History of Formula One

The history of Formula One necessarily parallels the history of its technical regulations; see Formula One regulations for a summary of the technical rule changes.

Formative years

In 1950, as an answer to the Motorcycle World Championships introduced in 1949, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) organized the first ever official World Championship for Drivers using the Formula One rules as laid out after the war. These regulations called for the use of 4.5 litre atmospheric engines or 1.5 litre supercharged engines. The organization of the championship (to be held across the five 'major' Grands Prix of Europe, excluding the German round, plus the Indianapolis 500), held in America, was a mere formalization of what had already been developing in Grand Prix racing during the previous years. It was the Italian teams of Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, and Maserati which were best positioned to dominate the initial years of the championship, though other national manufacturers attempted to participate as well - such as the French maker Talbot or the British effort BRM. A number of private cars would also participate in local races. In 1950 it was Alfa Romeo who would dominate, with Giuseppe Farina becoming the first ever World Driving Champion in that year with its 1.5 litre supercharged Alfetta 158. Alfa dominance continued into 1951, when the great Juan-Manuel Fangio claimed the first of his five championship titles. However, Alfa Romeo faced strong opposition from 4.5 litre normally aspirated Ferraris towards the end of 1951, and decided to withdraw.

Considering the rising costs and the absence of serious competitors against the Ferraris, the FIA decided that for the next two seasons the World Driving Championship would be contested using the 2 litre engine Formula Two cars. Unfortunately, Italian dominance was only increased with the revolutionary 500s of Enzo Ferrari's marque, bringing Italian legend Alberto Ascari his two championships in 1952 and 1953.

Come 1954 the WDC returned to Formula One rules with new regulations calling for the use of a 2.5 litre engine. This brought an end to the Italian domination of the sport, but rather than bringing increased competition to the races, this merely allowed the Silver Arrows of Mercedes to make their triumphant return to the sport it had dominated in the 1930s. Featuring desmodromic valves, fuel injection, all-enclosing 'Stromlinien' bodywork and adjustable chassis which could vary by up to 200 mm in wheelbase, the Mercedes cars at the hands of Fangio swept the next two seasons - winning all but two of the races. However, at the end of 1955 Mercedes vanished,as swiftly as they had come, retiring from motor racing for the next thirty years after a disastrous accident at Le Mans - allowing Ferrari and Maserati to return the podium to its accustomed shades of Italian red.

But at the end of 1958 the colors on the final podium had changed. While a Ferrari driver once again held the title of World Driver's Champion, it was Englishman Mike Hawthorn who was the title holder - the first Englishman to ever do so. Meanwhile, the Vanwall team of Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks had captured the first ever World Championship for Constructors. While far quicker than their Italian counterparts, the Vanwalls all too often took points from one another, allowing Hawthorn to win by a single point.

The rear-engine revolution

1958 was a watershed in another crucial way for Formula One. Stirling Moss won the Argentina GP driving a a rear-engined Cooper entered by the private team of Rob Walker. This was the first victory of a rear-engined (actually mid-engined) car in Formula One. The next GP in Monaco was also won by a Cooper driven by Maurice Trintignant. Powered by Coventry-Climax Straight-4s of less than 2.5 L, the Coopers were outsiders since 1955; but as soon as the engine capacity was incresead to 2.5 L, the Coopers would go on to dominate Formula One for three years. While their fellow British teams of Lotus and BRM also switched to rear-engined machines, Enzo Ferrari still believed that the horses pull the car rather than push it. Australian Jack Brabham claimed the first two of his three titles in the little British cars, the last two championships held with the 2.5 L formula.

In 1961, in an attempt to curb speeds, Formula One was downgraded to 1.5 L, non-supercharged engines - a formula which would remain for the next five years. Ferrari could use its V6 powered mid-engined Formula 2 cars, which lead to their dominance the 1961 season as the British teams scrambled to come up with a suitable engine. With the advent Coventry-Climax V8 engine, the era of the Lotus and of Jim Clark began. Clark won two titles in five years (in 1963 and 1965), and in other years it was only the Lotus' habitual teething troubles that allowed Phil Hill, Graham Hill (no relation) and John Surtees to claim titles for Ferrari, BRM and Ferrari, respectively. Surtees' title was especially notable, as he became (and remains) the only driver ever to win the World Championship for both cars and motorcycles. Porsche won a race in 1962, but eventually pulled out due to the high costs.

1966 saw the return to power as Formula One re-expanded, allowing engines of 3.0 L normally aspirated, or 1.5 L turbocharged capacity. 1966 was a transitional years for most teams. While Ferrari and BRM struggled with their new engines - and Lotus struggled just to FIND a reliable powerplant - the big winner was Jack Brabham, whose new, self-named racing team took victory two years in a row. 1966 was Jack's year, while 1967 went to his teammate, New Zealander Denny Hulme, as Jack tried new parts on his car.

Leaf and wing

Although they failed to win the title in 1967, the Lotus team of Jim Clark and Graham Hill gave notice that year that they were once again the dominant force they had been in 1965. The were the first team to use the mighty Ford-Cosworth DFV (Double Four-Valve) engine which was to dominate Formula One for the next decade. Although Hulme had won the World Driver's Crown on reliability, the speed of the Lotus 49 was unmistakable, and the season-opening 1968 Grand Prix of South Africa confirmed this, with the Lotus duo finishing a strong 1-2.

But in the next few months came three revolutions that changed Formula One drastically. The first came in April of that year, when Lotus's Formula Two team appeared at a race in Barcelona in the Red, Gold and White colors of Imperial Tobacco. Similar to the USA, Sponsorship had arrived in European racing, too. The second revolution happened the next weekend, when Jim Clark was killed in Hockenheim, costing racing it's most gifted driver. Third appeared at the Grand Prix of Monaco at the end of May: aerodynamic wings, as seen previously on Sportscars, appeared on Graham Hill's Lotus 49B Formula One car for the first time.

Despite the death of the lead driver, Lotus won both titles in 1968, but 1969 saw a new force appear on the scene, in the form of Ken Tyrrell and Scotsman Jackie Stewart. The car, built by french aeronautic company Matra and entered by Tyrrell, won the titles in 1969. For 1970, Matra insisted on using their own V12 rather than the Ford V8, so Tyrrell bought March 701 chassis before developing its own cars. The new wedge shaped Lotus 72 had teething problems and Jochen Rindt was killed in Monza when the brake shaft broke. He took the title posthumously for Lotus in 1970 anyway. Using their own machines, Tyrrell and Stewart repeated their success in 1971. After the death of Rindt, Lotus struggled and experimented with a turbine powered car. Focussing again on the 72, Lotus and Emerson Fittipaldi took the championships in 1972 while Stewart suffered form an ulcer due to a busy schedule on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1973, Lotus teammates Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson raced each other while Stewart was supported by François Cévert at Tyrrell. While Lotus took the Constructor's title, Steward took the Driver's title - and a fatal crash took Ceverts life.

By this time, Formula One cars bore little visual resemblance to those of 1966. Bodywork was sculpted into wedge shapes (pioneered by Lotus), wings of wildly varying shapes sprouted off the nose and tails of the vehicles, and gigantic airboxes towered over driver's heads. Even the number of wheels was variable, Tyrrell introducing the 6-wheeled P34 in 1976. Internally, revolution was happening as well. Stressed-member construction (where the engine functions as a part of the chassis), pioneered by Lotus in 1967, was now the norm. But the biggest mechanical change came in 1974 and 1975, when the Ferrari 312B3 and 312T appeared, the latter with a transverse gearbox allowing better weight distribution on the rear axle. These red cars, with Austrian Niki Lauda at the wheel, won the Constructors titles in 1975, 1976, and 1977, dicing with the McLaren M23's of Fittipaldi and James Hunt, the Driver's champions of 1974 and 1976.

Turbo vs. ground effects

1977, though, saw the start of one of the most troublesome times in Formula One history. It began with two teams - the long-established Lotus team and the newcomer Renault of France.

Renault was the first to reveal their idea of the revolution, when their RS01 made its first appearance, powered by a 1.5 L turbocharged engine. Although supercharged engines were successfull in past decades and the provision for turbocharged engines had existed for 11 years, no F1 team had ever attempted to build a racing engine to take advantage of the superior power, feeling that the turbo's increased fuel usage and 'turbo lag' would negate any power advantage. Renault, however, took their Le Mans winning engine to GP racing, despite frequent breakdowns that resulted in the nickname of the 'Little Yellow Teapot', persisted with the engine, finally seeing good results in 1979.

Meanwhile, however, Lotus had been having much more success with its Lotus 78 and 79, which brought ground effects to Formula One for the first time. Giving radically increased downforce with radically less drag, the Lotus cars were fast, but unreliable in 1977. But the evidence when drivers Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson was clear, and for 1978 many other teams were also experimenting with ground effects. But the extra year for Lotus paid off, as their new Lotus 79 gave Andretti his Championship, making him the first ever driver to win both the American IndyCar championship and the Formula One title.

The work of Renault and Lotus started the greatest, and most bitter battle in Formula One history. Turbo engines were expensive and complex machines, difficult to develop and build, and so it was mostly manufacturer-supported teams, such as Renault, Ferrari, the reborn Alfa Romeo and the like which took that route. In contrast, ground effects were relatively cheap, and could be well-suited to the narrow (and VERY cheap) Ford-Cosworth engine, still used by teams like Lotus, McLaren, and Williams. These two groups were represented by two political bodies, FISA, headed by Jean-Marie Balestre, and FOCA, headed up by Bernie Ecclestone.

The battles between FISA and FOCA for the first years of the 1980's overshadowed the events on track. Jody Scheckter took Ferrari's last title for 21 years in 1979, but attention there was already being focused on young Canadian Gilles Villeneuve. Alan Jones and Keke Rosberg brought success to Frank Williams at last in 1980 and 1982, while young Brazilian Nelson Piquet strengthened the hand of Brabham team owner Ecclestone in 1981 and 1983.

Ironically, the 1983 title, won for the champion of the privateer's rights, 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. By 1984, only Tyrrell still struggled on with the old DFV engines.

What finally helped to resolve the dispute was safety. 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. By 1986, some engines were producing over 1000 bhp (750 kW) in short bursts, which has never been topped apart from the Porsche 917/30 turbo of the early 1970s CanAm races. To go with this, to gain maximum effect from ground effects, drivers simply could not slow down. This had the tendency to produce spectacular accidents, and brought an unacceptably high rate of fatalities and serious injuries, mostly badly broken legs due to the seat position which was moved forward to place the fuel tank between driver and engine. Patrick Depailler was killed in 1980, probably due to the high lateral acceleration causing a black out in Hockenheim's fast Ostkurve. The double blow struck to Ferrari in 1982, of the death of Gilles Villeneuve and the crippling injury to teammate Didier Pironi only a few weeks later, helped bring this crisis into the spotlight, and helped both sides settle the dispute for the good of the sport.

Ironically, despite all of the controversy swirling around the privateers, this period in Formula One provided some of the most colorful and competitive grids ever found in the sport. Because of the cheapness of the Ford-Cosworth DFV, many private entrants were encouraged to buy or build their own cars to run in the seasons, with varying degrees of success. While names like Ensign, Penske, and Theodore came and went without much of an impression, other teams, such as Hesketh, Shadow, Wolf, or Arrows enjoyed more success, and even challenged the established giants of the sport from time to time.

A second golden age

With controversy at last left behind them, the Formula One teams flourished through the remainder of the 1980's and into the 1990's. Perhaps ironically, despite the overwhelming dominance of two teams, McLaren and Williams, this period is regarded as one of the brightest spots in F1's 50 year history.

It was, as stated, the era of McLaren and of Williams. Niki Lauda, coming out of retirement for a heft sum in 1982, pipped his promising young 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 was controvesial, coming at the rain shortened Grand Prix of Monaco, which resulted in half points, too. Prost won that race, but rookie Ayrton Senna made the stronger impression in his Toleman car, finishing 2nd and rapidly closing on Prost (while the young German Stefan Bellof in the inferior non-turbocharged Tyrrell raced from the end of the field to 3rd and might even have taken the win). It was the start of a rivalry between the two men that would continue for nearly a decade. But in the early years, Prost held the advantage, driving for the McLaren team with the Porsche-built TAG turbo engine which took 3 world titles in a row.

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 Constructor's Championship that year, it wasn't until the season-ending Grand Prix of Australia that the Driver's title was decided, Prost taking an extremely lucky 2nd title, when both Williams drivers suffered tire problems. 1987 saw the Williams grow only stronger, with Piquet driving more consistant races to take his 3rd title ahead of Mansell.

1987 also saw the return of atmospheric engines to Formula One, after the turbo-only year of 1986. Capacity was increased to 3.5 L, 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, Williams winning easily in 1987, and McLaren returning to form in 1988 with the super-team of Prost and Senna winning 15 of 16 races, a record unmatched today. It was Senna who emerged the victor, claiming the first of his 3 World Titles.

In 1989, turbos disappeared, but McLaren dominance continued unabated for the next 3 years, Prost winning the title in 1989, Senna in 1990 and 1991. The championship was marred however by the fierce rivalry between the two men, culminating in a pair of clashes at the Japanese Grands Prix of 1989 and 1990. Senna even admitted later to deliberately crashing Prost in the second clash, drawing stiff condemnation from all quarters of Formula One. Senna, however, was more concerned with the threat (and opportunity) afforded by the resurgant Willams team, now powered by Renault engines, which were to dominate Formula One for the next 7 years.

It was more than Renault engines, however, which allowed Williams and later Benetton to dominate Formula One from 1992 to 1997. Technology, always crucial to performance in this sport, took off at an exponential rate. Semi-automatic gearboxes (pioneered by Ferrari in 1990), active suspension (Lotus in 1987) and traction control (Williams) all enabled cars to reach higher and higher speeds, provided the teams were willing to spend the money. FIA scrambled, mostly in vain, to police and regulate the use of electronic driver aids. But even this controversy didn't diminsh the pleasure British fans of the sport felt in 1992, when Nigel Mansell finally won the title, after a decade of trying, nor French fans in 1993 when Alain Prost took his 4th Championship, both drivers piloting Williams cars.

1994 then, seemed ripe to produce a stunning season. Ayrton Senna had moved to Williams to replace Prost, who retired from the sport. Young German driver Michael Schumacher had Ford power for his Benetton. McLaren had high hopes for it's new Peugeot engine, and Ferrari were looking to erase the dismal memories of the last 3 years with Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi. The season was stunning, but for all the wrong reasons.

Adjustment to devastation

When Formula One began it's 45th season in 1994, it had been almost a decade since the last fatality in the sport, Elio de Angelis in 1986. Those 8 years had seen a number of horrific accidents, such as those to Piquet and Berger at Imola, or to Martin Donnelly in Spain, but no driver had lost their lives as a result, and few even had been seriously injured. This had led to a sense of invincibility in the sport, that the cars would protect their pilots through any trouble.

The Grand Prix of Imola shattered that belief in only 3 days. Rubens Barrichello was injured in a spectacular crash on Friday, rookie driver Roland Ratzenberger died on Saturday, and Ayrton Senna was killed while leading the race on Sunday, May 1st. The shock was incredible, and was only magnified when Karl Wendlinger was left comatose after a 4th horrific crash, 2 week later at Monaco.

Immediately, Formula One went into a panic as they tried to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Regulations were immediately introduced to limit the speed and power of the cars, engine sizes being reduced from 3.5 L to 3.0 L from 1995. Aerodynamic effects were to be limited, by regulating the height of the cars above the road, the size of the wings, and, from 1998 reductions in the width of the cars, as well as the introduction of grooved tires. In addition to all of this, crash standards were greatly increased, and more and more protection was mandated around the driver's head.

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 Driver's Championship, as his Benetton team found itself in frequent violations of FIA's regulations, and Michael was suspended for several races as a result. Even his championship-clinching race in Australia was controversial, as he clashed with rival Damon Hill, son of Graham Hill, and ensured himself of the title. Although even Damon would later call the accident a 'racing incident' it would come back to haunt Schumacher later.

By 1995, however, things had settled down somewhat, and Schumacher was able to take his 2nd Driver's title, and Benetton their first Constructor's title with relative ease, defeating the Williams team of Hill and David Coulthard. The Renault engine which powered the two teams was virtually unbeatable, with only Ferrari claiming a single win in Canada for Alesi, the only win of his career. Alesi, and teammate Berger would make news one more time that season however...they were essentially traded to Benetton for Schumacher! Promising young Irish driver Eddie Irvine also moved to Ferrari from Jordan, and Ferrari began their master plan to reclaim the titles lost almost two decades earlier.

But while Renault was still in the game, that looked unlikely. In 1996, Damon Hill made a strong run to the title, finally claiming the crown after 3 years of almost but not quite. 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 titles, (the others being Andretti, Fittipaldi, and Mansell). This season was much closer than 1996 had been though, and Villeneuve only took the title at the final race. Once again, Michael Schumacher had clashed with his championship rival, but unlike Australia in 1994, the results were not good for the Ferrari driver. Schumacher not only found himself knocked out of the race, but was found to have deliberately tried to ram Villeneuve off of the road. Schumacher was stripped of all of his points (though not the wins he picked up during the season), and was disgraced.

The glimmer of hope for Ferrari still remained, however, as Renault decided to withdraw from Formula One at the end of 1997. It was not Ferrari, however, who took advantage of the opening, but McLaren-Mercedes who would take the Driver's Crown for the next two years, both being claimed by Mika Häkkinen. In 1998 the Finn was nearly untouchable as he took his first title while Schumacher and Villeneuve could only watch (Schumacher putting up an admirable, but futile fight). 1999 provided a stiffer fight for the title, with Häkkinen and Ferrari's Irvine fighting to the final race of the season for the right to claim the title. Villeneuve was out of the picture at the brand-new BAR team, while Schumacher's broken leg halfway through the season took him right out of the title hunt. However, although Irvine failed to capture the Driver's title for Ferrari, his, Schumacher's, and replacement driver Mika Salo's efforts gathered Ferrari their first Constructor's championship since 1979.

Behind the title races, however, there were signs of trouble brewing in Formula One. Long-established, highly respected names like Brabham and Lotus vanished from the starting grids. French powerhouse Ligier found themselves in desperate straights, and were sold to Alain Prost. Ken Tyrrell's team foundered on, despite dismal results, until 1998, when they too vanished. And the colorful era of the small, private teams was at last, finally at an end. Names like Larrousse, Dallara, Simtek, Pacific, and Forti would no longer be seen on the starting grids, with only Jordan, Sauber, and of course Minardi managing to survive somehow. The flourishing of Jordan in 1998 and 1999, under the leadership of Damon Hill, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and Ralf Schumacher (Michael's brother) proved to be a last hurrah of the privateer, not a sign of health in the sport. Even once mighty Benetton, champions only a few years earlier, were barely surviving.

Red sea returns

When Michael Schumacher was brought to Ferrari by Jean Todt in 1996, it was to rebuild the team. Several arduous years of nearly-there followed, but the 1999 season was where it all started. Schumacher was winning the world championship when he broke his leg at Silverstone. However, his team mate Eddie Irvine was able to fight for the championship, losing by only two points to Mika Häkkinen.

The glimmer of hope for the passionate fans of the team that came from this however, was that Ferrari won the constructors championship. This has carried on for the past four years.

2000 saw the grids of Formula One start to revert to normal, as Jordan rapidly faded backwards out of sight, and Williams, looking forward to a new partnership with BMW started to reassert itself. The fight at the front, however, was very much between Häkkinen and Schumacher, each driver a 2 time champion, driving cars that were very nearly matched in performance. This time, however, it was Schumacher who prevailed, becoming the first 3 time Champion since Senna, and bringing the World Driver's title to Ferrari for the first time since Jody Schekter in 1979.

2001

The 2001 season saw Ferrari start to leave the rest of the grid behind, and Schumacher won the championship by the Hungarian Grand Prix, which made him joint second quickest championship winner with Nigel Mansell.

2002

For 2002, the season was a red-wash. Ferrari finished every race, and won 16 out of 17. Michael Schumacher scored more points than everyone else on the grid together. In this season, he wrapped up the championship at the French grand prix, becoming the quickest person ever to secure a championship.

2003

Despite heavy rule changes in order to prevent what had happened in 2002 from happening again, Schumacher won the championship once more, this time suffering from the new rules. He was run close by both Kimi Räikkönen and Juan Pablo Montoya, but Schumacher prevailed, taking the championship by one point at Suzuka.

2004

In 2004 Ferrari and Schumacher returned to almost total dominance of both championships, with Schumacher winning ten out of the first eleven races. A new race in Bahrain made its debut in April and another new race in China will debut 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 eighteen. According to Ecclestone, the move was to increase Formula One's global reach, though the steady tightening of restrictions on tobacco advertising in Europe and elsewhere may also have been a factor.

2003 rule changes

To make the sport more balanced among teams, substantial rule changes have been introduced for the 2003 season. Most driving aids have been banned and more will be disallowed during the season. Team orders are outlawed and radio traffic between pits and driver must be publicly accessible, to prevent teams to pass orders during the race. The two-way telemetry, only introduced in 2002, which allows the pit crew to change the configuration of the car during the race has also been banned again. The cars will be locked up between the final qualifying and the race, to stop the teams from using qualifying setups and engines. During this time, teams can only work on cars supervised and only to perform urgent repairs.

The qualifying mode has been drastically changed from the previous method, where an hour-long session would be held on Saturday, with each car allowed twelve laps to set their fastest time. As well, since the cars can not be refuelled between qualifying and race, the teams have to rethink their strategies. Lighter fuel loads produce better qualifying results but also mean earlier and possibly more pitstops. To avoid a situation like in the 2002 season, where Michael Schumacher had collected more championship points than the rest of the field together, the points system has been revamped and points are now given to the top eight drivers (10,8,6,5,4,3,2,1) as opposed to the previously used modus that saw the top six drivers being awarded points (10,6,4,3,2,1).

Though initially heavily disputed, the new rules seem to have had some impact on the races so far but the improvements have almost caught up with those limitations.

To cut the immense costs of the sport, further radical rule changes are to be introduced in the next few years. From 2004 on, the same engine must be used by a driver for a complete race weekend, and Max Mosley has suggested that engines may be obliged to last longer in future years (although several teams have voiced strong opposition to this). Considering the price of approx. $300,000 per engine, this can dramatically cut the cost and save smaller teams like Minardi or Jordan, who do not have the backing of a major manufacturer.

The long-term future of the series is, as of 2003, a subject of considerable speculation. With the gradual phasing out of tobacco sponsorship in the series' core European market, teams have gradually aligned themselves more closely with the major automobile manufacturers. The relations between the teams and Bernie Ecclestone (the entrepreneur who has de-facto control over the series) have deteriorated somewhat over the desire of those teams and the backing manufacturers for more control, as well as some of Ecclestone's proposals to reform the series (such as shifting races to Asia where tobacco promotion is not yet restricted).

All the teams are contracted to 2007, but there is considerable speculation of a mass defection of teams to a new series after that date.

2004

There is a series of rule changes for the 2004 season. Engine suppliers will have to sell their engines to other teams at a discounted price and a Formula One engine will have to last a driver for a whole race weekend, with a penalty of 10 grid places for a change before qualifying, and being sent to the back of the grid if changed between qualifying and the race. It is already being postulated by some commentators that backmarker teams will deliberately set up their cars for fastest race mode during practice/qualifying, then fit a new engine to start the race at the rear without being too disadvanted in grid position.

In future years, engines will be required to last multiple weekends (although strong opposition from the teams and engine manufacturers may cause this to be delayed or abandoned), whereas in the past, engines generally lasted a day at the most (though rated to last 350km), and the richer teams sometimes used individual, specially tuned engines for a qualifying session and then discarded them (though, given the new parc fermé regulations in 2003 and various other restrictions, the use of "qualifying specials" had severely declined prior to the new rules). To get the engine manufacturers to agree that "affordable" engines would be made available to the smaller teams, the rebanning of traction control systems was shelved [though Paul Stoddart, the Minardi team principal, has threatened to withdraw his support for this measure, which requires uninamity among the teams due to the late date it was adopted, since he believes that cheap enough engines have not been forthcoming].

Launch control (from the start, and below 100 km/h), has been banned however.

The future of F1

Formula One went through a tough time in its history through 2003. Viewing figures dropped, and many fans simply switched off. This has largely been attributed to Ferrari's dominance of the 2002 season.

Other factors however include the use of driver aids supposingly taking the skill away from the driver and putting it in the hands of the mechanics. For this reason many rule changes have been proposed for the future. Furthermore, many of the smaller teams such as Minardi and Jordan struggle to keep up with the high cost of the sport, so it is thought that significant rule changes will help to reduce cost.

Because of these things, Max Mosley, the head of the FIA has come up with ideas for reducing the cost and technicality of the sport. New regulations and rules proposed for the future include:

• Reductions in testing time
• Scrapping of Traction Control
• Return to a single tyre manufacturer
• (more)

Team bosses and FIA President Max Mosley met in Monaco on May 4, 2004 to discuss the proposed changes; the bosses unanimously approved the plan, effective in 2008.