History of Formula One

Background

Alfa Romeo won every 1950 championship race except the Indianapolis 500 with its pre-war 158 'Alfetta', and Nino Farina became the first champion; Juan Manuel Fangio followed in 1951 in the 159, a development of the 158. Ferrari and its engine designer Aurelio Lampredi judged the 1.5-litre supercharged engine a dead end and switched to the normally aspirated 4.5-litre V12 Ferrari 375, which challenged the Alfettas late in 1951. State-owned Alfa Romeo then withdrew after the Italian government refused to pay for a new car.

With little opposition left, the championship ran to Formula Two rules in 1952 and 1953, and Alberto Ascari won both titles for Ferrari in the four-cylinder Tipo 500. The 2.5-litre formula arrived in 1954, bringing in Lancia and Mercedes-Benz; Fangio and Stirling Moss won all but three races in the next two seasons for Mercedes, which left at the end of 1955 after one of its cars crashed at Le Mans and killed 82 people. Fangio took his fourth title in 1956 with Ferrari and his fifth in 1957 with Maserati, a record that stood for 46 years.

Turbocharging changed the sport in the 1980s. Renault had shown in 1979 and 1980 that turbo engines were the more efficient route to power under the rules, and the 1983 drivers' title - Nelson Piquet's, in Bernie Ecclestone's BMW-powered Brabham - was the first won with a turbo engine. By 1986 some qualifying engines made more than 1,350 bhp in short bursts. Fuel was limited first, then boost pressure (4 bar in 1987, 1.5 bar in 1988), and turbos were banned from 1989. In 1984 Niki Lauda beat his McLaren teammate Alain Prost to the title by half a point, the closest finish in the sport's history. The McLaren-Hondas of Prost and Ayrton Senna won 15 of the 16 races in 1988, and Senna took the first of his three titles.