Formula One

Lore & Background

The first successful Formula One video game in arcade history was Pole Position (1982), by Namco. In Pole Position, the player has to complete a lap in a certain amount of time in order to qualify for a race at the Fuji racetrack. After qualifying, the player had to face other cars in a championship race. The game was very successful and it spawned an official sequel, Pole Position II, and an unofficial one, Final Lap. After the success of Pole Position, many similar games appeared in arcades such as TX-1 (1983). During the late 1980s, successful arcade games included Super Sprint, which uses the top view instead of the rear view of most games, and its sequel Championship Sprint. From the second part of the 1980s more games were being created. Most of these games featured racetracks, cars and driver names similar to the real ones, but all modified slightly, since they did not have official licenses from FIA. Examples of this are Super Monaco GP (1989) and its sequel Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II (1992), which had a license to display only Ayrton Senna's name, or Nigel Mansell's World Championship. Formula One racing games made the transition to 3D computer graphics with Namco's arcade game Winning Run (1988). Later arcade manufacturers began developing games in this style, like Sega with its Virtua Racing (1992), and later Namco again with Ace Driver (1994), which featured futuristic, F1-like cars. Formula One began officially licensing video games in the early 1990s, starting with Video System's arcade game F-1 Grand Prix (1991). It was ported to the SNES by Nintendo, and spawned two sequels and a Super Mario Kart-style spinoff.

Reader's Guide

The first true Formula One racing simulators on home computers were Chequered Flag (1983) and Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix (F1GP) in 1991. Chequered Flag featured fuel depletion and car damage, and a set of several real circuits. Previously, most racing games representing Formula One, such as Accolade's Grand Prix Circuit and Electronic Arts' Ferrari Formula One, had been arcade-style games, but F1GP paid more attention to the physics of the cars, in addition to innovative graphics and accurate rendering of the actual racing tracks. The game, released in 1992, was based on the 1991 season. Over the years, the game had sequels Grand Prix 2, 3, and 4 (based on 1994, 1998, with a 2000 update, and 2001 respectively). The F1 official license was also held by Ubisoft and later transferred to Electronic Arts, which published seasonal simulations and also F1 Challenge '99-'02. A notable place on PC simulation games is held by Papyrus' Grand Prix Legends, which depicted the 1967 Formula One season instead of the then-current season, like all other contemporaries. It recreates in a very accurate way the physics of the car and the feel of driving a real 1967 Formula One racer. The game still has a vast popularity among video gamers, with many mods and original circuits being produced. Sony had held an exclusive license to make Formula One games from 2003 until 2006, releasing sequels to Formula 1 on its PlayStation systems roughly at an annual pace throughout that time to form its Formula One series, as well as licensing the release of Infogrames' 2003 PS2-exclusive game Grand Prix Challenge, developed by Melbourne House. In 2008, Codemasters obtained the F1 license, beginning their own annual Formula One video game series. The first game of the series, F1 2009, was released on the Wii, PlayStation Portable and iOS, with the Wii version supporting the Wii Wheel for motion-controlled steering. In late 2020, Electronic Arts acquired Codemasters after outbidding Take-Two Interactive's offer to buy the company. As a result, all subsequent installments of Codemasters' ongoing F1 video game series, starting with the 2021 season's game, are published by Electronic Arts, making this the first F1 game to be published by the company in nearly two decades, after F1 Career Challenge and F1 Challenge '99-'02.

Did You Know?

• The first successful Formula One video game in arcade history was Pole Position (1982), by Namco, where the player had to complete a lap in a certain amount of time to qualify for a race at the Fuji racetrack.
• F-1 (1976) by Namco has been cited as the first truly Formula One arcade game, but it was an electro-mechanical game, rather than an arcade video game.
• Formula One racing games made the transition to 3D computer graphics with Namco's arcade game Winning Run (1988).
• The first true Formula One racing simulators on home computers were Chequered Flag (1983) and Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix (F1GP) in 1991.
• Papyrus' Grand Prix Legends depicted the 1967 Formula One season instead of the then-current season, and still has a vast popularity among video gamers with many mods and original circuits being produced.