Because the teams are required to follow a specific engineering “formula” when designing their cars. And the 1 indicates that the sport is the top tier of “formula” racing.
Yep, it’s that simple. End of article.
Kidding. Formula 1 evolved from an era of motorsport where there were a variety of sanctioning bodies organizing races, no singular championship for Grand Prix racing - at least, not in the sense of what we’ve got today - and believe it or not, no Red Bull. The primary sanctioning organization of Grand Prix racing through the 1920’s and 1930’s was the AIACR, the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus, which eventually turned into the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) that we know and love-hate today. 1
The impetus for this consolidation of disparate Grands Prix into a single championship season was to increase the prestige of the sport and, because ultimately it is a business, increase value for stakeholders. While the wealth and luster of modern F1 is well documented, things were slightly more ragtag at the inception of the league. When I say ragtag, I’m not trying to make the race sound like it was something out of The Fast and Furious. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II were in attendance. (Fun fact: this was the last time a British monarch attended a British Grand Prix). But things were simply very different, and the rules for the manufacturers were much looser. The cars looked much less similar to each other than they do today and were unburdened by the heavy weight of seatbelts.
Unfortunately, I can’t post images from the race as they’re copyrighted. But they’re available here along with some more fun facts about the race. Spoiler: Silverstone Circuit was little more than a road course in the middle of a field with some grandstands and haybales.
Despite the fact that there were 21 drivers, there were only five manufacturers: Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Talbot-Lago, ERA, and Alta.2 And there were only points awarded for a Driver’s Championship. The Constructor’s Championship wouldn’t be instituted until 1958. Some of the drivers were not officially affiliated with teams but had merely bought the actual racecar from the manufacturer. Personally, I would love to see a hotshot millionaire purchase a McLaren MCL39 and try to qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix, but alas, we like rules too much nowadays.
To say F1 cars have evolved dramatically is far from revelatory. But to better understand and appreciate the sport, I think it’s important to understand exactly what the sport is actually all about: construction.
Today’s Formula 1 cars are the result of over a century of development of internal combustion engines, hybrid motors, and aerodynamics. They cost tens of millions of dollars to research and engineer, and tens of millions more to actually build and maintain. F1 engineers are so fluent in fluid dynamics that they know exactly what little bits on the outside of the car will cause air to flow in a particular fashion, and they’re able to manipulate the air to push the car into the ground to increase traction beyond what anyone in the 1950’s would have thought possible.
As stated in the first sentence, Formula 1 refers to the set of rules that the FIA establishes as the constructor’s manual for building their racing machine. Back in the day, there were not nearly as many rules. In 1950, the cars essentially only had to worry about conforming to engine size restrictions. There was no weight limit, no safety requirements, and no specifications for the car’s exterior beyond ensuring the engine was covered. Today’s F1 technical regulations guidebook is 179 pages long and includes regulations on everything; right down to the center of gravity of the engine, the fuel flow rate, and the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation produced by the car. I’m serious about that last point; see page 80, section 8.19.
The specificity of the regulations has pros and cons. The primary benefit of strong technical and sporting regulations is that it has made racing immeasurably safer than it was even just thirty years ago. Drivers routinely survive crashes today that would have likely been fatal in previous eras. Additional benefits are that the cars are, generally, more competitive with each other. Today, people will mercilessly meme on drivers who qualify .5 seconds slower than their teammates, but back in the day it was normal to see gaps of dozens of seconds, sometimes even a minute, between cars. As an illustration, Lando Norris qualified first with a time of 1:16:096 at the season opener for 2025, the Australian Grand Prix. Esteban Ocon was the slowest driver to put in a qualifying time, coming in at 1:17.147, a gap of 1.05 seconds. There was less time between the top and bottom of the grid than it takes for me to type out “1.05 seconds,” I checked.
As a contrast, at the season finale in 1957 in Italy, Stuart Lewis-Evans topped the chart with a lap of 1:42:400 in his Vanwall. Meanwhile, Horace Gould in his Maserati qualified last clocking in at 1:53.700. Over eleven seconds between the two. A modern F1 pit crew could complete four pit stops in that amount of time.
By and large, the rules are good for the sport. Creativity is a function of working around restrictions. Just a few years ago, Mercedes invented a new type of steering system which blew everyone’s minds. Drivers were able to change the toe angle of the front steering wheels to enhance how tires handle heat, enhancing traction and reducing tire degradation.3 The FIA banned dual axis steering the year after Mercedes invented it, possibly because the system is an expensive piece of engineering and presents an unfair advantage to teams with deeper pockets. And that’s the game.
For the especially fresh newcomers to the sport, the experience includes being whisked into a whirlwind of technical terms and racing jargon. You’ll hear phrases like “The high track temp is likely to lead to blistering,” or “He was just out of range of DRS,” and it will feel like you’re not equipped to fully appreciate the sport. Do not fear, I’ll spend time explaining some of the basics of racing (terminology, tech, and techniques) in future articles.
In the meantime, I encourage you to watch a couple highlights of old F1 races to compare how the cars have changed. The F1 channel on YouTube has recently started posting extended race highlights from old seasons, and it’s a great way to see how the sport has evolved. A particularly wild race was the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix. Take note of the sounds of the screaming V10 engines and the many different teams you won’t hear about today, like Footwork Arrows, Benetton, and Jordan. Makes you wonder what teams we’ll be talking about thirty years from now. Red Bull went from being just an energy drink to winning eight F1 world championships in thirty-seven years from its introduction in 1987. I think we should brace ourselves for an eventual championship victory for the yet-unclaimed Hoka Formula 1 Team.