thumb|[[2010 Malaysian Grand Prix|Malaysian Grand Prix, 2010]]
Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel, single-seater formula racing cars run by the Formula One Group and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the world's premier forms of motorsport since its inaugural running in 1950 and is often considered to be the pinnacle of motorsport. The word formula in the name refers to the set of rules all participant cars must follow. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix. Grands Prix take place in multiple countries and continents on either purpose-built circuits or closed roads.
A points scoring system is used at Grands Prix to determine two annual World Championships: one for the drivers, and one for the constructors—now synonymous with teams. Each driver must hold a valid Super Licence, the highest class of racing licence the FIA issues, and the races must be held on Grade One tracks, the highest grade rating the FIA issues for circuits.
The commercial rights to F1 are leased to Liberty Media Corporation, acquired in 2017 for an estimated $8 billion, previously owned by British business magnate Bernie Ecclestone. The new ownership added five Grands Prix to the calendar: Miami, Las Vegas, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Dutch.
Formula One cars are the world's fastest regulated road-course racing cars, owing to high cornering speeds achieved by generating large amounts of aerodynamic downforce, most of which is generated by front and rear wings, as well as underbody tunnels. The cars depend on electronics, aerodynamics, suspension, and tyres. Traction control, launch control, automatic shifting, and other electronic driving aids were first banned in . They were briefly reintroduced in but were banned once more in and later .
With the average annual cost of running a team—e.g., designing, building, and maintaining cars; staff payroll; transport—at approximately million as of 2018 (though the cost cap stands at million), Formula One's financial and political battles are widely reported. The United Kingdom is the hub of Formula One racing, with six out of the eleven teams based there.
History
Formula One originated from the World Manufacturers' Championship (1925–1927) and European Drivers' Championship (1931–1939). The formula is a set of rules that all participants' cars must follow. Before World War II, several Grand Prix racing organisations made suggestions for a new championship to replace the European Championship, but due to the suspension of racing during the conflict, a new International Formula for cars did not become formalised until after the war. Formula One was a formula agreed upon in 1946 to officially become effective in 1947. The first Grand Prix in accordance with the new regulations was the 1946 Turin Grand Prix, anticipating the formula's official start. The new World Championship was instituted to commence in 1950.
The first world championship race, the 1950 British Grand Prix, took place at Silverstone Circuit in the United Kingdom on 13 May 1950. Giuseppe Farina, competing for Alfa Romeo, won the first Drivers' World Championship, narrowly defeating his teammate Juan Manuel Fangio. Fangio won the championship in , , , , and . This set the record for the most World Championships won by a single driver, a record that stood for 46 years until Michael Schumacher won his sixth championship in 2003. Between 1955 and 1961, Moss finished in second in the championship four times and in third the other three times. Fangio won 24 of the 52 races he entered—still the record for the highest Formula One winning percentage by an individual driver.
Promoters also held races following Formula One regulations outside the championship for many years. These events often took place on circuits that were not always suitable for the World Championship and featured local cars and drivers as well as those competing in the championship. For example, South Africa's domestic Formula One championship from 1960 to 1975 used locally built or modified cars in addition to recently retired world championship cars. Similarly, the British Formula One Championship utilised second-hand cars, from manufacturers such as Lotus and Fittipaldi Automotive, fitted with DFV from 1978 to 1980. The increasing cost of competition, however, made such competitions less common in the 1970s. 1983 saw the last non-championship Formula One race; the 1983 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, won by reigning World Champion Keke Rosberg in a Williams-Cosworth in a close fight with American Danny Sullivan.
In , Lotus introduced a car with an aluminium-sheet monocoque chassis instead of the traditional space-frame design. This proved to be the greatest technological breakthrough since the introduction of mid-engined cars.
In , sponsorship was introduced to the sport. Team Gunston became the first team to run cigarette sponsorship on its Brabham cars, which privately entered in the orange, brown, and gold colours of Gunston cigarettes in the 1968 South African Grand Prix on 1 January 1968. Five months later, Lotus, initially using British racing green, became the first works team to follow this example when it entered its cars painted in the red, gold, and white colours of Imperial Tobacco's Gold Leaf livery at the 1968 Spanish Grand Prix.
Aerodynamic downforce slowly gained importance in car design with the appearance of aerofoils during the 1968 season. The wings were introduced by Lotus's owner, Colin Chapman, who installed modest front wings and a rear spoiler on his Lotus 49B at the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix. In the late 1970s, Lotus introduced ground-effect aerodynamics, previously used on Jim Hall's Chaparral 2J in 1970, that provided enormous downforce and greatly increased cornering speeds. The aerodynamic forces pressing the cars to the track were up to five times the car's weight. As a result, extremely stiff springs were needed to maintain a constant ride height, leaving the suspension virtually solid. This meant that the drivers depended entirely on the tyres for any small amount of cushioning of the car and driver from irregularities in the road surface.
Big business
Beginning in the 1970s, Bernie Ecclestone rearranged the management of Formula One's commercial rights; he is widely credited with transforming the series into the multi-billion dollar business it now is. When Ecclestone bought the Brabham team in 1971, he gained a seat on the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA), and in 1978 he became its president. Previously, the circuit owners controlled the income of the teams and negotiated with each individually; Ecclestone persuaded the teams to "hunt as a pack" through FOCA. The Guardian said that Ecclestone and Max Mosley "used [FOCA] to wage a guerrilla war with a very long-term aim in view". FOCA threatened to establish a rival series and boycotted a Grand Prix, and FISA withdrew its sanction from races. The teams signed a second Concorde Agreement in 1992 and a third in 1997. But by then, turbocharged engines, which Renault had pioneered in , were producing over and were essential to be competitive. By , a BMW turbocharged engine achieved a flash reading of of pressure, which was estimated to be over , in qualifying for the . The next year, power in race trim reached around , with boost pressure limited to only . These cars were the most powerful open-wheel circuit racing cars ever. To reduce engine power output and thus speeds, the FIA limited fuel tank capacity in , and boost pressures in , before banning turbocharged engines completely in .
The development of electronic driver aids began in the 1980s. Lotus began to develop a system of active suspension, which first appeared in 1983 on the Lotus 92. By 1987, this system had been perfected and was driven to victory by Ayrton Senna in the Monaco Grand Prix that year. In the early 1990s, other teams followed suit, and semi-automatic gearboxes and traction control were a natural progression. The FIA, due to complaints that technology was determining races' outcomes more than driver skill, banned many such aids for the season. This resulted in cars that previously depended on electronic aids becoming very "twitchy" and difficult to drive. Observers felt the ban on driver aids was in name only, as they "proved difficult to police effectively".
thumb|[[Stefan Johansson driving for Ferrari at the 1985 European Grand Prix]]
The rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost became F1's central focus in and continued until Prost retired at the end of . Senna died at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix after crashing into a wall on the exit of the Tamburello curve. Roland Ratzenberger also died in an accident during Saturday qualifying that weekend.
Since Senna's and Ratzenberger's deaths, the FIA has used safety as a reason to impose rule changes that otherwise, under the Concorde Agreement, would have had to be agreed upon by all the teams. The resultant 'narrow track' era from onwards resulted in cars with smaller rear tyres, a narrower track overall, and the introduction of grooved tyres to reduce mechanical grip. According to the FIA, the objective behind this decision was to reduce cornering speeds and produce racing similar to rainy conditions by enforcing a smaller contact patch between the tyre and the track.
No driver died of injuries sustained on the track at the wheel of a Formula One car for 20 years until the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, where Jules Bianchi collided with a recovery vehicle after aquaplaning off the circuit, dying on 17 July 2015 from his injuries.
Manufacturers' return
thumb|[[Michael Schumacher (pictured in ) won five consecutive titles with Ferrari.]]
Michael Schumacher and Ferrari won five consecutive Drivers' Championships and six consecutive Constructors' Championships. Schumacher set many new records, including those for Grand Prix wins, wins in a season, and most Drivers' Championships. Schumacher's championship streak ended on 25 September 2005, when Renault driver Fernando Alonso became Formula One's youngest champion at that time (until Lewis Hamilton in and followed by Sebastian Vettel in 2010). In 2006, Renault and Alonso won both titles again. Schumacher retired at the end of 2006, after 16 years in Formula One, but came out of retirement for the 2010 season, racing for the newly formed Mercedes works team, following the rebrand of Brawn GP.
During this period, FIA frequently changed the championship rules with the intention of improving the on-track action and cutting costs. Team orders, legal since the championship started in 1950, were banned in 2002, after several incidents in which teams openly manipulated race results, generating negative publicity, most famously by Ferrari at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix. Other changes included the qualifying format, the point-scoring system, the technical regulations, and rules specifying how long engines and tyres must last. A 'tyre war' between suppliers Michelin and Bridgestone saw lap times fall. At the 2005 United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis, seven out of ten teams did not race when their Michelin tyres were deemed unsafe for use, leading to Bridgestone becoming the sole tyre supplier to Formula One for the 2007 season by default. On 20 December 2007, Bridgestone signed a contract that officially made it the exclusive tyre supplier for the next three seasons.
Manufacturers' decline and return of the privateers
In 2008 and 2009, Honda, BMW, and Toyota all withdrew from Formula One racing within a year, blaming the economic recession. This resulted in the end of manufacturer dominance of the sport. The Honda F1 team went through a management buyout to become Brawn GP, with Ross Brawn and Nick Fry owning and running the majority of the organisation. Brawn GP laid off hundreds of employees, but won the year's world championships. BMW F1 was bought out by the founder of the team, Peter Sauber. The Lotus F1 Team was another, formerly manufacturer-owned team that reverted to "privateer" ownership, together with the buy-out of the Renault team by Genii Capital investors. A link with its previous owners, however, still survived, with its car continuing to be powered by a Renault engine until 2018, except for 2015, when Lotus used Mercedes engines.
McLaren also announced that it was to reacquire the shares in its team from Mercedes-Benz. McLaren's partnership with Mercedes was reported to have started to sour after the former was guilty of spying on Ferrari. Hence, during the 2010 season, Mercedes-Benz re-entered the series as a manufacturer after it purchased Brawn GP and split with McLaren after 15 seasons with the team.
During the season, Formula One was gripped by the FIA–FOTA dispute. FIA President Max Mosley proposed numerous cost-cutting measures for the next season, including an optional budget cap for the teams; teams electing to take the budget cap would be granted greater technical freedom, adjustable front and rear wings, and an engine not subject to a rev limiter. announced that "they had no choice" but to form a breakaway championship series. Following further disagreements, after Mosley suggested he would stand for reelection, the FOTA made it clear that breakaway plans were still being pursued. On 8 July, the FOTA issued a press release stating it had been informed it was not entered for the 2010 season, and, as an FIA press release stated, the FOTA representatives had walked out of the meeting. On 1 August, it was announced that the FIA and FOTA had signed a new Concorde Agreement, bringing an end to the crisis and securing the sport's future until 2012.
To compensate for the loss of manufacturer teams, four new teams were accepted into the 2010 season ahead of a much-anticipated "cost-cap". Entrants included a reborn Team Lotus—led by a Malaysian consortium including Tony Fernandes, the boss of Air Asia; Hispania Racing—the first Spanish Formula One team; and Virgin Racing—Richard Branson's entry into the series following a successful partnership with Brawn the year before. They were also joined by the US F1 Team, which planned to operate out of the United States as the only non-European-based team in the sport. Financial issues befell the teams before they even made the grid. Despite the entry of these new teams, the proposed cost-cap was repealed and these teams—which did not have the budgets of the midfield and top-flight teams—ran around at the back of the field until they collapsed: HRT in 2012, Caterham (formerly Lotus) in 2014, and Manor (formerly Virgin, then Marussia), having survived falling into administration in 2014, at the end of 2016.
Hybrid era
A major rule change in saw the 2.4-litre naturally aspirated V8 engines replaced by 1.6-litre turbocharged hybrid power units. This prompted Honda to return to the series in 2015 as the championship's fourth power-unit manufacturer. Mercedes emerged as the dominant force, with Lewis Hamilton winning the championship, closely followed by his main rival and teammate, Nico Rosberg, with the team winning 16 out of the 19 races that season. The team continued this form in the next two seasons, again winning 16 races in before taking a record 19 wins in 2016, with Hamilton claiming the title in the former year and Rosberg winning it in the latter, by five points. The 2016 season also saw a new team, Haas, join the grid, while Max Verstappen became the youngest-ever race winner at age 18 in Spain.
thumb|[[Mercedes-Benz in Formula One|Mercedes won eight consecutive constructors' titles whilst Lewis Hamilton won six drivers' titles during the beginning of the hybrid era.]]
After revised aerodynamic regulations were introduced, the 2017 and 2018 seasons featured a title battle between Mercedes and Ferrari. Mercedes ultimately won the titles with multiple races to spare and continued to dominate until 2020. In 2021, the Honda-powered Red Bull team began to seriously challenge Mercedes, with Verstappen beating Hamilton to the Drivers' Championship after a season-long battle that saw the pair exchange the championship lead multiple times.
This era has seen an increase in car manufacturers' presence in the sport. After Honda's return as an engine manufacturer in 2015, Renault came back as a team in 2016, upon buying back the Lotus F1 Team. In 2018, Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo became Red Bull and Sauber's title sponsors, respectively. Sauber was rebranded as Alfa Romeo Racing for the 2019 season. Racing Point part-owner Lawrence Stroll bought a stake in Aston Martin to rebrand the Racing Point team as Aston Martin for the 2021 season. In August 2020, all ten F1 teams signed a new Concorde Agreement committing them to the sport until 2025, including a $145 million budget cap for car development to support equal competition and sustainable development.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the series to adapt to budgetary and logistical limitations. A significant overhaul of the technical regulations intended to be introduced in the 2021 season was pushed back to 2022, with constructors instead using their 2020 chassis for two seasons, and the introduction of a token system that limited which parts could be modified. The start of the season was delayed by several months, and both it and the seasons were subject to several postponements, cancellations, and rescheduling of races due to shifting restrictions on international travel. Many races took place behind closed doors and with only essential personnel present in order to adhere to rules regarding social distancing.
In 2022, the F1 governing body announced a major rule and car design change intended to promote closer racing through the use of ground effects, new aerodynamics, larger wheels with low-profile tyres, and redesigned nose and wing regulations. Red Bull emerged as the dominant force after the rule shakeup. The 2022 and 2023 Constructors' and Drivers' championships were won by Red Bull and Verstappen, with multiple races to spare.
In early 2024, the Formula One landscape underwent a significant change in the sphere of team sponsorships and collaborations. Having competed for five seasons under the Alfa Romeo name, Sauber introduced a title partnership with the online casino Stake, resulting in the team's new identity as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber. Sauber would hold Stake's sponsorship name until the end of 2025, after which it would become the Audi works team for the 2026 season onwards. Scuderia AlphaTauri, Red Bull's junior team, dropped its name and took on sponsors from Hugo Boss and Cash App, becoming Visa Cash App RB, or VCARB for 2024. Also in 2024, Formula One announced partnerships with Mattel to release Hot Wheels die-cast cars, and with Lego, with the first new sets releasing in 2025. In early 2025, Cadillac received final approval to join the Formula One grid as an 11th team for the 2026 season onward.
Racing
A Formula One Grand Prix event spans a weekend. It typically begins with two free practice sessions on Friday and a third on Saturday. Additional drivers (commonly known as third drivers) are allowed to run on Fridays, but only two cars may be used per team, requiring a race driver to give up their seat. A qualifying session is held after the last free practice session. This session determines the starting order for the race on Sunday.
Tyre rules
thumb|The 2023 Pirelli tyres include (from left to right) the three slick compound tyres: soft, medium, and hard and the two wet-weather tyre compounds: intermediate and full-wet.
Each driver is allotted thirteen sets of dry-weather tyres, three sets of wet-weather tyres, and four sets of intermediate tyres for each race weekend. All unused tyres must be returned.
Qualifying
For much of the sport's history, qualifying sessions differed little from practice sessions; drivers would have one or more sessions to set timed laps, with the grid order determined by each driver's best single lap, the fastest getting the position at the front, referred to as the pole position. From 1996 to 2002, the format was a one-hour shootout. Following this, the rules were changed again because the teams were not running in the early part of the session to take advantage of better track conditions later on.
The current qualifying format, known as "knock-out" qualifying, was introduced in the 2006 season. It is divided into three stages, referred to as Q1, Q2, and Q3. Drivers may complete as many laps as they choose in an attempt to progress to the next stage, with the slowest drivers being eliminated at the end of each round. Any timed lap started before the end of that period may be completed and will count toward that driver's placement. The number of cars eliminated in each session is dependent on the total number of cars entered in the championship.
, with 22 cars on the grid, Q1 runs for 18 minutes and eliminates the slowest six drivers. During this session, any driver whose best lap takes longer than 107% of the fastest time in Q1 will not be allowed to start the race without permission from the stewards. In Q2, the 16 remaining drivers have 15 minutes to set one of the ten fastest times and proceed to the next period. Finally, Q3 lasts 12 minutes and determines the first ten grid positions.
Each car is allocated one set of the softest tyres for use in Q3. The cars that qualify for Q3 must return them after the session; the cars that do not qualify for the round can use them during the race. Any penalties that affect grid position are applied at the end of qualifying.
Sprints
2021 saw the tryout of a "sprint qualifying" race on the Saturday of three race weekends, with the intention of testing a new approach to qualifying. The traditional qualifying would determine the starting order for the sprint, and the result of the sprint would then determine the start order for the Grand Prix. From 2023, sprint races no longer impacted the start order for the main race, which would be determined by traditional qualifying. Sprints would have their own qualifying session, titled the "sprint shootout". Sprint qualifying sessions are much shorter than traditional qualifying runs, and each session requires teams to fit new tyres, mediums for SQ1 and SQ2, and softs for SQ3.
Race
The race begins with a formation lap to allow the drivers to check the condition of their car and the track, and to warm up their tyres to increase traction and grip, after which the cars assemble on the starting grid in the order they qualified.
thumb|[[Jacques Villeneuve qualifying at the 2005 United States Grand Prix in his Sauber C24]]
Once all the cars have lined up on the grid, the medical car positions itself behind the pack. Five red lights are then illuminated above the track at intervals of one second; before being extinguished simultaneously after an unspecified time to signal the start of the race. The start procedure may be aborted in the event of a serious accident, dangerous conditions, or if a driver stalls on the grid or on the track in an unsafe position, signalled by raising their arm. The race may also be started from behind the Safety Car if a racing start is considered excessively dangerous, such as in extremely heavy rainfall. There is no formation lap in such a circumstance.
Throughout the race, drivers may make pit stops to change tyres and repair damage. Three dry tyre compounds, with different durability and adhesion characteristics, are available to drivers. Under wet conditions, drivers may switch to one of two specialised wet-weather tyres with additional grooves. Over the course of a race, drivers must make at least one pit stop and use two different available tyre compounds.
The race finishes when the leader has completed the predetermined number of laps.