May 9, 2013 • 37 mins
Formula One is one the world's most prestigious racing events -- but where did it come from? What is this 'formula,' exactly? Join Scott and Ben as they explore the past, present and future of Formula One.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Go behind the Wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot Com. Hi, everybuddy,
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm Ben
Bullen and Ben. Today we've got a topic that I
cannot believe we haven't covered since since the very beginning.
(00:23):
Really yeah, now this is this is weird for us
because we've been at this for a while and we
have touched upon Formula one in a number of other podcasts,
I would say many times, just to be fair, I mean,
we've we've talked about um, uh you know, new technology
that comes out of course, you know, some of the
advanced systems, the engines and things like that. We've talked
about um pit stops. Of course, we've talked about some
(00:46):
race records that involved Formula one, yeah, exactly, and and
the series and a hole. I guess we've just never
covered from beginning to end. And uh, you know that
was pointed out to us by a listener. His name
is Justin from Indiana. Uh sent an email recently and
it says, Hey, Scott and Benn, I'm a big fan
of Formula one racing. I was looking through my Car
Stuff podcasts and I couldn't find any podcasts about Formula
(01:07):
one racing. I thought you guys could do a podcast
on F one and Grand Prix and some famous drivers
like Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso. Love listening to you guys,
and thanks for reading my email, Justin from Indiana. Now.
I I looked at this email on my screen and
I think, I I, you know, theatrically blinked twice, and
I thought, no, there's no way, there's no way we've
(01:27):
missed F one as a main topic, right right, And
I did the same thing when I was reading the email,
and justin, thank you for writing to us, uh Scott,
and I also went back and looked through our catalog
of podcast which is getting pretty long now and lo
and behold, Justin from Indiana. You are absolutely correct. Not
(01:49):
only not only have we never covered those drivers, we've
never covered Formula one. And the weird thing about this
is our regular listeners, you guys will otis uh we
recently did a podcast on Formula E, which is the
will it would be electric version latest and uh maybe
(02:10):
not greatest um effort in this arena, right yeah, and
nose spoilers, but it's definitely not Formula one. It's it's
kind of trying to piggyback off that, but without further
ado Scott, We're not above getting, uh, being pointed out
stuff like this. No, no, that's fine. And I honestly
I had to look back through the in our RSS
(02:30):
feed and do a search and find out if if
we had done this, because we're approaching five episodes now
at this point, we're getting close and uh, and to
go back through all that and look and discover that
we hadn't covered a main topic like this kind of
embarrassing a little bit, right face. But you know, I'm
glad we've caught it because you know, we're you know,
they're justin caught it really and brought it to our
attention because I think we we've got a lot to
(02:52):
cover today, right and and I want to mention that
at the very end of this podcast, there's a there's
a there's a new record that you absolutely have to
see to believe. This is something I'll describe to you,
but you have to go out there and find it
and look at it in order to comprehend what's going on.
This is an amazing record, So I promised it by
the end of the podcast, we'll talk about this and
(03:13):
you'll be you know, in knowing what's going on, and
it's and it's current, it's very current. It'll be one
of the last things we talked about. So please do
stay tuned for it. We will not give you a
spoiler other than to say, I don't know, Scott, maybe
halfway through the podcast through in like one hint maybe. Okay,
So so let's start with just the m you want
(03:36):
to start at the beginning. Help, let's go way back
to the beginning, because we like to do that. We'd
like to go back to the very early early days
of this. And and Ben, I know I've said this before,
but we learned something new every day here when we
do the research for this. And uh I, I had
been making a mistake my entire life up until this point.
What was it. I had been referring to UH cars
(03:58):
that were really in in actuality Grand Prix cars. I
had been calling them F one cars or Formula one cars,
even though they predated the actual Formula One series, which
I didn't know began in nineteen fifty. Yeah, which may
surprise some people. Some people may say, WHOA, that's way
too recent. But that's because there's a little bit of
(04:19):
a mix up with terminology that a lot of people
make here. It's it's kind of confusing, and once once
I tell you this, you may understand it even more
if you're one of the people like me that just
didn't didn't get this or hasn't hasn't really read up
on it. Um. Now you know that Formula one races
today are called you know, the Grand Prix of Monaco,
the Grand Prix of Italy, the Grand Prix of the
(04:40):
United States, Grand Prix exactly. Um, that's Formula one cars
racing in a Grand Prix race. Now prior to nineteen fifty,
going all the way back to nineteen o six, anything
from nineteen o six to nine, that was called Grand
Prix motor racing, and that was the original series. I
(05:00):
guess that birthed Formula one. However, the Grand Prix motor
racing cars raced in races that were also called Grand Prix.
So you can go back and look at races that
were called, you know, the Grand Prix of Monaco or
Grand Prix of you know, Germany or whatever from nineteen
thirty or nineteen fourteen or whatever, and that Grand Prix
(05:21):
race is part of the Grand Prix series. It wasn't
until nineteen fifty. Um that Formula one, you know, which
is like a series that's saying we'll talk about the
sanction and all that. But um so for Formula One
is nineteen fifty to present. Grand Prix is from nineteen
o six to nineteen forty nine, if you want to
keep it straight that way, right, So nineteen o six
(05:42):
to ninety nine, none of those are Formula One cars exactly.
And I I personally now I mentioned that, you know,
I've made a mistake all along. I personally had thought,
you know, in the nineteen thirties because some of my
favorite cars, which I want to talk about here in
just a second, some of my favorite cars come from
the nineteen thirties in this in this type of race
sing and I had mistakenly all along called these well
(06:03):
that's you know, someone says, what's that car that's on
your on your wall there because you've got a little
poster or whatever on my cubicle. Um, I would say,
that's a that's the way Formula one cars looked in
the nineteen thirties. You know, that's a it's an auDA
Union Grand pre Car Formula one car, which really wasn't true.
It's a grand pre car, so it's it's a minor
distinction that needs to be made. But um, I think
(06:25):
that you know, we're talking about we're covering Formula One,
but we do have to go back to Grand Prix
because that's where it all started. And now that we've entered, uh,
nineteen fifty, we've entered the birth of you will of
Formula one, we have some interesting stuff to talk about
when it when it comes to the dawn of Formula one.
You know, Scott, it wasn't a smooth beginning. Actually there was,
(06:49):
especially nineteen fifty two and nineteen fifty three, there was
a little bit of a lack of entrance, which is
surprising now because Formula One is a premier racing events. Yeah,
it's surprising to me that they didn't have enough drivers
really to fill out the series. But then again, you know,
you look at you know, some of the newer series
because this was considered which is odd enough, but I
(07:12):
mean it's considered kind of a new series. Really, Um,
A lot of people will like in this may be
in a similar way to win like the Indy Car
Card split. You know, people, there were fans from one
side that said, now it's got to remain this way.
And I'm sure that at the time there were fans
that said, we can't lose this grand preheritage that we've
had for you know, the previous forty three years. Um,
(07:35):
what's with this new series. It's gonna it's gonna destroy it.
It's not gonna be anything, anything good, anything worth watching.
And um, you know, the the new drivers, they were
probably the ones that are just kind of the new teams.
They were saying, well, let's give this a shot and
see if it see if it lasts. Yeah, And of
the twenty also, cost was a big consideration even back then.
And we're gonna see this pattern continues today, hope for sure.
(07:57):
But of the of the twenty different makes or teams
that competed in nineteen fifty, uh, the majority were soon
forced out of the out of the game, entirely by
the costs. That's incredible, isn't it now? And we know
now that you know years as a yearly budget, Uh,
these teams spend billions of dollars billions. The bigger teams, well, yeah,
(08:19):
the bigger teams, but overall as a as a series.
We're talking billions and billions and billions of dollars with bees. Um.
You know, back in the nineteen fifties, I would assume
that it's millions. If not, you know, a hundred millions
or whatever it was, I don't know. Maybe it wasn't
that much, maybe not a hundred millions, but it was millions.
I bet it was millions. And the costs escalated quickly.
(08:40):
It's it's always been an expensive sport. One other thing
that people should consider is that for for a time,
if we're being candid, Uh, the F one series had
a difficulty with safety. Uh. In some of the first
few races, the death toll was gruesome. Uh. There were
thirteen drivers killed in F one cars over the first decade. Yeah,
(09:03):
that's not a good record for ten years. Let's say,
I mean thirteen drivers in ten years. And that continued
on through the sixties and early seventies with you know,
we mentioned Jackie Stewart. That's another part, you know, another
point where we've talked about Formula one in the past
and not really gun into much detail, but Jackie Stewart
and his push for safety and Formula one in the
(09:24):
late sixties early seventies. Um, he formed groups, you know,
with drivers that said we're not going to compete in
your race unless you change this aspect of this course.
And uh, and they got things done that way. And
you know, it's just it was a very very hazardous
sport to be involved in because driver's safety really wasn't
the main concern at that point. It was going fast.
(09:45):
It was um which is, you know, to be fair,
it's still it's still all about going fast. But you
know the driver, you know, they want to protect the
driver of course now, but and and no one wanted
anything bad to happen to the driver in the past.
It was just it wasn't thought of as like the
main goal, right. And in the defense of F one
as well, Jackie Stewart made an enormous difference. He also
(10:09):
made a difference at a time in which greater safety
was possible. We have to remember that the difference between
the safety technology available in the fifties and that available
in the sixties and seventies enormous, I know, and look
at the advancements that they've made now. I mean, you know,
we're talking about things like even safe barriers and just
proper runoff areas because if you look back, um at
(10:31):
the Grand Prix footage. I've looked at some uh some
old film footage, and I don't know how they really
got this same must have strapped enormous you know, film
cameras to the cars. But watching like uh, you know
Juan Manuel Fangio drive around you know, the Italy Circuit
or something, you know, and they've got film footage of
him in car type stuff, and um, his the track
(10:53):
that he's following, the you know, the course that he's on,
I mean immediately to his right and left is brush
that's you know, six ft tall and boulders and things
like that, and um, you know, it's just it's a
it's a completely different world. I mean, they they have
really up the safety in this exponentially in the last
couple of decades. And that's just a lot of it
(11:14):
is from the series itself. You know, they learned lessons
every time something bad happens, um, but it takes an
accident or something serious to happen like that for them
to to grow even further. And as we'll see this, uh,
this is still an evolution, this is still a work
in progress. When we get to the regulations, the safety approaches,
(11:36):
and also just the um well you know what I'm
talking about something we're gonna talk about. Should we just
talk about Formula one? I think so? And you know,
just with a little little hint of you know, Grand
Prix stuff sprinkled in there as well, because you know
there's some there needs to be a little bit of
looking back, just a little yeah, just a little bit,
I mean here and there? Um Man, where should we stay? Okay,
(11:58):
So I guess we should just say at the top
lass in? Uh in this type of racing, right, the
single seat racing, yes, open wheeled, single seat race, Okay.
And it's and the sanctioning body is the Federation International
de la Automobile which is uh f i A, which
will be called f i A from this point forward
for obvious reasons. You yeah, no problem. Uh. And that
(12:20):
was boy Ben that was founded in nineteen o four,
so it's founded two years prior to the actual birth
of Grand par Race. Yeah. And um and it's got
a frontman who's uh he's a controversial guy, Bernie eccleston. Yes,
the infamous, famous, notorious You love him, you hate him,
you can't live without him? If you're a race fan.
(12:41):
Bernie eccleston. Bernie Eccleston is UM the primary um power
associated with f i A in Formula one H. Bernie
eccleston has been lauded for some of his work with
the organization UH. He has also been and vilified at
times fairly for some of his more controversial statements. Certainly,
(13:06):
I mean we should just maybe talk about who he
is and we can leave the controversial stuff up to
listeners to take a look at and decide, you know,
whatever they want on that band. There's it's it's funny.
But even just as somebody who's not I think interested
in you know, auto racing or whatever. UM, I think
somebody would. I think a lot of people will know
who this character is. H. He turns up in the news,
(13:27):
you know, maybe frequently a couple of times a year.
It seems like there's something going on that you know,
somebody outside of the motoring world would have interested. They would. Yeah,
he was just in the news actually in April of
this year. Yeah, he um. You know, one of the
last races recently was in the Middle East and he
was in the news for UH in Bahrain actually for
(13:50):
claiming that it was something that the Bahraini government had
done was was stupid in regards to the race. But
you know, I also I also want to say, though
this is just a little sidebar Scott in defense of UM,
celebrity owners, drivers, almost any athlete. Really, what we have
to remember is that we live in an age of
(14:13):
ubiquitous communication. So it's a lot it's it's a lot
more difficult to say things off the record now, so
depending on the circumstances. Okay, And there's another little side
bit here that I don't even know what to call
this really, but maybe I'm unfairly bringing this up. But
Bernie's eighty two years old. He's old school. He's old school,
(14:36):
and he may just kind of off the cuff say
things that you know, he finds appropriate that really aren't
appropriate to say out loud in UH, in mixed company
or whatever. And a lot of times he he puts
his foot right in his mouth when he when he speaks. Now, um,
he just let's just give him the general by okay.
So he's a British businessman. He's a president and CEO
(14:57):
of Formula one Management and UH and the Formula one
associations like the you know, the the Constructors Association and
things like that, right, so he's he's uh, he's always
like the front man. He's the the the guy that
people go to for the comment or the face exactly.
He's the face of F one really. Um, he's also
been he's a former F one competitor, UM and driving manager.
(15:21):
Now it goes way back because he entered two races
in eight but he didn't qualify for either one. So
he I mean his racing days go back to the
late fifties, um in the sports, so early early on
in Formula one. Um. And let's see what oh you
know what. He also sold famously sold the F one
television rights in the nineteen seventies, which means that you know,
(15:43):
we're able to finally see Formula one racing here and
you know regularly, and that holds today. I mean even
now we were able to you know, pick it up
on cable somewhere. You're able to find Formula one race.
It's usually where I live right now. Um, it's usually
like an early early Sunday morning like the racial happened to,
like you know, six am Sunday mornings. They can cover
it live, so it's not always the greatest time slot,
(16:06):
but that's because they're they're covering the event live. And
I also wanna again, I know I'm coming out to
defend Bernie eccleston, but if you guys don't know who
he is, check on the internet and you'll completely understand
why I'm trying to give just the Devil's Advocate thing
Scott as he said, he's eighty two. I do want
to point out that he is also a self made man.
He is, yeah, you know what, and he's really built
(16:27):
quite an empire there. I mean, you know, billion billion
dollar empires, So you know, take that for whatever you
like and see the nicest guy. Absolutely not guys, but
but um, he is I think uh at the point
where he could be considered like a king of this empire.
He's very shrewd and what he says goes, oh yeah,
(16:49):
did you hear that story? There's so many Bernie stories.
I just want to tell one. How do you hear
that story about when he was injured and he got
a black eye and he he took he used his
face as part of an ad for that that went
up around um I think it was in England with
him with his eye blackened. Yeah. I can't remember what
(17:11):
it was, if he was selling watches or something, but
this guy knows how to turn a dollar interesting, making
lemonade and lemons right and making pence into pounds. I guess. Yeah.
You know this thing. I mean this, this whole organization.
This is part of the f i A and part
of you know everything, but extremely strict rules and that
(17:34):
is why actually it is called formula one. Is that correct? Yeah?
That's right there. I mean is you know you've mentioned
it to me in the past, and this is really
a Formula one. I mean, there's really a formula for
this racing then that you need to follow this, this
and this, but there's wiggle room. Ah. Yes, and the
wiggle room, I would argue, is the heart of the
(17:55):
competition here. Uh so, formula what what? What is the
formula exactly? Well, that's a great question. I'm sorry I
set myself up for it. Uh. For the formula really
refers to these very strict and quite specific regulations about
the race. Uh, They're both. There are two types. There's
(18:16):
sporting regulations and their technical regulations. Now, Scott, you and
I know the sporting regulations are the ones that cover
how a race is conducted, so how it's operated, who
starts at, how it's concluded, every imaginable thing in between,
and then the thing that might be more interesting both
to you and I and to uh all you ladies
(18:39):
and gentlemen listening. Uh are the technical regulations. So the
technical regulations, this is where the fun stuff happens. Yeah,
and if you want an idea of you know, exactly
what's going on here, you can go to the Formula
one website, which is great for it. Just Formula one
dot com with the number one. I think the if
use O n E. I think it takes you too,
like a window tending place or something like that. So, um,
(19:01):
go to the Formula one website, click on the news
tab and then the technical tab and you'll see you
right there. I mean, just a few examples of teams
that have developed their own wing variations. Uh, they've developed
their own um, you know, like their their own chassis
designs that are aerodynamic they've got there I'm sorry, not chassis,
but suspension components, you know, the exposed chassis upfront. UM.
(19:22):
Also like new wing designs, exhaust designs, and it's very
team specific. Like one team developed a something called a
blown wheel hub, which which I think they deemed it
as unusable or um, what do you call it? Just
outside the band? Yeah, because it was actually a movable
aerodynamic device or something like that. But uh, you know,
(19:44):
they find a way to channel air through the car
out the wheel hubs during the race, which is very
very clever, um. And I think they've modified it now
to make it actually work so that it's again within
the rules. But this is there's always this cat and
mouse back and forth, right, Yes, the devil is in
the details. And that's a that's a very good point
because what if you look at the chronology of Formula
(20:06):
one from the fifties to the present day, then you'll
see that teams consistently are reading are reading the rules
very closely and saying, okay, well we can do this
with the tire, we can do this with the wing,
and then the next year, the next few years f
I A Will come back and say, well that is
an unfair advantage or these things are going to be banned.
(20:27):
And if you look at the you know, the rules,
you can find rules for this year. I mean there's
a there's a list of two thousand thirteen rule changes
and it's a long list rule changes, guys. Rule changes
now that's updates to existing rules, and then there's gonna
be new rules, and then there's rules that you know,
if you go back and I wish I could find
a place that would do this, But I wish you
could go back to, you know, two thousand twelve, two
(20:48):
thousand eleven, nineteen seventy five, nineteen seventy two, you know,
whenever do a year by year comparison exactly and find
out like what did they remove this year? Like what
what did they say in nineteen seventy five You couldn't
anymore what you know, same for nineteen sixty two or whatever. Um,
it would be fantastic to see that list. And Scott,
the f i A isn't always the bad guy. I feel.
(21:09):
I feel that I'm maybe vilifying them a bit, but
they also take their time to reward these innovations when
these teams make them and they're within the rules. Like
the the f i A has this spot on the
Formula one website that you were referring to earlier where
they say they're pretty much congratulating people when they update
(21:31):
these uh, these new innovations that these racing teams have
made absolutely and sometimes in in the opposite direction, they'll
make them. They'll make the mandatory for another thing. They'll say,
they'll say, you know what, this design is really working
and it's making it a better a better race, a
better series. We're gonna make that mandatory for two thousand
and fourteen, two thousand and fifteen. Whenever they you know,
(21:52):
they decide when and what to do, or you know,
we're going to modify it a bit, but then we're
gonna make this something that you have to do. And
now that that is not as common as something being banned,
but it does. It does happen. It seems like they
just continually take away and take away and take away,
doesn't it. But but you know what that causes, The
causes a team or that promotes the team to do
(22:14):
more with less, and that that that also kind of
breeds innovation and development as well. So you know, this
this is a like I said, it's a cat and
mouse give and take thing that happens, and it's really
really good for the series. It's good for um US
as you know, consumers with you know, the trickle down
technology that that inevitably happens in the marketplace. It really does. Um,
(22:36):
there's you know, so many racing innovations that that show
up in everyday cars eventually, you know, first the top
end cars, and then it gets down to you know,
the cars that you and I could afford been and
then uh, you know, but it but it does happen.
It takes a while, but you know, this is exactly
where this type of thing comes from. Necessity is the
mother of invention. If I could use the corny quote. Now,
(22:57):
when we when we in the United States think about them,
think about open wheel auto racing, we're usually going to
think of n right, Yeah, I think so, But that's
not associated with Formula one. Oh and one thing I
do need to mention, Uh, there's more than one formula.
(23:17):
Formula one is not the only formula. It's just the premier. Yeah,
that's right. There's there's also a Formula two, and there's
Formula three, and there's other Formula series. And I think
this was originally what do you say, it was Formula A.
I think yeah, briefly and at the beginning a little
bit of trivia, it was Formula A, Formula A, and
then they want with Formula one, which I'm not sure
why they decided to designate that. I didn't find that,
(23:38):
but I would be interested to know why they made
the change. So we can think of a lot of
drivers who get to Formula one. Just just so you know,
if you're listening to this podcast and you're getting ready
to become a Formula one driver, Scott and I are
completely behind you man or woman, and we will talk
about women female women drivers. But you gotta know that
(24:01):
these drivers are such pros. They don't usually just start
right at Formula one, No, they started one of the
other formulas, yeah, or they even come from like I
think they've been drivers that have made the jump from
Indy Car and Kart you know, which is another to
two other open wheel series over to Formula one, and uh,
you know, sometimes they do well, sometimes they don't do well,
(24:22):
and you know then that leads to there's so much
of this, ben if you if you go online, and
I'm sure a lot of our listeners have done this.
You know, they like, let's say you're an Indie five fan.
You love the Indy Car series, you love the cart
Car series, you know when it was in place back then, um,
and you you know, make a statement that you know
you love IndyCar, Well, then right away a Formula one person,
(24:42):
a fan will jump on you and say, no, wait,
Formula one is the greatest. And then you know, it's
the same thing with stock car racing. You know, so
NASCAR versus Indy Car, versus Formula One versus Car. But
you know it's just everybody's got their own favorite thing. Um.
This this has a huge fan base. By the way though,
I mean they at tens of hundreds of thousands of
people watched these events because you know, these are these
(25:04):
are big, big track events. And you know what, here's
one of tho parts where I want to go back
to the beginning Grand Prix because um Grand Prix. Now,
going way way back into nineteen six, the first race
that was organized by the Automobile Club of France. So
it's a cf UM again nineteen o six, that's the
first official Grand Prix race. The term actually means, well,
(25:27):
the first term that was usued really was grand and
I'm gonna mess this up, but grand approve and which
means great trial in French. And uh by what they
mean by great trial is this um. Each lap that
was run at this first race was sixty five miles long,
and they ran six months. They were in six laps
each day of the race weekend. So let's say I
(25:51):
don't know if it was I don't remember how many
laps here someone could do the quick math, but the
total race was seven and eighty miles for that first race.
Now that's why they called it a grand trial. It
does make perfect sense, right, And and here they are
driving around these tracks, you know, for this long, and
they've got these huge, inefficient engines. They've got these uh
these ten ten anywhere from ten to fifteen leaders in size.
(26:14):
So there's enormous engines fifty horse power which is still
one of my five zero fifty horse power in these
like ten liter engines, you know that are they're powering
these enormous cars through the French countryside, which you know
at the time they're going really what they think is
really fast, you know, for nineteen o six. You know,
I don't even have any top speed here. I don't
(26:36):
have a I don't have like a list of you know,
averages or tops or anything like that. But uh, I
mean for it to take you know, full weekend sixty
five mile laps, sixty you know, six laps each day.
That's still a lot of driving. That's a huge amount
of driving. And I'm really glad that you mentioned this.
Can we talk about the modern Formula one engines I
(26:57):
love talking about Yeah, that's perfect because, um man, there
are incredible machines, aren't they. Yes, I would go you know,
I get a little bit a little bit philosophical when
we talk about after a certain point of expertise and craftsmanship,
I start comparing engines to art. I know, I've done it.
I'm gonna do it again with this one because one
(27:19):
thing that might surprise people who are not too acquainted
with the Formula one cars is that the engines in
Formula one cars are at are at base uh surprisingly
similar to the engines that might be in your car
in that their internal combustion engines. Right. Um, they're not
They're not running off jet fuel or anything. Uh. They've
(27:40):
got the same trend or they've got a transmission, suspension
system all that stuff. Um, but they are not designed
for casual driving. No. No, this is where they I mean,
this is how they extract power out of that engine
right now. This is where it comes down to tuning
and machining and just you know, the the well all
fine tuning of an engine, really, and the engines have
(28:02):
changed over time because the type of engine, or at
least the engine specs are dictated by f I A. Yeah,
so I mean I'll go back to the nine. But
I do want to mention something here is that you
know they're they're you know the automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche
of course, um famously of you know, Porsche Motor Company. Um.
He one time said, there's a funny quote here. It says,
(28:24):
the perfect race car crosses the finish line in first
place and then falls to pieces. And uh, and I
think that's perfect because that makes it makes some incredible sense,
right because he wanted to just run run itself, you know,
right to the ragged edge, right to death really and uh.
And then once the races over, it doesn't matter because
that thing is going to be rebuilt anyways, right, as
we'll find out. But I'll wait on that statistic. But
(28:46):
we haven't. We have a couple of neat statistics. Yeah,
so so you know that there's man going back to
like nineteen fifty, they were getting about a hundred horse
about one hundred horsepower per leader in these cars, right,
now they were still up in you know, like I
don't remember the leaders that were allowed back then in
the nineteen fifties, but there's still still a lot but
a hundred horsepower per leaders. About what you and I
(29:08):
would get in a in a street car now, right,
which means for our listeners here that Scott could take
his car back in time and compete with these guys.
I've thought about that so many times. Wouldn't that be
so cool if you had if you were in you know,
this is sidebar, of course. Let's say you're Monte Carlo. Okay,
(29:28):
so well, suddenly you're in a in a dusty village,
you know where you know, there's nothing but horse and carriages,
and you've got this Monte Carlo that looks like a
space machine. Um, you know what would people think of that? Uh?
Depending on the time, people would probably think it was
some sort of act of diabolic yes, sorcery or something, right, yeah, yeah,
(29:51):
you're probably right. They would come out with torches and pitchforks. Problem. No, No,
if it was if it was maybe more in the
thirties or the or the forties, like where people had
heard of cars of some sort, then hopefully I could
find you know, the local man or woman of science
and open the hood and say, please do not burn
(30:12):
me alive. This is it would be an awful lot
like when the DeLorean showed up, you know in the
nineteen was it nineteen fifties and yeah, in the back
the future. Okay, anyways, back to the back if I think. Okay,
so I talked about nine fifties, about a hundred horsepower
person here. Uh then came the turbo era, which this
is really impressive, ben from like a one point five
Leader engine. These guys are getting like seven hundred and
(30:34):
fifty horsepower per Leader out of the engine. Enormous jump.
And then I also heard that you know in this
era and they were eventually banned in the turbo engines
were but um as good news on that by the way,
coming up and uh so this one point five Leader
engine that they had, this this turbo engine, they could
(30:55):
de tune it, and they had certain specifications that they
would run at for race day for qualifying, and uh
what was the other one for a practice and for qualifying.
I believe they were allowed to completely let this thing
out and they were up to like hundred horse power
in these one point five leader engines, these turbo engines,
which is enormous amount of horse power, and is that
(31:18):
still the highest amount of horse power? I don't, you know,
I would think that that would be because you know,
over the history of the race. I mean, this is
kind of around the can M days, you know, the
can M series, and that was like an unlimited series
and they drove scary fast cars back then. I mean,
the ridiculous horse power during the race with other cars
all around them, is its frightening and also really cool. Also,
(31:41):
let's keep in mind that this was during the era
when there would still be non championship Formula one races,
which um, eventually we're discontinued because of the profit or
the expense. Yeah, profit, yeah, yeah, that's that's what the
lack of Yeah yeah, that's so you've But but so
(32:01):
this engine evolution continues because, as you said, the turbos
were eventually banned in what nine, and then there's okay,
so there's immediate horse power drop, right, and then by
the time we get it to two thousand, or rather
two thousand five, we're back up to a round a
thousand horse power again. So you see what they're doing, right, there.
They're just engineering themselves back up to the point where
they were, right, and uh oh, go ahead. And I
(32:23):
was just gonna say that those were talking about those
V ten engines, right, yeah, well these are the ones
that are getting like three horsepower per Leader. I don't
know what size they were at that and during that era,
during the two thousand five are I think you're right.
I think it was the V TAN at that point. Yeah,
up to about two thousand six, they were these just
monster engines. They were V ten three Leader engines. Yeah.
(32:45):
And and remember that statistic everybody that Scott just said,
how much per Leader? Like three horsepower per Leader for
that one? Um, you know. And and again this reminds
me of the pre you know, the Grand pre days
when they're running super charge V sixteens, which are enormous engines.
But I mean those are in my favorite cars, the
Auto Union cars, the you know, the Bernard Rosemeyer and
(33:09):
those guys that that drove the these enormous Auto Union
cars that look like look like giant tubes that the
drivers got way out in front, you know, the engine
of the back in the back. It's just it looks
impossible to drive really, but they did it so skillfully,
and they're driving at speeds you know, like you know,
to fifty you know, plus you know, even faster on
(33:30):
when they did these you know, speed tests out on
the Auto bun which is an incredible story. We have
to talk about that two thousand six though, because what
what do we say as the rule? You guys, every
time that the engineers get a little bit too familiar
with the rule in the leeway, the rules changed. So
the rules changed two thousand six. Uh, and they were
using two point four leader V eights. Yeah, that's right.
(33:52):
And the power of course dropped down to about what
it was, so I'm going to guess right around eight
hundred horse power or something like that. Um. But the
good news been is, you know, since two thousands six
they have been working on in the power that you
know did come up. UM. I don't know exactly what
they're raiding them at right now because there's a lot
of conflicting info like where exactly they are right now,
(34:13):
but there is a new that the information that's out
there now is more about what's coming in two thousand fourteen,
and that's kind of a big deal because, uh, they're
bringing back the turbo engines because right now they're naturally aspirated,
no turbo, no supercharge or anything. So they're going back
to the turbo. But get this, it's gonna be a
one point six Leader V six engine. So it's getting
(34:35):
much much smaller again, which is which may surprise people.
But you have to remember with uh the allowance of
the turbo again, that that's a game change. I mean,
look what they did in the in the turbo era,
you know at the one point five Leader where they
were getting you know, they could tune it up to
horse power if they wanted to. Now they're gonna have
to play within the f i A rules and find out,
(34:56):
you know, exactly what what they can do with it.
But I would say that, you know, the formance isn't
really going to be hurt by these things. Maybe initially,
maybe initially a slight drop like what we saw when
the v ads came around. Yeah, for like maybe for
like the first year or two. But we have to
keep in mind that the original turbo era was decades ago,
and now there are a lot of lessons learned. They're
going to be applied and quickly. Scott, I wouldn't be
(35:18):
surprised if this blows everybody's expectations out of the water.
Whatever these engineers are cooking up. Fantastic point then, because
you know, the modern technology, they should be able to
and they probably, I know they're already working on what
they're going to do with it. Yeah, and they they
have been. I'm sure they got wind of this, you
know what. I'm sure there were a couple of teams.
I'm not gonna name names, but I'm sure there were
(35:38):
a couple of teams who just kept tinkering with turbo
technology just in case. Just yeah, you're right. They probably
have never had it off of their work bench the
entire time. Yeah, alright, Ben, you know what, I'm coming
to the realization that this may have to be broken
up into two parts. Yeah, I guess you're right, man.
I just I'm really into this there. I am too.
(35:58):
And there's so much serial to cover here. I mean,
we're gonna end up just reading things super fast just
to get it all in. And uh, I think, you know,
we need to cover a lot more still. We've got
that you know, that teaser. I guess that I've been
playing along the whole time with New World the New
World Record that has a little something to do with
maybe um, human speed, not not vehicle speed. Maybe that's
(36:21):
my at my hint about Okay, okay, and but that's
coming up and I promise you know where I have
to do that in the second part. All right, Well, Scott,
I am sad that we didn't get this all in
one episode. However, as the more reasonable half of this
podcasting duo, I defer to your expertise. You are correct, sir.
We are going to make this a two partner. So everybody,
(36:44):
we hope you've enjoyed the first part of our formula
one podcast, along with this world record that we're cheasing.
In the meantime, why don't you give us a holler,
give us a suggestion for an upcoming topic. If you're interested,
you can drop us a line on Facebook. You can
write to us on Twitter, and ladies and gentlemen, if
you don't care for social media at all, you can
(37:05):
still send us an email. Our address is car stuff
at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, this at how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Go behind the Wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot Com. Hi, everybuddy,
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott Benjamin and I'm Ben
Bullen and Ben. Today we've got a topic that I
cannot believe we haven't covered since since the very beginning.
(00:23):
Really yeah, now this is this is weird for us
because we've been at this for a while and we
have touched upon Formula one in a number of other podcasts,
I would say many times, just to be fair, I mean,
we've we've talked about um, uh you know, new technology
that comes out of course, you know, some of the
advanced systems, the engines and things like that. We've talked
about um pit stops. Of course, we've talked about some
(00:46):
race records that involved Formula one, yeah, exactly, and and
the series and a hole. I guess we've just never
covered from beginning to end. And uh, you know that
was pointed out to us by a listener. His name
is Justin from Indiana. Uh sent an email recently and
it says, Hey, Scott and Benn, I'm a big fan
of Formula one racing. I was looking through my Car
Stuff podcasts and I couldn't find any podcasts about Formula
(01:07):
one racing. I thought you guys could do a podcast
on F one and Grand Prix and some famous drivers
like Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso. Love listening to you guys,
and thanks for reading my email, Justin from Indiana. Now.
I I looked at this email on my screen and
I think, I I, you know, theatrically blinked twice, and
I thought, no, there's no way, there's no way we've
(01:27):
missed F one as a main topic, right right, And
I did the same thing when I was reading the email,
and justin, thank you for writing to us, uh Scott,
and I also went back and looked through our catalog
of podcast which is getting pretty long now and lo
and behold, Justin from Indiana. You are absolutely correct. Not
(01:49):
only not only have we never covered those drivers, we've
never covered Formula one. And the weird thing about this
is our regular listeners, you guys will otis uh we
recently did a podcast on Formula E, which is the
will it would be electric version latest and uh maybe
(02:10):
not greatest um effort in this arena, right yeah, and
nose spoilers, but it's definitely not Formula one. It's it's
kind of trying to piggyback off that, but without further
ado Scott, We're not above getting, uh, being pointed out
stuff like this. No, no, that's fine. And I honestly
I had to look back through the in our RSS
(02:30):
feed and do a search and find out if if
we had done this, because we're approaching five episodes now
at this point, we're getting close and uh, and to
go back through all that and look and discover that
we hadn't covered a main topic like this kind of
embarrassing a little bit, right face. But you know, I'm
glad we've caught it because you know, we're you know,
they're justin caught it really and brought it to our
attention because I think we we've got a lot to
(02:52):
cover today, right and and I want to mention that
at the very end of this podcast, there's a there's
a there's a new record that you absolutely have to
see to believe. This is something I'll describe to you,
but you have to go out there and find it
and look at it in order to comprehend what's going on.
This is an amazing record, So I promised it by
the end of the podcast, we'll talk about this and
(03:13):
you'll be you know, in knowing what's going on, and
it's and it's current, it's very current. It'll be one
of the last things we talked about. So please do
stay tuned for it. We will not give you a
spoiler other than to say, I don't know, Scott, maybe
halfway through the podcast through in like one hint maybe. Okay,
So so let's start with just the m you want
(03:36):
to start at the beginning. Help, let's go way back
to the beginning, because we like to do that. We'd
like to go back to the very early early days
of this. And and Ben, I know I've said this before,
but we learned something new every day here when we
do the research for this. And uh I, I had
been making a mistake my entire life up until this point.
What was it. I had been referring to UH cars
(03:58):
that were really in in actuality Grand Prix cars. I
had been calling them F one cars or Formula one cars,
even though they predated the actual Formula One series, which
I didn't know began in nineteen fifty. Yeah, which may
surprise some people. Some people may say, WHOA, that's way
too recent. But that's because there's a little bit of
(04:19):
a mix up with terminology that a lot of people
make here. It's it's kind of confusing, and once once
I tell you this, you may understand it even more
if you're one of the people like me that just
didn't didn't get this or hasn't hasn't really read up
on it. Um. Now you know that Formula one races
today are called you know, the Grand Prix of Monaco,
the Grand Prix of Italy, the Grand Prix of the
(04:40):
United States, Grand Prix exactly. Um, that's Formula one cars
racing in a Grand Prix race. Now prior to nineteen fifty,
going all the way back to nineteen o six, anything
from nineteen o six to nine, that was called Grand
Prix motor racing, and that was the original series. I
(05:00):
guess that birthed Formula one. However, the Grand Prix motor
racing cars raced in races that were also called Grand Prix.
So you can go back and look at races that
were called, you know, the Grand Prix of Monaco or
Grand Prix of you know, Germany or whatever from nineteen
thirty or nineteen fourteen or whatever, and that Grand Prix
(05:21):
race is part of the Grand Prix series. It wasn't
until nineteen fifty. Um that Formula one, you know, which
is like a series that's saying we'll talk about the
sanction and all that. But um so for Formula One
is nineteen fifty to present. Grand Prix is from nineteen
o six to nineteen forty nine, if you want to
keep it straight that way, right, So nineteen o six
(05:42):
to ninety nine, none of those are Formula One cars exactly.
And I I personally now I mentioned that, you know,
I've made a mistake all along. I personally had thought,
you know, in the nineteen thirties because some of my
favorite cars, which I want to talk about here in
just a second, some of my favorite cars come from
the nineteen thirties in this in this type of race
sing and I had mistakenly all along called these well
(06:03):
that's you know, someone says, what's that car that's on
your on your wall there because you've got a little
poster or whatever on my cubicle. Um, I would say,
that's a that's the way Formula one cars looked in
the nineteen thirties. You know, that's a it's an auDA
Union Grand pre Car Formula one car, which really wasn't true.
It's a grand pre car, so it's it's a minor
distinction that needs to be made. But um, I think
(06:25):
that you know, we're talking about we're covering Formula One,
but we do have to go back to Grand Prix
because that's where it all started. And now that we've entered, uh,
nineteen fifty, we've entered the birth of you will of
Formula one, we have some interesting stuff to talk about
when it when it comes to the dawn of Formula one.
You know, Scott, it wasn't a smooth beginning. Actually there was,
(06:49):
especially nineteen fifty two and nineteen fifty three, there was
a little bit of a lack of entrance, which is
surprising now because Formula One is a premier racing events. Yeah,
it's surprising to me that they didn't have enough drivers
really to fill out the series. But then again, you know,
you look at you know, some of the newer series
because this was considered which is odd enough, but I
(07:12):
mean it's considered kind of a new series. Really, Um,
A lot of people will like in this may be
in a similar way to win like the Indy Car
Card split. You know, people, there were fans from one
side that said, now it's got to remain this way.
And I'm sure that at the time there were fans
that said, we can't lose this grand preheritage that we've
had for you know, the previous forty three years. Um,
(07:35):
what's with this new series. It's gonna it's gonna destroy it.
It's not gonna be anything, anything good, anything worth watching.
And um, you know, the the new drivers, they were
probably the ones that are just kind of the new teams.
They were saying, well, let's give this a shot and
see if it see if it lasts. Yeah, And of
the twenty also, cost was a big consideration even back then.
And we're gonna see this pattern continues today, hope for sure.
(07:57):
But of the of the twenty different makes or teams
that competed in nineteen fifty, uh, the majority were soon
forced out of the out of the game, entirely by
the costs. That's incredible, isn't it now? And we know
now that you know years as a yearly budget, Uh,
these teams spend billions of dollars billions. The bigger teams, well, yeah,
(08:19):
the bigger teams, but overall as a as a series.
We're talking billions and billions and billions of dollars with bees. Um.
You know, back in the nineteen fifties, I would assume
that it's millions. If not, you know, a hundred millions
or whatever it was, I don't know. Maybe it wasn't
that much, maybe not a hundred millions, but it was millions.
I bet it was millions. And the costs escalated quickly.
(08:40):
It's it's always been an expensive sport. One other thing
that people should consider is that for for a time,
if we're being candid, Uh, the F one series had
a difficulty with safety. Uh. In some of the first
few races, the death toll was gruesome. Uh. There were
thirteen drivers killed in F one cars over the first decade. Yeah,
(09:03):
that's not a good record for ten years. Let's say,
I mean thirteen drivers in ten years. And that continued
on through the sixties and early seventies with you know,
we mentioned Jackie Stewart. That's another part, you know, another
point where we've talked about Formula one in the past
and not really gun into much detail, but Jackie Stewart
and his push for safety and Formula one in the
(09:24):
late sixties early seventies. Um, he formed groups, you know,
with drivers that said we're not going to compete in
your race unless you change this aspect of this course.
And uh, and they got things done that way. And
you know, it's just it was a very very hazardous
sport to be involved in because driver's safety really wasn't
the main concern at that point. It was going fast.
(09:45):
It was um which is, you know, to be fair,
it's still it's still all about going fast. But you
know the driver, you know, they want to protect the
driver of course now, but and and no one wanted
anything bad to happen to the driver in the past.
It was just it wasn't thought of as like the
main goal, right. And in the defense of F one
as well, Jackie Stewart made an enormous difference. He also
(10:09):
made a difference at a time in which greater safety
was possible. We have to remember that the difference between
the safety technology available in the fifties and that available
in the sixties and seventies enormous, I know, and look
at the advancements that they've made now. I mean, you know,
we're talking about things like even safe barriers and just
proper runoff areas because if you look back, um at
(10:31):
the Grand Prix footage. I've looked at some uh some
old film footage, and I don't know how they really
got this same must have strapped enormous you know, film
cameras to the cars. But watching like uh, you know
Juan Manuel Fangio drive around you know, the Italy Circuit
or something, you know, and they've got film footage of
him in car type stuff, and um, his the track
(10:53):
that he's following, the you know, the course that he's on,
I mean immediately to his right and left is brush
that's you know, six ft tall and boulders and things
like that, and um, you know, it's just it's a
it's a completely different world. I mean, they they have
really up the safety in this exponentially in the last
couple of decades. And that's just a lot of it
(11:14):
is from the series itself. You know, they learned lessons
every time something bad happens, um, but it takes an
accident or something serious to happen like that for them
to to grow even further. And as we'll see this, uh,
this is still an evolution, this is still a work
in progress. When we get to the regulations, the safety approaches,
(11:36):
and also just the um well you know what I'm
talking about something we're gonna talk about. Should we just
talk about Formula one? I think so? And you know,
just with a little little hint of you know, Grand
Prix stuff sprinkled in there as well, because you know
there's some there needs to be a little bit of
looking back, just a little yeah, just a little bit,
I mean here and there? Um Man, where should we stay? Okay,
(11:58):
So I guess we should just say at the top
lass in? Uh in this type of racing, right, the
single seat racing, yes, open wheeled, single seat race, Okay.
And it's and the sanctioning body is the Federation International
de la Automobile which is uh f i A, which
will be called f i A from this point forward
for obvious reasons. You yeah, no problem. Uh. And that
(12:20):
was boy Ben that was founded in nineteen o four,
so it's founded two years prior to the actual birth
of Grand par Race. Yeah. And um and it's got
a frontman who's uh he's a controversial guy, Bernie eccleston. Yes,
the infamous, famous, notorious You love him, you hate him,
you can't live without him? If you're a race fan.
(12:41):
Bernie eccleston. Bernie Eccleston is UM the primary um power
associated with f i A in Formula one H. Bernie
eccleston has been lauded for some of his work with
the organization UH. He has also been and vilified at
times fairly for some of his more controversial statements. Certainly,
(13:06):
I mean we should just maybe talk about who he
is and we can leave the controversial stuff up to
listeners to take a look at and decide, you know,
whatever they want on that band. There's it's it's funny.
But even just as somebody who's not I think interested
in you know, auto racing or whatever. UM, I think
somebody would. I think a lot of people will know
who this character is. H. He turns up in the news,
(13:27):
you know, maybe frequently a couple of times a year.
It seems like there's something going on that you know,
somebody outside of the motoring world would have interested. They would. Yeah,
he was just in the news actually in April of
this year. Yeah, he um. You know, one of the
last races recently was in the Middle East and he
was in the news for UH in Bahrain actually for
(13:50):
claiming that it was something that the Bahraini government had
done was was stupid in regards to the race. But
you know, I also I also want to say, though
this is just a little sidebar Scott in defense of UM,
celebrity owners, drivers, almost any athlete. Really, what we have
to remember is that we live in an age of
(14:13):
ubiquitous communication. So it's a lot it's it's a lot
more difficult to say things off the record now, so
depending on the circumstances. Okay, And there's another little side
bit here that I don't even know what to call
this really, but maybe I'm unfairly bringing this up. But
Bernie's eighty two years old. He's old school. He's old school,
(14:36):
and he may just kind of off the cuff say
things that you know, he finds appropriate that really aren't
appropriate to say out loud in UH, in mixed company
or whatever. And a lot of times he he puts
his foot right in his mouth when he when he speaks. Now, um,
he just let's just give him the general by okay.
So he's a British businessman. He's a president and CEO
(14:57):
of Formula one Management and UH and the Formula one
associations like the you know, the the Constructors Association and
things like that, right, so he's he's uh, he's always
like the front man. He's the the the guy that
people go to for the comment or the face exactly.
He's the face of F one really. Um, he's also
been he's a former F one competitor, UM and driving manager.
(15:21):
Now it goes way back because he entered two races
in eight but he didn't qualify for either one. So
he I mean his racing days go back to the
late fifties, um in the sports, so early early on
in Formula one. Um. And let's see what oh you
know what. He also sold famously sold the F one
television rights in the nineteen seventies, which means that you know,
(15:43):
we're able to finally see Formula one racing here and
you know regularly, and that holds today. I mean even
now we were able to you know, pick it up
on cable somewhere. You're able to find Formula one race.
It's usually where I live right now. Um, it's usually
like an early early Sunday morning like the racial happened to,
like you know, six am Sunday mornings. They can cover
it live, so it's not always the greatest time slot,
(16:06):
but that's because they're they're covering the event live. And
I also wanna again, I know I'm coming out to
defend Bernie eccleston, but if you guys don't know who
he is, check on the internet and you'll completely understand
why I'm trying to give just the Devil's Advocate thing
Scott as he said, he's eighty two. I do want
to point out that he is also a self made man.
He is, yeah, you know what, and he's really built
(16:27):
quite an empire there. I mean, you know, billion billion
dollar empires, So you know, take that for whatever you
like and see the nicest guy. Absolutely not guys, but
but um, he is I think uh at the point
where he could be considered like a king of this empire.
He's very shrewd and what he says goes, oh yeah,
(16:49):
did you hear that story? There's so many Bernie stories.
I just want to tell one. How do you hear
that story about when he was injured and he got
a black eye and he he took he used his
face as part of an ad for that that went
up around um I think it was in England with
him with his eye blackened. Yeah. I can't remember what
(17:11):
it was, if he was selling watches or something, but
this guy knows how to turn a dollar interesting, making
lemonade and lemons right and making pence into pounds. I guess. Yeah.
You know this thing. I mean this, this whole organization.
This is part of the f i A and part
of you know everything, but extremely strict rules and that
(17:34):
is why actually it is called formula one. Is that correct? Yeah?
That's right there. I mean is you know you've mentioned
it to me in the past, and this is really
a Formula one. I mean, there's really a formula for
this racing then that you need to follow this, this
and this, but there's wiggle room. Ah. Yes, and the
wiggle room, I would argue, is the heart of the
(17:55):
competition here. Uh so, formula what what? What is the
formula exactly? Well, that's a great question. I'm sorry I
set myself up for it. Uh. For the formula really
refers to these very strict and quite specific regulations about
the race. Uh, They're both. There are two types. There's
(18:16):
sporting regulations and their technical regulations. Now, Scott, you and
I know the sporting regulations are the ones that cover
how a race is conducted, so how it's operated, who
starts at, how it's concluded, every imaginable thing in between,
and then the thing that might be more interesting both
to you and I and to uh all you ladies
(18:39):
and gentlemen listening. Uh are the technical regulations. So the
technical regulations, this is where the fun stuff happens. Yeah,
and if you want an idea of you know, exactly
what's going on here, you can go to the Formula
one website, which is great for it. Just Formula one
dot com with the number one. I think the if
use O n E. I think it takes you too,
like a window tending place or something like that. So, um,
(19:01):
go to the Formula one website, click on the news
tab and then the technical tab and you'll see you
right there. I mean, just a few examples of teams
that have developed their own wing variations. Uh, they've developed
their own um, you know, like their their own chassis
designs that are aerodynamic they've got there I'm sorry, not chassis,
but suspension components, you know, the exposed chassis upfront. UM.
(19:22):
Also like new wing designs, exhaust designs, and it's very
team specific. Like one team developed a something called a
blown wheel hub, which which I think they deemed it
as unusable or um, what do you call it? Just
outside the band? Yeah, because it was actually a movable
aerodynamic device or something like that. But uh, you know,
(19:44):
they find a way to channel air through the car
out the wheel hubs during the race, which is very
very clever, um. And I think they've modified it now
to make it actually work so that it's again within
the rules. But this is there's always this cat and
mouse back and forth, right, Yes, the devil is in
the details. And that's a that's a very good point
because what if you look at the chronology of Formula
(20:06):
one from the fifties to the present day, then you'll
see that teams consistently are reading are reading the rules
very closely and saying, okay, well we can do this
with the tire, we can do this with the wing,
and then the next year, the next few years f
I A Will come back and say, well that is
an unfair advantage or these things are going to be banned.
(20:27):
And if you look at the you know, the rules,
you can find rules for this year. I mean there's
a there's a list of two thousand thirteen rule changes
and it's a long list rule changes, guys. Rule changes
now that's updates to existing rules, and then there's gonna
be new rules, and then there's rules that you know,
if you go back and I wish I could find
a place that would do this, But I wish you
could go back to, you know, two thousand twelve, two
(20:48):
thousand eleven, nineteen seventy five, nineteen seventy two, you know,
whenever do a year by year comparison exactly and find
out like what did they remove this year? Like what
what did they say in nineteen seventy five You couldn't
anymore what you know, same for nineteen sixty two or whatever. Um,
it would be fantastic to see that list. And Scott,
the f i A isn't always the bad guy. I feel.
(21:09):
I feel that I'm maybe vilifying them a bit, but
they also take their time to reward these innovations when
these teams make them and they're within the rules. Like
the the f i A has this spot on the
Formula one website that you were referring to earlier where
they say they're pretty much congratulating people when they update
(21:31):
these uh, these new innovations that these racing teams have
made absolutely and sometimes in in the opposite direction, they'll
make them. They'll make the mandatory for another thing. They'll say,
they'll say, you know what, this design is really working
and it's making it a better a better race, a
better series. We're gonna make that mandatory for two thousand
and fourteen, two thousand and fifteen. Whenever they you know,
(21:52):
they decide when and what to do, or you know,
we're going to modify it a bit, but then we're
gonna make this something that you have to do. And
now that that is not as common as something being banned,
but it does. It does happen. It seems like they
just continually take away and take away and take away,
doesn't it. But but you know what that causes, The
causes a team or that promotes the team to do
(22:14):
more with less, and that that that also kind of
breeds innovation and development as well. So you know, this
this is a like I said, it's a cat and
mouse give and take thing that happens, and it's really
really good for the series. It's good for um US
as you know, consumers with you know, the trickle down
technology that that inevitably happens in the marketplace. It really does. Um,
(22:36):
there's you know, so many racing innovations that that show
up in everyday cars eventually, you know, first the top
end cars, and then it gets down to you know,
the cars that you and I could afford been and
then uh, you know, but it but it does happen.
It takes a while, but you know, this is exactly
where this type of thing comes from. Necessity is the
mother of invention. If I could use the corny quote. Now,
(22:57):
when we when we in the United States think about them,
think about open wheel auto racing, we're usually going to
think of n right, Yeah, I think so, But that's
not associated with Formula one. Oh and one thing I
do need to mention, Uh, there's more than one formula.
(23:17):
Formula one is not the only formula. It's just the premier. Yeah,
that's right. There's there's also a Formula two, and there's
Formula three, and there's other Formula series. And I think
this was originally what do you say, it was Formula A.
I think yeah, briefly and at the beginning a little
bit of trivia, it was Formula A, Formula A, and
then they want with Formula one, which I'm not sure
why they decided to designate that. I didn't find that,
(23:38):
but I would be interested to know why they made
the change. So we can think of a lot of
drivers who get to Formula one. Just just so you know,
if you're listening to this podcast and you're getting ready
to become a Formula one driver, Scott and I are
completely behind you man or woman, and we will talk
about women female women drivers. But you gotta know that
(24:01):
these drivers are such pros. They don't usually just start
right at Formula one, No, they started one of the
other formulas, yeah, or they even come from like I
think they've been drivers that have made the jump from
Indy Car and Kart you know, which is another to
two other open wheel series over to Formula one, and uh,
you know, sometimes they do well, sometimes they don't do well,
(24:22):
and you know then that leads to there's so much
of this, ben if you if you go online, and
I'm sure a lot of our listeners have done this.
You know, they like, let's say you're an Indie five fan.
You love the Indy Car series, you love the cart
Car series, you know when it was in place back then, um,
and you you know, make a statement that you know
you love IndyCar, Well, then right away a Formula one person,
(24:42):
a fan will jump on you and say, no, wait,
Formula one is the greatest. And then you know, it's
the same thing with stock car racing. You know, so
NASCAR versus Indy Car, versus Formula One versus Car. But
you know it's just everybody's got their own favorite thing. Um.
This this has a huge fan base. By the way though,
I mean they at tens of hundreds of thousands of
people watched these events because you know, these are these
(25:04):
are big, big track events. And you know what, here's
one of tho parts where I want to go back
to the beginning Grand Prix because um Grand Prix. Now,
going way way back into nineteen six, the first race
that was organized by the Automobile Club of France. So
it's a cf UM again nineteen o six, that's the
first official Grand Prix race. The term actually means, well,
(25:27):
the first term that was usued really was grand and
I'm gonna mess this up, but grand approve and which
means great trial in French. And uh by what they
mean by great trial is this um. Each lap that
was run at this first race was sixty five miles long,
and they ran six months. They were in six laps
each day of the race weekend. So let's say I
(25:51):
don't know if it was I don't remember how many
laps here someone could do the quick math, but the
total race was seven and eighty miles for that first race.
Now that's why they called it a grand trial. It
does make perfect sense, right, And and here they are
driving around these tracks, you know, for this long, and
they've got these huge, inefficient engines. They've got these uh
these ten ten anywhere from ten to fifteen leaders in size.
(26:14):
So there's enormous engines fifty horse power which is still
one of my five zero fifty horse power in these
like ten liter engines, you know that are they're powering
these enormous cars through the French countryside, which you know
at the time they're going really what they think is
really fast, you know, for nineteen o six. You know,
I don't even have any top speed here. I don't
(26:36):
have a I don't have like a list of you know,
averages or tops or anything like that. But uh, I
mean for it to take you know, full weekend sixty
five mile laps, sixty you know, six laps each day.
That's still a lot of driving. That's a huge amount
of driving. And I'm really glad that you mentioned this.
Can we talk about the modern Formula one engines I
(26:57):
love talking about Yeah, that's perfect because, um man, there
are incredible machines, aren't they. Yes, I would go you know,
I get a little bit a little bit philosophical when
we talk about after a certain point of expertise and craftsmanship,
I start comparing engines to art. I know, I've done it.
I'm gonna do it again with this one because one
(27:19):
thing that might surprise people who are not too acquainted
with the Formula one cars is that the engines in
Formula one cars are at are at base uh surprisingly
similar to the engines that might be in your car
in that their internal combustion engines. Right. Um, they're not
They're not running off jet fuel or anything. Uh. They've
(27:40):
got the same trend or they've got a transmission, suspension
system all that stuff. Um, but they are not designed
for casual driving. No. No, this is where they I mean,
this is how they extract power out of that engine
right now. This is where it comes down to tuning
and machining and just you know, the the well all
fine tuning of an engine, really, and the engines have
(28:02):
changed over time because the type of engine, or at
least the engine specs are dictated by f I A. Yeah,
so I mean I'll go back to the nine. But
I do want to mention something here is that you
know they're they're you know the automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche
of course, um famously of you know, Porsche Motor Company. Um.
He one time said, there's a funny quote here. It says,
(28:24):
the perfect race car crosses the finish line in first
place and then falls to pieces. And uh, and I
think that's perfect because that makes it makes some incredible sense,
right because he wanted to just run run itself, you know,
right to the ragged edge, right to death really and uh.
And then once the races over, it doesn't matter because
that thing is going to be rebuilt anyways, right, as
we'll find out. But I'll wait on that statistic. But
(28:46):
we haven't. We have a couple of neat statistics. Yeah,
so so you know that there's man going back to
like nineteen fifty, they were getting about a hundred horse
about one hundred horsepower per leader in these cars, right,
now they were still up in you know, like I
don't remember the leaders that were allowed back then in
the nineteen fifties, but there's still still a lot but
a hundred horsepower per leaders. About what you and I
(29:08):
would get in a in a street car now, right,
which means for our listeners here that Scott could take
his car back in time and compete with these guys.
I've thought about that so many times. Wouldn't that be
so cool if you had if you were in you know,
this is sidebar, of course. Let's say you're Monte Carlo. Okay,
(29:28):
so well, suddenly you're in a in a dusty village,
you know where you know, there's nothing but horse and carriages,
and you've got this Monte Carlo that looks like a
space machine. Um, you know what would people think of that? Uh?
Depending on the time, people would probably think it was
some sort of act of diabolic yes, sorcery or something, right, yeah, yeah,
(29:51):
you're probably right. They would come out with torches and pitchforks. Problem. No, No,
if it was if it was maybe more in the
thirties or the or the forties, like where people had
heard of cars of some sort, then hopefully I could
find you know, the local man or woman of science
and open the hood and say, please do not burn
(30:12):
me alive. This is it would be an awful lot
like when the DeLorean showed up, you know in the
nineteen was it nineteen fifties and yeah, in the back
the future. Okay, anyways, back to the back if I think. Okay,
so I talked about nine fifties, about a hundred horsepower
person here. Uh then came the turbo era, which this
is really impressive, ben from like a one point five
Leader engine. These guys are getting like seven hundred and
(30:34):
fifty horsepower per Leader out of the engine. Enormous jump.
And then I also heard that you know in this
era and they were eventually banned in the turbo engines
were but um as good news on that by the way,
coming up and uh so this one point five Leader
engine that they had, this this turbo engine, they could
(30:55):
de tune it, and they had certain specifications that they
would run at for race day for qualifying, and uh
what was the other one for a practice and for qualifying.
I believe they were allowed to completely let this thing
out and they were up to like hundred horse power
in these one point five leader engines, these turbo engines,
which is enormous amount of horse power, and is that
(31:18):
still the highest amount of horse power? I don't, you know,
I would think that that would be because you know,
over the history of the race. I mean, this is
kind of around the can M days, you know, the
can M series, and that was like an unlimited series
and they drove scary fast cars back then. I mean,
the ridiculous horse power during the race with other cars
all around them, is its frightening and also really cool. Also,
(31:41):
let's keep in mind that this was during the era
when there would still be non championship Formula one races,
which um, eventually we're discontinued because of the profit or
the expense. Yeah, profit, yeah, yeah, that's that's what the
lack of Yeah yeah, that's so you've But but so
(32:01):
this engine evolution continues because, as you said, the turbos
were eventually banned in what nine, and then there's okay,
so there's immediate horse power drop, right, and then by
the time we get it to two thousand, or rather
two thousand five, we're back up to a round a
thousand horse power again. So you see what they're doing, right, there.
They're just engineering themselves back up to the point where
they were, right, and uh oh, go ahead. And I
(32:23):
was just gonna say that those were talking about those
V ten engines, right, yeah, well these are the ones
that are getting like three horsepower per Leader. I don't
know what size they were at that and during that era,
during the two thousand five are I think you're right.
I think it was the V TAN at that point. Yeah,
up to about two thousand six, they were these just
monster engines. They were V ten three Leader engines. Yeah.
(32:45):
And and remember that statistic everybody that Scott just said,
how much per Leader? Like three horsepower per Leader for
that one? Um, you know. And and again this reminds
me of the pre you know, the Grand pre days
when they're running super charge V sixteens, which are enormous engines.
But I mean those are in my favorite cars, the
Auto Union cars, the you know, the Bernard Rosemeyer and
(33:09):
those guys that that drove the these enormous Auto Union
cars that look like look like giant tubes that the
drivers got way out in front, you know, the engine
of the back in the back. It's just it looks
impossible to drive really, but they did it so skillfully,
and they're driving at speeds you know, like you know,
to fifty you know, plus you know, even faster on
(33:30):
when they did these you know, speed tests out on
the Auto bun which is an incredible story. We have
to talk about that two thousand six though, because what
what do we say as the rule? You guys, every
time that the engineers get a little bit too familiar
with the rule in the leeway, the rules changed. So
the rules changed two thousand six. Uh, and they were
using two point four leader V eights. Yeah, that's right.
(33:52):
And the power of course dropped down to about what
it was, so I'm going to guess right around eight
hundred horse power or something like that. Um. But the
good news been is, you know, since two thousands six
they have been working on in the power that you
know did come up. UM. I don't know exactly what
they're raiding them at right now because there's a lot
of conflicting info like where exactly they are right now,
(34:13):
but there is a new that the information that's out
there now is more about what's coming in two thousand fourteen,
and that's kind of a big deal because, uh, they're
bringing back the turbo engines because right now they're naturally aspirated,
no turbo, no supercharge or anything. So they're going back
to the turbo. But get this, it's gonna be a
one point six Leader V six engine. So it's getting
(34:35):
much much smaller again, which is which may surprise people.
But you have to remember with uh the allowance of
the turbo again, that that's a game change. I mean,
look what they did in the in the turbo era,
you know at the one point five Leader where they
were getting you know, they could tune it up to
horse power if they wanted to. Now they're gonna have
to play within the f i A rules and find out,
(34:56):
you know, exactly what what they can do with it.
But I would say that, you know, the formance isn't
really going to be hurt by these things. Maybe initially,
maybe initially a slight drop like what we saw when
the v ads came around. Yeah, for like maybe for
like the first year or two. But we have to
keep in mind that the original turbo era was decades ago,
and now there are a lot of lessons learned. They're
going to be applied and quickly. Scott, I wouldn't be
(35:18):
surprised if this blows everybody's expectations out of the water.
Whatever these engineers are cooking up. Fantastic point then, because
you know, the modern technology, they should be able to
and they probably, I know they're already working on what
they're going to do with it. Yeah, and they they
have been. I'm sure they got wind of this, you
know what. I'm sure there were a couple of teams.
I'm not gonna name names, but I'm sure there were
(35:38):
a couple of teams who just kept tinkering with turbo
technology just in case. Just yeah, you're right. They probably
have never had it off of their work bench the
entire time. Yeah, alright, Ben, you know what, I'm coming
to the realization that this may have to be broken
up into two parts. Yeah, I guess you're right, man.
I just I'm really into this there. I am too.
(35:58):
And there's so much serial to cover here. I mean,
we're gonna end up just reading things super fast just
to get it all in. And uh, I think, you know,
we need to cover a lot more still. We've got
that you know, that teaser. I guess that I've been
playing along the whole time with New World the New
World Record that has a little something to do with
maybe um, human speed, not not vehicle speed. Maybe that's
(36:21):
my at my hint about Okay, okay, and but that's
coming up and I promise you know where I have
to do that in the second part. All right, Well, Scott,
I am sad that we didn't get this all in
one episode. However, as the more reasonable half of this
podcasting duo, I defer to your expertise. You are correct, sir.
We are going to make this a two partner. So everybody,
(36:44):
we hope you've enjoyed the first part of our formula
one podcast, along with this world record that we're cheasing.
In the meantime, why don't you give us a holler,
give us a suggestion for an upcoming topic. If you're interested,
you can drop us a line on Facebook. You can
write to us on Twitter, and ladies and gentlemen, if
you don't care for social media at all, you can
(37:05):
still send us an email. Our address is car stuff
at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, this at how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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