new cars were very heavy, probably in an excess of self-confidence. An enlarged V6 held some promise but Surtees left mid-season after a dispute with team manager Eugenio Dragoni at the 24 Hours of Le Mans sportscar race. Coventry-Climax, formerly supplier to much of the field, pulled out of the sport leaving teams like Lotus to struggle with enlarged versions of obsolete Climax engin...

In 1967, Lotus introduced the Lotus 49 , powered by the Ford-Cosworth DFV V-8 engine that was to dominate Formula One for the next decade. Like the Repco the Cosworth was light and compact but it was a real racing engine using 4-valve DOHC heads and delivered much more power. Cosworth had aimed for 400 bhp (300 kW) and exceeded this when the engine first ran. The DFV was designed to be fully stressed (an idea pioneered by the Lancia D50). [ 9 ] This allowed Chapman to design a monocoque that end...

1977 also saw two radical technical innovations that would change the future of Formula One. The purpose of Lotus's experimentation in 1976 was revealed with the Lotus 78 , which brought ground effect to Formula One for the first time, using wing-profiled sidepods sealed to the ground by sliding lexan skirts. Generating radically increased downforce with significantly less drag, [ note 4 ] the Lotus 78s driven by Mario Andretti and Gunnar Nilsson won five Grands Prix in 1977. Renault unveiled th...

The entry of Renault also brought Michelin's radial tyres to Formula One. Goodyear, who enjoyed a monopoly before the entry of Michelin , was still using the cross ply design for racing. Goodyear saw the entry of Michelin as a serious threat and made a notable effort in research and development to develop its own radial tyres. Tyrrell's 1977 season was disastrous because Goodyear was too busy to continue to develop the unique small tyres required by the P34. Without continuing development, the t...

For 1978 the new Lotus 79 made more radical and mature use of the ground effect concept. Many other teams began experimenting with the technology, but Lotus had a head start and Mario Andretti won the Championship in the "Black Beauty", becoming the first driver to win both the American IndyCar championship and the Formula One title. Brabham outbid Lotus in generating downforce with BT46B "fan car", a revival of the "sucker car" concept used by Jim Hall 's Chaparral 2J in the Can-Am series in th...

For 1979 Ligier , the up-and-coming Williams team and surprisingly Ferrari , despite the handicap of the Flat-12 that obstructed wind tunnels, produced wing-cars designs that were more effective than the Lotus 79 . This forced Lotus to hastily introduce the new 80 that overplayed the ground effect concept (it was originally intended to run with no drag-inducing wings, merely ground-effect sidepods) and never proved competitive. Renault persisted with the turbo engine, despite frequent breakdowns...

The new technologies introduced by Renault and Lotus became entangled in the FISA–FOCA war of the early 1980s. Turbo engines were complex machines whose layout limited the ground effect 'tunnels' under the car. They were an emerging technology and so they were difficult and expensive to develop and build and make reliable. It was mostly manufacturer-supported teams, such as Renault, Ferrari, and Alfa Romeo which took that route. In contrast, the cheap, reliable, and narrow Ford-Cosworth DFV engi...

The 1983 drivers' title, won by Piquet for the BMW -powered Brabham team of Bernie Ecclestone, was the first-ever won by a turbocharged engine. By 1983, the dispute between FISA and FOCA had been resolved and although FOCA emerged with the stronger hand, the teams had seen the writing on the wall. Renault had proven in 1979 and 1980 that turbo-charged engines were a more efficient means of getting more performance from the powertrain with the FIA regulations. The turbo cars were faster on almost...

After nearly 50 years the power achieved by the turbocharged cars could finally match the 640 hp (477 kW) produced by the supercharged 1937 Mercedes-Benz W125 , without a huge consumption of special fuel. By 1986 , some engines were producing over 1,350 bhp (1,010 kW) in short bursts in qualifying. BMW's 1,000 bhp (750 kW) dynamometer was incapable of measuring the output of their qualifying engines – Paul Rosche estimated that it might be as much as 1,400 bhp (1,000 kW). First fuel consumption ...

With controversy at last left behind, the Formula One teams flourished through the remainder of the 1980s and into the 1990s. Despite the overwhelming dominance of some teams during some seasons, this period is regarded (perhaps ironically) as one of the brightest spots in F1's history. Niki Lauda , coming out of retirement for a hefty sum in 1982 , pipped his teammate Alain Prost to the title in 1984 by a mere half-point, the closest ever finish in Formula One history. That half-point in itself...

1986 provided another close finish. The Honda -powered Williams cars of Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell looked untouchable, but too often they took points from each other, allowing McLaren's Prost to stay in touch. Although Williams easily won the Constructors' Championship that year, it was not until the season-ending Grand Prix of Australia that the Drivers' title was decided, Prost making the most of both Williams drivers tyre problems. 1987 saw the Williams grow only stronger, with Piquet dr...

1987 also saw the return of atmospheric engines to Formula One, after the turbo-only year of 1986. Capacity was increased to 3.5 litres, and the turbo engines were restricted in boost pressure and fuel capacity to limit their effect, with a total ban to be introduced in 1989 . Nevertheless, while turbo engines lasted, they dominated, with Williams-Honda winning easily in 1987, and then Honda teaming up with McLaren in 1988 that resulted in the super-team of Prost and Senna winning 15 of 16 races...

In 1989, turbos were banned and new regulations allowing only naturally aspirated engines up to 3.5 litres were put in their place. The dominance of McLaren-Honda continued for the next 3 seasons, Prost winning the title in 1989, Senna in 1990 and 1991 . The V10 and V12 engines produced by the Japanese manufacturer proved to be just as good as the turbo V6s before them, and the V10 was the best engine over the two seasons it was used and developed by Honda. The championship was marred however by...

In the early 1990s, teams started introducing electronic driver aids , whose use spread rapidly. Active suspension , (pioneered by Lotus in 1987), semi-automatic gearboxes (Ferrari in 1989), and traction control (Ferrari in 1990) [ 17 ] All enabled cars to reach higher and higher speeds provided the teams were willing to spend the money. The FIA , due to complaints that technology was determining the outcome of races more than driver skill, banned many such aids in 1994. However, many observers ...

Lightweight television cameras attached to the cars became common in the early 1990s (following an American network TV practise actually pioneered in Australia). As well as boosting audience figures this also made the sport more attractive to sponsors beyond the traditional cigarette companies. Safety improvements also meant that the major car manufacturers were more inclined to attach themselves to teams on a rolling basis. 1994 then seemed ripe to produce a stunning season. Ayrton Senna had mo...

By 1994 , the previous death in Formula One was nearly a decade past, that of Elio de Angelis during testing at the Circuit Paul Ricard in 1986. There had been several horrifying accidents (for example Nelson Piquet and Gerhard Berger at Imola , or Martin Donnelly at Jerez ), but no fatalities. The speed of Formula One cars had continuously risen over 8 years, despite turbocharged engines being made illegal, the width of tyres being reduced and driver aids eventually being removed. There was an ...

At the San Marino Grand Prix weekend this belief was crushed completely with the serious injuries sustained by Rubens Barrichello in practice and the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger during qualifying and Ayrton Senna in the race on 1 May 1994. [ 19 ] Furthermore, Karl Wendlinger was left comatose after a crash two weeks later at the Monaco Grand Prix . [ 20 ] The shock from the sudden injuries and deaths was stunning. Not only had two drivers been killed, but one of them was a triple world champio...

While significant changes could not be made to cars in 1994, the FIA required all Formula One cars' airboxes to be perforated to reduce their "ram-air" effect, to reduce power. For the same reason special racing fuels, previously an exotic mixture of benzenes and toluenes, were banned and only those with similar characteristics to everyday unleaded petrol would be permitted. To reduce downforce, and therefore the cornering speed of the cars, a wooden "plank" was to be fitted beneath the central ...

Further, from 1995 designs were required to be drawn from a reference plane (template), and strict limitations were enforced as to the minimum and maximum tolerances for aspects of the vehicle such as the size of the cockpit opening (an idea well known in Champ Car for a decade) and of aerodynamic devices, commonly called wings. Further, maximum engine displacement was reduced from 3.5 to 3 litres. Further changes were mandated as the FIA continued to try to curb the increase in speeds of Formul...

The rapid introduction of all of these new rules and regulations, particularly those introduced in 1994 , made the atmosphere even more chaotic for Formula One. Michael Schumacher had to fight desperately for his first World Drivers' Championship, as his Benetton team found itself in frequent violations of FIA regulations and Schumacher was suspended for two races as a result. Even his championship-clinching race in Australia was controversial, as he collided with rival Damon Hill (son of Graham...

By 1995 , things had settled down somewhat. The downgraded 3-litre formula had no effect of the domination of the Renault V10, and Schumacher took his second Drivers' title, and Benetton their first Constructors' title, with relative ease, defeating the Williams team of Hill and David Coulthard . The Renault engine which powered both teams was virtually unbeatable, with only Ferrari claiming a single win at the Canadian Grand Prix for Alesi, his only career win.

For 1996 , the FIA mandated a much larger minimum size cockpit area, along with driver's head protection, to ensure the driver's head was less exposed (ironically, this limited driver visibility and contributed to accidents). As part of his plan to rebuild Ferrari, Jean Todt brought Michael Schumacher to the team from Benetton that year, essentially in exchange for his 1995 drivers Alesi and Berger. There was an immediate effect, in his first year with the Scuderia Schumacher won three races, mo...

In 1997 , another son of an F1 racing legend took the titles for Williams once again, as Jacques Villeneuve became the 4th driver to take both the Formula One and CART championship (the others being Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Nigel Mansell). Villeneuve also became the only Canadian to have won a Formula 1 Drivers' title. The 1997 season was much closer than 1996, and Villeneuve only clinched the Drivers' Championship at the final race. Once again, Michael Schumacher collided with hi...

At the end of 1997 Renault withdrew from Formula One. McLaren- Mercedes took the Drivers' Crown for the next two years, both being claimed by Mika Häkkinen . The Finn was nearly untouchable as he took his first title while Schumacher and Villeneuve could only watch. 1999 provided a stiffer contest for the title. Villeneuve was out of the picture at the brand-new BAR but Schumacher was in contention when he crashed and broke his leg at Silverstone . [ 23 ] His teammate Eddie Irvine eventually los...

Behind the title races, however, there were signs of trouble brewing in Formula One. The long-established, highly-respected Lotus name vanished from the starting grids, following Brabham's demise in mid-1992. French manufacturer Ligier found themselves in desperate straits, and were sold to Alain Prost. Ken Tyrrell 's team floundered on, despite dismal results, until 1998, when BAR bought the team. And the colourful era of the small, private teams finally came to an end. Names like Larrousse , D...

After the banning of turbocharged engines in 1989, V10 became the most popular engine configuration in Formula One, because it offered the best compromise between power and fuel consumption. From the 1998 season onwards, all competing teams had V10 engines in their cars. V12s were powerful but thirsty, while V8s were more fuel-efficient but lacked power. 2000 saw the grids of Formula One start to revert to normal, as Jordan rapidly faded out of sight, and Williams, looking forward to a new partn...

While Ferrari celebrated their dominance, the sport itself was seen by many to be in trouble. Two more privateers, Prost and Arrows, had closed their doors for good, while Benetton was bought out by Renault. Even more troubling was the one team in seemingly no danger of disappearing: Ferrari. While Formula One was no stranger to teams monopolizing the winner's stand, Ferrari's actions throughout the 2002 season annoyed many; in particular, the staged finishes of the Austrian Grand Prix and the U...

A number of major car manufacturers had joined Formula One since 2000 – there were as many as eight manufacturers participating in Formula One at most. BMW and Honda had returned as works engine manufacturers in 2000, while Ford had rebranded the Stewart team as Jaguar and developed engines through its Cosworth subsidiary. In 2001, Renault also returned as a works engine maker and bought the Enstone-based Benetton team, which it rebranded as Renault in 2002. Toyota joined the series in 2002, dev...

In 2003, despite heavy rule changes (such as a new points system) in order to prevent another year of Ferrari dominance, Schumacher won the championship once more. He was run close by both Kimi Räikkönen and Juan Pablo Montoya , but Schumacher prevailed, taking the championship by two points at Suzuka . It seemed that 2003 was the perfect balm to ease the memories of the previous season, with 8 different race winners (including first-time victories for Fernando Alonso , Kimi Räikkönen and Gianca...

In 2004, Ferrari and Schumacher returned to almost total dominance of the championships, winning both with ease – in the first thirteen races of the season, Schumacher managed to win twelve. A new race in Bahrain made its debut in April and another new race in China debuted in September. It was initially thought that in introducing these new races, older Grands Prix in Europe, like the British Grand Prix , might be removed from the championship, but instead, the number of races was increased to ...

2006 was the last season with two tyre manufacturers: Japanese manufacturer Bridgestone and French company Michelin . In December 2005, the FIA announced that from the 2008 season, there would be only one tyre-supplier. Five days later, Michelin announced it would quit Formula One at the end of the 2006 season, leaving Bridgestone as the sole supplier from 2007. Renault and Fernando Alonso established early leads in both the Constructors' and Drivers' Championships. By mid-season, Ferrari appear...

The 2007 Formula One season saw a much more competitive McLaren, with current world champion Alonso alongside rookie Lewis Hamilton . However, Hamilton surprised everyone with a run of nine consecutive podiums in his first nine races seeing him take a significant lead in the Drivers' Championship. Alonso's relationship with McLaren deteriorated as the season progressed, as he believed it was his right as world champion to be favoured above his teammate. A mistake by Hamilton in China and a mecha...

on the situation, and Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen took the championship after a strong second half to the season. Räikkönen turned around a 17-point deficit with two races to go to win by a single point.

Both McLarens finished the Championship on 109 points. Fernando Alonso was placed third, behind Lewis Hamilton through countback. Renault had a much less successful season in 2007 than in previous years and struggled to match the pace of McLaren and Ferrari. Ferrari also clinched the Constructors' Championship after McLaren's disqualification over the controversy over the suspicion that McLaren had Ferrari information. 2007 marked the seventh and final season, since its reintroduction in 2001 , ...

2008 again saw McLaren and Ferrari have the most competitive cars. However, the season was much more open, with winners from three other teams. After agonising defeat in 2007, Hamilton clinched the Drivers' Championship in dramatic fashion, overtaking Timo Glock in the Toyota to secure the fifth place he needed in the last corner of the last lap of the final Grand Prix . Felipe Massa had won the race, and would also have won the Drivers' Championship if it had not been for Hamilton's crucial ov...

During the 2000s, Formula One cars had become extremely complex, efficient, and reliable, so much so that actual racing between drivers began to become less and less common. 2009 saw the introduction of many new rules and regulations (including engine RPM limits, an adjustable front wing, and disproportionate wing sizes) to encourage overtaking. Engine RPM reached 20,000 rpm (and over for Renault and Cosworth ) in 2006 , and was initially limited to 19,000 rpm for 2007; this was lowered to 18,00...

The most significant system introduced in F1 was the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), a system that stores energy, created by braking, through a flywheel; this energy is then channeled to the car's drivetrain to increase acceleration. A few well-funded teams had tested this technology the previous year but it remained too experimental; all of the teams' KERS systems needed more development, so none of them would be ready for 2009. Due to the global economic recession, many more rule change...

After dominating the beginning of the season with six out of seven race wins, Jenson Button eventually clinched the Drivers' Championship in Brazil, with Brawn GP winning the Constructors' Championship in its only season, before being taken over by Mercedes . Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button's teammate, was second in the Drivers' Championship for the whole season until he had a problem at the Brazilian Grand Prix and was overtaken (in points) by Sebastian Vettel , a Red Bull driver, who won the...

2010 saw more changes in the way of rules and regulations. KERS and double diffusers were banned for the 2010 season, but new innovative features on the cars such as F-ducts were introduced. An allocated eight engines, per driver, for the whole season was also introduced as part of more cost-cutting methods. The biggest change in the points scoring system in F1 history happened between 2009 & 2010. The 10–8–6–5–4–3–2–1 point system for the top eight finishers (which had been running since 2003),...

Red Bull Racing returned to have a great season in 2010, thanks to their hiring of designer Adrian Newey in 2007. They won the Constructors' Championship in the penultimate round in Brazil, and Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel won the championship in the final round of the 2010 season at Abu Dhabi. Mercedes GP (formerly Brawn GP) had a much less successful and winless season than 2009 with their two new drivers – seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher had returned to Formula One, but was r...

Formula One entered its second turbocharged era in 2014 . Australia was the location of the end of the first era ( Adelaide 1988 ) and start of the second ( Melbourne 2014 ). The series is being run under the most radical engine regulation changes since 1995 . All cars entering any Formula One championship race must run with 1.6-litre single turbocharged 6-cylinder engines with a rev limit of 15,000 rpm and maximum fuel flow of 100 kg/hr. New car regulations will also be enforced, and the minimu...

The Mercedes team and their drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg dominated the start of the hybrid era, winning 51 of the 59 races (31 for Hamilton and 20 for Rosberg) between 2014 and 2016 as well as all titles during that period (Hamilton was champion in 2014 and 2015 while Rosberg won in 2016). This success was the result of Mercedes' development of the "split turbocharger", a system in which the compressor and turbine components of the turbo charger are placed at separate sides of the eng...

Ferrari and their driver Sebastian Vettel emerged as strong title contenders in 2017 and 2018 after rule changes in aerodynamic design were implemented for 2017, but despite mid-season championship leads for Vettel in both seasons, Hamilton and Mercedes ultimately won the titles with multiple races to spare. Mercedes subsequently won both championships comfortably in 2019 and 2020 along with an additional constructors' title in 2021, with Hamilton managing to equal Michael Schumacher's record of...

In 2022, the FIA designed a new set of rules designed to promote "closer racing." This mostly included aerodynamic changes. Citing a loss of downforce in a trailing car caused by dirty air, the FIA introduced a new type of car designed around using ground effect to create downforce. This was the first time ground effect was used since venturi tunnels under cars were banned in 1983. In the previous cars, air led off the car in a chaotic pattern, creating "dirty air" that decreased the downforce o...

After a slow season beginning dominated by Scuderia Ferrari , Red Bull Racing dominated the season. Their drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez dominated most races. The season ended with Verstappen winning the World Drivers' Championship and Red Bull winning the Constructors' Championship. Verstappen ended the season with 454 points, the highest number of points in one season ever recorded . He was 146 points ahead of Charles Leclerc in second place and his teammate Pérez in third. [ 32 ]

In 2023 , Verstappen cruised to his third consecutive Drivers' Championship title clinching it at the Qatar Grand Prix , winning a record 19 out of 22 Grands Prix held and finishing on the podium 21 times (also a record number for most podiums in a season) by the end of the championship. [ 33 ] His team, Red Bull Racing achieved their sixth Constructors' Championship title, the second consecutively, at the preceding Japanese Grand Prix . [ 34 ] Red Bull Racing won 21 out of 22 Grands Prix, break...

In 2020, the British magazine The Economist ranked champion drivers by the relative importance of car quality to driver skill, [ 37 ] based on a study by Andrew Bell of the University of Sheffield, UK. This ranking considers the relative statistical significance of the car maker's contributions:

The ranking illustrates that over time car quality has become more important. For example, Michael Schumacher won 5 of his 7 titles (1994–2004) with a single car maker ( Ferrari ). Lewis Hamilton won all of his 7 titles (2008–2020) with a Mercedes-Benz engine (one of them in conjunction with McLaren ). In the 1950s, Juan Manuel Fangio won his 5 titles (1951–1957) with four different teams: Alfa Romeo , Mercedes-Benz , Ferrari , Maserati .