Formula 1 For New Fans: The History Of F1 & Everything A New Fan Needs To Know EXPLAINED

The

history

of Formula One goes much deeper than the official start of the championships we

know

and love today to get an idea of ​​what Formula One is, what its route is and it makes more sense to break down the name, but in order to do so, We have to go back in time. Single-seater racing had been taking place throughout the 1900s, and as technology advanced, so did the risks. Elite racing series and events began to emerge as cars became faster and drivers wanted to go faster. One of the original elite races. The series was the European drivers' championship that held its first season in 1931.

The governing body that oversaw some of the most popular racing events began to impose strict regulations on competitive events such as the size of the car's engine power and even the shape of automobiles to ensure safety. racing conditions, but this was also a way to mitigate any unfair advantages being taken by those who could innovate significantly faster than the rest, for example the first European drivers' championship imposed many regulations, such as a minimum car weight of 900 kilograms, these early regulations were in line with what were called Formula Libre regulations and are widely considered the oldest recognized sanctioned

formula

in motorsport and that is where the named

formula

comes from.

There lies the root of the name of the entire series, but just when things were looking up, global motorsports were interrupted by armed conflict, a second world war later and Europe was ready to compete again, but to distinguish the top level formula cars from the rest of the racing events, for me the only regulations were created in 1946 by the official governing body, the FIA ​​and racing. As of that same year, that is not the only set of regulations that were codified. Formula 2 regulations were created by the FIA ​​in 1948 and were limited to two-litre 750cc supercharged engines just a couple of years later and an even smaller engine was officially designated for Formula. three by the FAA with 500 cc engines powering this formula due to the advanced engineering required to compete in the top formula, teams struggled to get a feel for the car in the main category and formula two rules were even used for a couple of seasons in the early days of the championship, this dynamic still exists today, but has morphed into the previous series, which acted as a feeder series where younger drivers can show that they can succeed in Formula One, but by the mid-1950s the championship was more stable and teams began to compete constantly.

In Formula One until the 1950s there was only one championship that recognized the driver who occupied the highest position for each Grand Prix completed. He was awarded a distribution of points that concluded with the coronation of the driver with the most points as Formula One champion. Now that teams could build racing cars that could make it through the season they could field more than one car, which would be necessary until the late 1950s, but the FAA designated a second championship that was technically separate from the drivers' championship and was designed to reward the team. with the most points as the winning team or the winning constructors, thus the Constructors' Championship was born and the inaugural champion was crowned by Vanwall in 1958, so now that we have talked about the

history

of Formula One and how it began, let's move on quickly into modern Formula One. day for me the 1 f1 is big business the FAA is much bigger than just the Formula One World Championship that has always been true and remains true today for example here is a list of other championship events world sanctioned under the umbrella of the FIA ​​and while the FAA is the governing body of f1 and is owned by the Formula One Group recently, in 2016, liberty media bought the majority stake for billions of dollars, so if You hear the name Liberty, they are the American company that actually owns the underlying rights, you can even go and buy. get a share in the Nasdaq under the symbol F walk, as I said, the big businesses along with Formula One in the group's business portfolio are the Atlanta Braves baseball team and Sirius XM.

Often, major changes in sport are a reflection of the broader landscape that is changing. It's all relevant to new

fans

or long-term

fans

who aren't aware of the changing commercial side of F1. If you ever feel like there is an invisible hand, there are names among the media teams, drivers and tech cars for the 2020 season, the grid will be created. of ten teams over the years there has been an ebb and flow in the number of teams on the grid, each team or constructor fields two cars according to the rules, each constructor must produce a chassis of which it owns the intellectual property underlying and develop it themselves just a little.

Sort of an alluding way of saying they built it just as we discuss the history of Formula One and the previous Libre Formula regulations, there are still power limitations, now more than ever many of the technical advances are being monitored and although Of course, we are not. I'm going to go over each of the rules that the FAA has set in full Formula One racing. I'll link them in the description below, feel free to head over to that link, get it, download it, use it throughout the season because these regulations change and they do it. Something that is widely understood but never really mentioned is that some of the best innovations really come from finding loopholes in these regulations that have not yet been covered to put ascetically finding loopholes really is the job of the technical directors of the teams.

F1, a great example. This was either recently developed with Mercedes' dual access steering mechanism or simply because the FIA ​​deemed it would be allowed for this season and the loophole was closed, making dual access steering unavailable beyond 2020, but Let's go back to the chassis, so while each team must produce One of the rules allows each team to purchase an engine. Technically, these are

know

n as power units due to the multiple sources of energy flow that release an incredibly high amount of braking horsepower. Over the years, there have been important changes to the technical rules that range from changing the type of engine used by each team, we are in the last year of what is called the turbo hybrid era and there are many eras that They represent the type of engine that is mainly used and although these names are not technically officially designated, they have just become known as such, this era began in 2014 due to the introduction of the 1.6 liter turbocharged V6, it was accompanied by the fuel recovery system. power or simply ers which supplies additional BPH through electric motors because the internal combustion engine is supplying power to the car along with the supply of ers.

This is why you will hear power units being used instead of engines in terms of power and technology. Let's stop there if you're sitting there thinking, oh, that sounded really confusing. That's because you're not crazy and it's tremendously expensive to be able to successfully develop these power units, it takes experience resources and a lot of cash, but if you do it right, it's precisely the kind of advantage that leads to the teams to master these quotes. eras, if you have ever looked at the record books you will notice that a driver or team goes through periods where they dominate and then sometimes out of nowhere they fall, to put it simply, and this is not always true , but many times In addition, they did not adapt well to the new regulations in the last decade, only two teams, one of the constructors' championships and only three different drivers won the drivers' championship.

Red Bull was Sebastian Vettel, dominated from 2010 to 2013 with his design, then the regulations changed. 2014 and Mercedes unleashed their powerful power unit with an unstoppable overall design with Lewis Hamilton shining for the rest of the decade only to be interrupted by his 2016 teammate Nico Rosberg in the sister car and if you're a new fan, you arrived in the right moment. because we are on the eve of a new era and the next era is meant to bring teams closer together and create more racing opportunities, so there will be a series of regulatory changes starting in 2021 because of

everything

I just described about some teams .

It is impossible for them to be able to develop four years before a change to anticipate what will come in 2020, there are only three constructors on the grid that actually manufacture their own power unit, the rest are clients of these teams, Red Bull and Cystic. They are actually slightly different in that both teams get their engines from Honda, who doesn't actually feel the team, but technically Red Bull in Alpha Tory doesn't occasionally make their own engines and in fact that's how it is in Formula One. On the website itself you will see the teams referenced by their engine and chassis combination nomenclature, so you will note the chassis first with the power unit supplier second, for example Red Bull Racing Honda or racing point bwt Mercedes, while there are naturally advantages to being a team customer purchasing their power unit from a manufacturer, especially on the cost and reliability front, there are major drawbacks and chief among them is the integration of the unit chassis power.

The better you can make these two things work together, the better the aerodynamics of your car will be, making it a powerful team in F1, especially if you want a bigger team that can afford R&D, it would require major innovations and would probably be in the department. aerodynamic. If you're a team that gets your power from somewhere else, you have to adapt engine style, size, weight distribution, etc. all on top. of a chassis you're building specifically for your car and your aerodynamics clients' teams certainly get the same engine as your manufacturer and partner, but that doesn't mean the same power.

Red Bull, for example, is known for a strong chassis, so despite being powered by Renault in 2018, they had an advantage over the works team, but you won't actually see Haas beating Ferrari any time soon; on the contrary, this played out very famously and publicly with McLaren when they had Honda during the Alonso days. McLaren They wanted to run what they were a size zero concept but since they weren't actually making their own power unit they had to work with whatever Honda gave them and yes they would work closely with Honda but that's still not the case. same, imagine how much.

It would have been easier if McLaren had simply built the exact power unit to suit their own concepts. That's a lot easier said than done, as we've discussed as the rules move towards quote-unquote limiting total power and we spend a lot more on standardizing F1 cars. While power units will never truly be standardized, the vast majority of exploitable loopholes will be closed and innovations will bring power units closer together, so it's reasonable to think that a fairly standard power unit is on the horizon due to to this dynamic. I often see teams refer to them as one of the next top three, as of now it's Ferrari, Mercedes and Redbull.

They are their best teams, in quotes, a midfield team or the best of the rest or the former 1.5. These are the teams outside the top three. teams that support Ferrari Mercedes on Redbull, so when you hear a driver or team referred to as getting the best of the rest, it really means that they got fourth place if it's a team or seventh if it's a driver and The bottom level markers now this can change depending on the race and how they run, but it's usually pretty obvious who the lower levels are. The technical term, the markers behind represent those who are being overtaken by the leaders, who they are overtaking; essentially, there are flags that can be shown to those.

The drivers basically ask them, "Hey, can you please step aside and let the leaders pass if you're preventing any action at the top?" and this is the blue flag. A little biased here, but I personally don't like the blue flag, but I understand why it's there. and some people do, one of the main reasons it is there is also to make sure that there is no fixing in other races, that no one works together to stop another driver, because F1 really is a ruthless and ruthless sport. , and not only with the other competitors. your teammates is especially ruthless towards your teammates and while it is quite intuitive, as in any other sport, teammates should worktogether, they would be friendly, but that's where for me, what deviates from normal sport, Formula One is unique in that area and that your teammate is actually your fiercest rival on the track because each of the teams It has drivers and there are so many different types of cars with different types of parts, upgrades, different degrees of power packages, etc., that it's hard to compare apples to apples, the only true way to do it.

The driver can test his pace with the technology provided to him, simply look at his teammate, he has the exact same car, if he consistently loses to his teammate by more than a few cents off a lap in the classification pace. Well, then that's one of the only important and reasonable objective measures by which your value as a driver is determined, but don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of teammates who get along, just because someone is your fiercest rival doesn't mean that has to become unpleasant. but it's often like this: he mainly rears his head with the three best teams;

However, he is not commonly known because no top driver on one of those top three teams wants to be referred to as a second driver as he moves through the midfield. that battle for supremacy could turn into something good, it could be something that boosts performance as long as they don't make contact and ruin the team's chances of winning points and that's the big takeaway here, the confusing thing that no one really says in loudly that there is only one winning strategy per team. Both cars cannot win, so the best teams have to choose the driver in the most favorable position to win or whatever maximizes points for the team.

Talk about tires. There are a litany of other technical factors that affect the outcome. race car but none more so than tires when it comes to things a team has control over and can strategically adjust. Don't get me wrong, there are many other nuances that have a significant impact on the race, but this is a good starting point for me, the tiger makers of history. have changed and the rules surrounding them currently Pirelli is the only tire manufacturer registered for the entire grid, there was an informative moment although when there was more than one tire manufacturer on the grid it led to a very strange and controversial start with six cars at the 2005 US Grand Prix.

I actually made a video about this so you can find that in the top right corner, right at the top, a little I with a circle around it, you can click on it, copy it , open a new tab, whatever you want. do it, but let's get back to the tires, the 2020 Pirelli compounds come in the form of five different compounds in three different colors, so let's pay attention, here you have c1, which is the hardest compound, c2, the second hardest compound, c3, the most medium compound, look at the second. softest compound in c5 the softest compound each compound produces a different level of performance the simplest way to put it this is the heart of the compound the slower the pace thanks to the grip or lack thereof in this case of the c1 tire , but with that comes durability, so while harder compounds are slower because they can't grip the track and improve cornering speed as much as, say, a c5 compound, this lack of grip is also directly responsible for what is typically called tire degradation or more simply known as platform grade.

Each team receives exactly the same tires in terms of performance, meaning Mercedes does not have any better tires than Williams in any way, how it works, Pirelli will choose a range of compounds that each of the teams can use. The range will cover three of the compound grades, for example the 2019 Russian Grand Prix, but c2, c3 and c4 compounds were rarely nominated, but at the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix they chose c3, c4 and c5, the Compounds are always in succession, so, hey, yeah, you'll be paying. Heads up because it's about to get a little confusing, make sure you stay tuned, this is where the colors start to come into play so I've just described all the compounds and in an effort to keep things simple while watching the race Pirelli has has stagnated. to three different compound colors, the softest compound in that specific Grand Prix is ​​labeled as the red compound, the medium is the yellow compound and the hardest compound available in that Grand Prix is ​​the white tips, but the tire colors in They do not represent grades of compounds directly, this is actually only slightly changing for medium compounds, for example, let's use the exact same example we used above.

Here are the grades of the compounds, but now we have added the respective colors that are appropriate so that when you look you know if it is hard, soft or medium. notice how in the example you see here Monaco has a c3 tire that was hard grade with white tip, but in Russia the c3 is medium yellow. These different changes in the tire allocation on the circuits are called steps. Pirelli has a very rigorous standard for deciding which circuits. Knowing which compounds and whether they should take a step forward from the previous year, the ultimate goal of Pirelli f1 boss Mario Isola is to create interesting race possibilities with tire compounds while maximizing a stable race for the teams. , this provides teams that do not always have the car to win to be able to make a strategic decision that may be more advantageous for them.

Some of the main ingredients for Pirelli to decide the assignment comes down to the characteristics of the track, their five usually published in their Grand Prix preview, they rate each of these characteristics with a rating of one to five tire tension lateral load road grip road abrasion and downforce this is a very important and often overlooked part of F1 racing and to enjoy it, so if you are interested in the kind of technical guidelines of the track, what to do Wait, go to the description, click on the link that talks about the progress of the race and tell me where to send them and I will send you all the previews I make before the Grand Prix weekend begins.

The team will bring with them a set of tires. To match your potential strategy, these tires have to go all weekend through the test rounds of the race itself, which we'll get to in a second. Pirelli will typically nominate tires well in advance so teams can prepare their strategies. We've talked a lot about the car and the teams and even the race weekend, so let's talk about the race itself, but for me, the Grand Prix takes place over the course of a weekend, there is three practice sessions in one qualifying session, the events are spread over a weekend, for example one is earlier on a Friday, FB two is later on a Friday, Saturday has two sessions. a practice session and the important qualifying session, while Sunday is the official day of the Grand Prix and it is almost always a Sunday afternoon, that is the general scheme.

Now, of course, there are a couple of exceptions to this and the most important one is the Monaco Grand Prix. fp1 and fp2 on Thursday and resumes again on Saturday as usual and over the years f1 has adopted some night racing so with those sessions there will be evening events to reflect the actual Grand Prix. These races include Bahrain, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, let's talk. a little more about the practice sessions, as we will go into as much detail for free practice sessions 1 and 2 of the Grand Prix weekend, both lasting 90 minutes each, only in the first free practice session a test driver may be allowed to enter the track.

To test the car, the third free practice session lasts 60 minutes and is only a couple of hours away from the actual qualifying session, between the Friday session and the Saturday session, the teams can work on the car, but until certain point after that. They are called after hours and the team will be penalized for that. These free practice sessions don't really count for anything in terms of the actual race, but it is a very good time to see how the cars handle what the driver is looking for most. come, etc. Much of the first practice session is used for the drivers to react limited to the circuit.

This is actually the first time any of the drivers have been to that track, but it's good to pretend that the second free practice session may reveal it. a lot about the upcoming race, this is where the teams will run the most important race simulations as well as the qualifying simulations, so if you were looking to watch one of the practice sessions to get a real idea of ​​who will win the race, Probably the best session to watch is FP2. That Friday session we move into Saturday and after the 60 minutes of FP3 is over, there's about a two-hour break where the cars will turn around and race their cars in the qualifying session.

This session absolutely counts and is one of the most exciting parts of the entire Quantum Prize weekend - the qualifying session itself is spread across three sessions that eliminate the slower drivers as they progress within these sessions. Teams can run as many laps as they want, but they must make sure they do so. Get the fastest time before the checkered flag falls. You will notice that many of the teams will wait until the end of the sessions to run their times due to what is called track evolution. You will also hear the term rubber or simply rubber ten. after the cars have accelerated on the racing line this increases grip for the following cars, the difference is in the times of the cars that actually run first before the rubber again and the cars that start last after the evolution of the track and the bow on these can be quite substantial at times if you don't have a shot at pole, it's risky during practice and qualifying sessions, you'll notice there are mini cars on the track all at once, the longer it takes You wait, you increase your wrist more than your turn. could be impeded by another driver could be eliminated a clean race simply may not be possible at all people have to move out of the way the cars don't return to the pits once they do their laps the tires have to cool down a car and while other cars are going around, they have their own programs to run, so maybe they are just now gaining speed, most drivers do a good job of staying off the racing line and out of the way. and if they don't, they are usually penalized, but it is not always a guarantee, even if they are penalized, you are still the one left out.

Now let's talk about the details related to the classification because, again, the most exciting thing. This part is also one of the most confusing. The three sessions are called qualification one, qualification two and qualification three and you will definitely only hear them referred to as q1, q2 and q3, naturally q1 is the first qualifying session and lasts approximately 18 minutes out of 20. To the drivers They are allowed to enter the qualifying stage and each driver has a fair chance to come out on top, barring grid penalties. Q2 is next, so after those 18 minutes of Q1, the 5 slowest cars are eliminated and line up at the back. of the grid in its relative order position 20 or more simply P 20 is further back with the cars staggered closer to the control line as their qualifying times improve overall the second qualifying session lasts 15 minutes after that , the 5 slowest cars are eliminated again now we are left with 10 cars in a session.

Another very important thing to keep in mind here is that if you reach the q3 session, that is, if you are p10 or better, you must start the race with the tires that allowed you to enter this session. That really starts to matter, especially if you are someone like P11 or P12, you can choose tires, you have a very strategic advantage over someone who is in P10 or P9 if they are stuck in a strategy that they don't really know. I want to be, so with just those 10 cars left there are 12 minutes behind on the clock for Q3.

It is typical for this session to be divided into two, although this is not really official. This happens for several reasons, but it is the easiest way. To think about it is the evolution of the track, the track gets faster the longer you wait, it's that simple after everyone's last attempt at the checkered flag is eliminated, whoever has the fastest time, whether provisional or simply whoever set it there at the end of the session. are on post p1, the next locations are staggered in front of each other, so if you are on p1 to the right, p2 is to the left a little back, p3 is staggered back from there and so on until B 20 . is placed after the session ends the teams terminatethe day and the drivers show up the next day for the actual race we have done all that we have not even run yet the number of laps must exceed 305 km/h many laps are needed to satisfy that, depending on where the race is, which becomes the set number of laps, the exception again here is the Monaco Grand Prix, the race must also last no more than two hours, barring significant and prolonged red flags, as mentioned, the Grand Prix has held the Most.

On Sunday afternoons, unless it's one of the specific night races on the grid, throughout the race there are a number of rules that will be important to help you understand and enjoy a pond race, but we're not really going to go into on that part, but if you want, be sure to request it in the comments section below and download the FIA ​​document outlining the sporting regulations, but for the most part, once the lights go out, they're just racing, That's something we all know, no matter who wins. wins, but let's talk about points now, over time there have been some pretty substantial changes to the points system, but at the moment only the top ten drivers actually get points and contribute to the championship tallies since 2010, the breakdown is as follows: You can see here that it becomes really difficult after saying p5 to start building up any kind of real gap between you and the closest competitor and this is exactly why best of the rest is such an important designation in Formula One, even if it is informal, these points accumulate in each one.

The Grand Prix goes towards the total number of drivers for the drivers' championship. They also combine with their teammates to form an aggregate total. This team total forms the basis for the Constructors' Championship. Once the race is completed, the top three drivers will have an awards ceremony at the event itself - that's where they participate and the famous champagne spray - the logistics of what happened next in Formula One could be a video on its own, but Teams have to pack up immediately after the race and ship

everything

to the next destination. Congratulations. If you learned the basics of Formula One again, I repeat the basics, there are a lot of things I didn't cover, but if you go to watch this video, take notes, understand everything, you will be able to survive and thrive in a Grand Formula One weekend. of awards, but let's stay firm, there are endless and many things that I am still learning.

Everyone keeps learning. A lot of people always ask me how I can learn more, but first, to delve into F1, you really have to understand. Whatever attracts you to F1, your main concern as a priority should be to fall deeper in love with the sport. I'll leave a link below also to the F1 news and F1 articles I do on the website so you can make sure you check them out if that's something you like, it will increase significantly by the time Melbourne is here. That being said, I really appreciate your time being here, thanks for checking this out and I'll be making more videos soon so please subscribe. if you like f1 news and see you very very soon