Italian Giuseppe Farina, who narrowly edged out his Argentine teammate Juan Manuel Fangio, prevailed in the inaugural Formula One World Championship race, which was held at Silverstone Raceway in Britain in 1950. However, Fangio won the championship five times over the next ten years, earning him the title of “grand master” of Formula One among many fans of motor sports.
The majority of the Formula One teams during this initial phase were owned and operated by automakers, including Ferrari and Mercedes Benz. The sport of Formula One, however, underwent a significant transformation over the following 20 years with the introduction of not only technological breakthroughs like fuel injection and aluminum chassis, but also instances of sponsorship in the sport, the first of which was when Lotus painted Imperial Tobacco livery on their cars in 1968. Lotus was also the first team to use ground effect aerodynamics, which helped the cars increase their cornering speeds by producing a lot of down force.
When a man by the name of Bernie Ecclestone reorganized the way Formula One’s commercial rights were managed in the 1970s, significant business decisions were made. Following his acquisition of the Brabham team in 1971, Ecclestone was given a seat on the Formula One Constructors Association. In 1978, he was elected association president.
When circuit owners used to negotiate with the teams individually and manage the teams’ income, Ecclestone started offering Formula One to them as a package they could either take or leave. In exchange for this package, nearly all circuit owners had to give up trackside advertising, which marked the beginning of the Formula One sponsorship boom. Tobacco companies, auto finance and consumer finance firms, and oil companies, among many other large corporate sponsors, have all spent millions of pounds to have their names and logos on the cars and next to the racetrack.
The development of turbocharged engines, which were later outlawed, was one of many technological developments that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Electronic driver aids, which began with the first active suspension system used by Lotus in 1982 and progressed to semi-automatic gearboxes and traction control, were arguably one of the more important developments. Despite complaints that new technologies were influencing race results more than the drivers’ skill, attempts to outlaw the new electronic aids failed because it was found that they were difficult to enforce.
With the rivalry between F1 legends Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost grabbing fans’ attention all over the world until Prost’s retirement in 1993, the teams of McLaren and Williams dominated throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. Senna’s passing during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix prompted Formula One officials to examine driver safety standards more closely, which has prevented any additional driver fatalities in the sport since that time.
The beginning of the new millennium marked a new beginning for Formula One as Michael Schumacher, a talented German driver, started to dominate the sport. He eventually won an unprecedented five consecutive driver championships, and his team, Ferrari, won six constructors championships. Racing authorities changed the rules regarding the qualifying format for races, the points scoring system, and other things during this time. These adjustments were made to improve safety and stop Formula One’s skyrocketing costs.
Nevertheless, despite unsettlingly low viewership for racing seasons in the early 2000s, the future of the sport appears promising thanks to Bernie Ecclestone, who has organized a number of races in new nations, expanded Formula One into new regions of the world, and attracted new teams and drivers who are eager to compete with the sport’s established heavyweights.
