A Brief History

F1 is at the pinnacle of motor racing (single-seaters) as they are the fastest road-course racing cars in the world. The precursor to the F1 series was the European championship of Grand Prix motor racing of the 1920 and 1930s.

It was after World War II in 1946 that the first F1 races started to run.

In 1950 the famous Silverstone course in England hosted the first-ever Formula One championship race. While the sport has largely been based in Europe, it has, in its modern state stretched out to be a global season with races in far-flung places such as Brazil and Abu Dhabi.

Famous F1 Drivers

With such a rich history, there have been some famous names to have graced the sport of F1. At the very beginning, it was largely all about the great Argentinean Juan Manuel Fangio, who would go on to win the World Championships six times.

He was the first real superstar of the sport. But then just before the 1960s rolled around British drivers started to dominate the sport. Stirling Moss got his first-ever World Championship in 1985 and he would go on to win it twice more.

Graham Hill and Jim Clark continued a great era for British drivers before Jackie Stewart came to the fore with his first title in 1968. Stewart was a four-time Formula One Champion. Other great names came and went like Niki Lauda and Emerson Fittipaldi.

The 1980s and early 1990s was a fantastic period for F1. Alain Prost won the championship five times in a row in the early 80s, before Nigel Mansell broke the Frenchman’s dominance in his Williams-Honda. This was a golden period with Alain Prost, Mansell and the legendary Ayrton Senna scrapping it out.

Mansell won the World Championship three times, while Brazilian Senna, regarded as one of the greatest of all time, tragically died following a crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at just 34 years of age, shocking the world of sport.

In 1994 Germany’s Michael Schumacher won his first World Championship title for Benetton-Ford. Who knew at that point what greatness lay ahead for him? Schumacher won a total of seven Championships during his career, each of his last five in consecutive years with Ferrari between 200 and 2004.

In 2010 Sebastian Vettel took up the mantle as being the one to beat as he won the Championship four times for Red Bull. Then Lewis Hamilton became the next British Formula One racing legend, stacking up the titles for Mercedes and dominating the sport from 2014 onwards after picking up his first-ever World Championship title.

Famous F1 Races

A new F1 season traditionally starts with the Australian Grand Prix, which is the second oldest surviving race in the country. Throughout the years the roster of races for a given season has shifted around and Grands Prix in places like Singapore, Abu Dhabi, India, USA, Russia and Mexico have appeared on the race list.

There are, of course, older races that have a much richer history. The British Grand Prix, the Spanish Grand Prix and the French Grand Prix are among those. The Silverstone track which has hosted on and off, the British Grand Prix from 1950 onwards, is one of the most iconic settings that there is on the F1 circuit.

One of the most recognisable races is the street circuit at Monaco which has its famous tunnel and equally famous hairpin corner. The Italian Grand Prix is the fifth oldest of the Grands Prix races and Monza is another of the great F1 circuits. The Hungarian Grand Prix is another of those big history races, with the Hungaroring being another of the iconic tracks of F1 history.

2019 Review

There were plenty of personnel changes ahead of the 2019 season. Among them, Alexander Albon stepped up from Formula 2 to driver for Toro Rosso and became the second Thai driver to take a race in F1. Charles Leclerc moved from Sauber to get a drive at Ferrari, replacing Kimi Raikkonen.

Reigning Formula 2 driver, England’s George Russell got a seat with Williams, while Daniel Ricciardo made a switch to Renault after having been with Red Bull for five years. Pierre Gasly filled the vacant seat at Red Bull while Daniil Kvyat teamed up with Albon at Toro Rosso.

Lewis Hamilton cruised to what was his 6th World Championship title in 2019. It was a strong start to the season that got Hamilton another title. The British driver won seven of the first ten races of the season and from that point on, it was just a matter of him seeing the season out.

In total, Hamilton took a win in 11 of the 21 races in the season, including at his home event, the British Grand Prix. Given the dominance of Hamilton, the Mercedes team won the World Constructors’ Championship again.

Besides Hamilton, there were only four other drivers who managed to win a race in the 2019 season. Hamilton’s teammate Valterri Bottas collected a total of four wins. Max Verstappen claimed three wins for Red Bull, which was the same amount that Charles Leclerc (2) and Sebastian Vettel (1) managed between them for Ferrari.

Of the two Ferrari drivers, it was Leclerc who won that particular duel, finishing fourth in the Championship, a place above his teammate. Leclerc won the first Grand Prix of his career which happened at the Belgian Grand Prix. He got his second career win in the very next race at the Italian Grand Prix.

2020 Preview

2020 will see two new races with the Vietnam Grand Prix at the Hanoi Street Circuit and the Dutch Grand Prix at the Circuit Zandvoort come into play. There are 22 races in total that are contracted to be held, with a confirmation date waiting to be settled on Shanghai. It was due to be raced on April 19th, but was cancelled early in February 2020.

2020 Race Calendar

1 Australian Grand Prix Australia Albert Park Circuit, Melbourne 15 March
2 Bahrain Grand Prix Bahrain Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir 22 March
3 Vietnamese Grand Prix Vietnam Hanoi Street Circuit, Hanoi 5 April
4 Dutch Grand Prix Netherlands Circuit Zandvoort, Zandvoort 3 May
5 Spanish Grand Prix Spain Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona 10 May
6 Monaco Grand Prix Monaco Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo 24 May
7 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Azerbaijan Baku City Circuit, Baku 7 June
8 Canadian Grand Prix Canada Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montréal 14 June
9 French Grand Prix France Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet 28 June
10 Austrian Grand Prix Austria Red Bull Ring, Spielberg 5 July
11 British Grand Prix United Kingdom Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone 19 July
12 Hungarian Grand Prix Hungary Hungaroring, Mogyoród 2 August
13 Belgian Grand Prix Belgium Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot 30 August
14 Italian Grand Prix Italy Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Monza 6 September
15 Singapore Grand Prix Singapore Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore 20 September
16 Russian Grand Prix Russia Sochi Autodrom, Sochi 27 September
17 Japanese Grand Prix Japan Suzuka International Racing Course, Suzuka 11 October
18 United States Grand Prix United States Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas 25 October
19 Mexico City Grand Prix México Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City 1 November
20 Brazilian Grand Prix Brazil Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo 15 November
21 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix United Arab Emirates Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi 29 November
– Chinese Grand Prix China Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai TBA[a]

Lewis Hamilton will be defending his title and of note, with the 22 races on the calendar, this will be the longest ever season in the history of F1.

There hasn’t been a lot of changes in drivers ahead of the 2020 F1 season. Only the return of Esteban Ocon to replace Nico Hulkenberg at Renault has been a major change. Nicolas Latifi, who was driving in Formula 2 last year replaces Robert Kubica at Williams. Toro Rosso has been renamed Scuderia AlphaTauri.

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