What is F1?
Formula One (F1) is an international motor racing sport that takes place every year at multiple tracks around the world. Formula One had its inaugural season in 1950 and has since developed to become one of the world’s most popular sports. Max Verstappen is the current World Champion, winning the title last season after a lengthy battle with former World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
Each season there are ten teams that participate, with each team putting forth two drivers, making a total of twenty drivers on the grid. The teams that are currently competing are Mercedes-AMG Petronas, Red Bull Racing, McLaren, Ferrari, Alpha Tauri, Aston Martin, Haas, Williams, Alfa Romeo and Alpine. The drivers from F1 are from a range of different countries around the world such as Australia, the UK, Germany, Canada, Netherlands and many more.
The Formula One season consists of several Grands Prix (races). There is no fixed number of Grands Prix that need to take place each season, it varies year on year. Races often take place during the day, however, countries with hotter climates such as Abu Dhabi and Singapore have opted for night races to help with heat and humidity.
A Grand Prix consists of several events so therefore it takes place over a weekend. These weekends can often be back to back or can have a week’s break yet it is purely dependent on the schedule. The weekend consists of two to three practises on Friday to allow the drivers sufficient time to get to know the track. On Saturday there is a qualifying session, which determines the starting order for the race. Then the race is held on Sunday.
Formula One is run by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). The headquarters for the FIA is in Paris, France. The FIA is the governing body for all motorsports in the world. They organise the races as well as enforce and implement the rules and regulations. The FIA appoints a Formula One race director who oversees all the races and decisions, from 2019 to 2021 this was Micheal Masi. However, he was fired due to the controversial ending of the 2021 season. The race director is in charge of organising the logistics of race weekends and making sure the track, drivers and car are in line with the regulations.
Each Formula One team has a Team Principal, this person is essential the team leader/boss on race weekends. These people can own the teams, like in the case of Toto Wolff (who owns part of the company), however, that is not what happens in most cases. Christian Horner is the Team Principal of Red Bull Racing, yet does not own any part of the company, he is simply an employee and paid a salary
Over the last 4 years, the streaming service Netflix has been making a show about the sport called Drive to Survive. This has rocketed the popularity of the sport and opened it up to a completely new audience. The highly anticipated 4th season of the show premiers on Netflix on the 11th March 2022.
Here is a list of 2022 teams and their drivers:
Mercedes — Lewis Hamilton and George Russell
Red Bull Racing — Max Verstappen and Sergio (Checo) Perez
Ferrari — Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz
McLaren — Daniel. Ricciardo and Lando Norris
Alfa Romeo Racing — Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou
Aston Martin — Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll
Alpine F1 Team — Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso
Williams — Nicholas Latifi and Alex Albon
Haas — Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin
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