FAQ

The FAQ

1. What is Formula One
2. Singapore Grand Prix
3. Singapore Racing Origins
4. Singapore Formula One Sponsorship
5. Singapore Formula One Tickets
6. Singapore Formula One Night Lighting
7. Singapore Formula One Facts
8. Singapore Formula One Road Circuit Paving
9. Singapore Formula One Budget Hostels
10. Top Speeds of F1 cars
11. Maximum gravitational pull of F1 cars
12. Who won the first Formula One
13. Greatest driver never to have won the title
14. When did aerodynamic designs made its debut in Formula One
15. The idea behind the grooved tyres
16. The “Big Four”
17. Formula One’s youngest champion
18. Michael Schumacher and Ferrari
19. Practice & Qualifying session
20. Cost of joining Formula One World Championship
21. Driver Numbering
22. F1 Feeder series
23. F1 retirement for drivers
24. Drivers neck problems
25. F1 car weight

What is Formula One

Formula One, abbreviated to F1, is the highest class of open wheeled auto racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), motorsport world’s governing body. The “formula” in the name refers to a set of rules to which all participants and cars must conform.

The F1 world championship season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix, held usually on purpose-built circuits, and in a few cases on closed city streets. The results of each race are combined to determine two annual World Championships, one for drivers and one for constructors.

Singapore Grand Prix

The Singapore Grand Prix is a Formula One race set to stage its inaugural event on 28 September 2008. To be staged in the Marina Bay area of Singapore, the circuit has been given in-principle approval by the FIA, Fomula One’s governing body.

The first Formula One Grand Prix in Singapore will also be Formula One’s first night race. Prior to the race becoming part of the Formula One calendar, the Singapore Grand Prix was held as a Formula Libre event in the 1960s and 1970s at the Thomson Road circuit.

Singapore Racing Origins

First organised in 1961, the race was initially known as the Orient Year Grand Prix. The following year, the race was renamed the Malaysian Grand Prix. After Singapore attained its independence in 1965, the Thomson Road circuit, now Singaporean, ran its race as the Singapore Grand Prix. The event was discontinued after 1973 and a variety of reasons have been suggested, including an increase in traffic, the inconvenience of having to close roads for the event and fatal accidents during the 1972 and 1973 races. It is also thought that a surge of oil prices stemming from the Suez Crisis might have been to blame.

Singapore Formula One Sponsorship

An agreement for a five-year deal was signed by Singapore GP Pte Ltd, the Singapore Tourism Board and Bernie Ecclestone. In November 2007 it was announced that the telecommunications company Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) will sponsor the event. The official name of the event will be the FORMULA 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix

Singapore Formula One Tickets

Around 80,000 tickets will be available for the country’s first Formula One race. Corporate hospitality suites and packages are on sale from end November 2007, with sale of three-day passes to the public due to start in December 2007. Single-day passes will be released for sale in the new year, subject to available inventory. Buy your tickets here

Singapore Formula One Night Lighting

• Lighting consultant Valerio Maioli S.p.a, an Italian company is handling this project
• Used state of the art and strategically positioned new lighting that minimizes glare and reflections from wet surfaces or spray from cars
• Power cables length: 108,423 metres
• Light projectors used: 1600
• Total power consumed: 3,180,000 watts
• Illumination requirement: 3000 lux
• Lighting will be 4x brighter than what stadium lights will be
• The lighting is powered by 12 twin-power generators stored in a container which is sound proof
• In any event of a generator failing or power blackout, the backup generators would kick in. If the problem is faulty cables, the engineers attached to each generator will immediately replaced it

Singapore Formula One Facts

• Singapore has the rights to host the F1 event from 2008 for 5 years, with option to extend for a further 5 years
• Likely to generate $100 million in tourist receipts
• Initial cost of $150 million to hold the event
• Singapore Tourism Board will foot 60% of the $150 million cost from the Tourist Development Fund
• Hotelier Mr Ong Beng Seng owns Singapore GP Pte Ltd
• The night race is expected to be viewed by 500 million TV viewers worldwide
• Expect hotel room rates to double and even triple during the F1 period
• Expect also markup prices of merchandise, food and beverage during the F1 period under the guise of event promotion
• Some 80000 spectators are expected to be at the night race. 60% are to be local

Singapore Formula One Road Circuit Paving

The track resurfacing of Singapore F1 need to endure the daily busy usage of city cars while hosting a F1 by night. The perfect solution is using premium grade Bitumen by Shell will lay the foundation and track surface of the 5.067km F1 Singapore circuit. The project was awarded to contractor Hanson Heidelberg

Some 15,000 tonnes of asphalt which is a mixture of specially selected aggregate (stone) from Malaysia and Shell Cariphalte Racetrack Bitumen technology, will be distributed over the circuit. Most of the work will be done in the night so as not to disrupt the usual traffic. The work started in April 2008 and was completed in June 2008

Shell has been a long-time partner of the Grand Prix since its inception in 1950 and has supported and supplied their advanced technologies to the F1 scene all these years

Singapore Formula One Budget Hostels

I would recommend cheap hotels that can be found in Bugis, Bencoolen Street and Little India. They have near access to public transportation plus its cheaper than those found in central business district

The establishments being business-minded themselves are hiking up the usual prices, as much as 20%, but it is still far cheaper than hotel rates

Here’s a list of budget hostels

• YMCA International
• InnCrowd Backpackers
• Tresor Tavern
• Betel Box
• Summer Tavern
• Fernloft
• Hotel 81
• Hive Backpacker

Top Speeds of F1 cars

The cars race at high speeds being able to travel at up to 360 km/h (225 mph)

Maximum gravitational pull of F1 cars

Some are capable of pulling up to 5g in some corners

Who won the first Formula One

Farina driving an Alfa Romeo 158

Italian Giuseppe Farina in his Alfa Romeo in 1950. He stands out in the history of Grand Prix motor racing for his much copied ’straight-arm’ driving style and his status as the first ever Formula One World Champion

Greatest driver never to have won the title

Moss at the Nürburgring in 1961

UK’s Stirling Moss. He is often called “the greatest driver never to win the World Championship”. Moss, who raced from 1948 to 1962, won 194 of the 497 races he entered, including 16 Formula One Grands Prix

When did aerodynamic designs made its debut in Formula One

Aerodynamic downforce slowly gained importance in car design from the appearance of aerofoils in the late 1960s. In the late 1970s Lotus introduced ground effect aerodynamics that provided enormous downforce and greatly increased cornering speeds.

So great were the aerodynamic forces pressing the cars to the track, up to 5 g, that extremely stiff springs were needed to maintain a constant ride height, leaving the suspension virtually solid, depending entirely on the tyres for any small amount of cushioning of the car and driver from irregularities in the road surface.

The idea behind the grooved tyres

photo via finallap.net

There would be four grooves, on the front and rear - although initially three on the front tyres in the first year - that ran through the entire circumference of the tyre. The objective was to reduce cornering speeds and to produce racing similar to rain conditions by enforcing a smaller contact patch between tyre and track. This, according to the FIA, was to promote driver skill and provide a better spectacle

The “Big Four”

Drivers from McLaren, Williams, Renault (formerly Benetton) and Ferrari, dubbed the “Big Four”, have won every World Championship from 1984 to the present day. Due to the technological advances of the 1990s, the cost of competing in Formula One rose dramatically.

This increased financial burden, combined with four teams’ dominance (largely funded by big car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz), caused the poorer independent teams to struggle not only to remain competitive, but to stay in business. Financial troubles forced several teams to withdraw.

Since 1990, twenty-eight teams have pulled out of Formula One. This has prompted former Jordan owner Eddie Jordan to say that the days of competitive privateers are over

Formula One’s youngest champion

Alonso at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix

On September 25, 2005 he won the World Driver’s Championship title at the age of 24 years and 58 days, thus breaking Emerson Fittipaldi’s record of being the youngest F1 champion and is also the youngest double champion

Michael Schumacher and Ferrari dominance

Schumacher at Finali Mondiali celebrations in the F2007

Michael Schumacher and Ferrari won an unprecedented five consecutive drivers’ championships and six consecutive constructors’ championships between 1999 and 2004. Schumacher set many new records, including those for Grand Prix wins (91), wins in a season (13 of 18), and most drivers’ championships (7). Schumacher retired at the end of 2006 after sixteen years in Formula One. He is “statistically the greatest driver the sport has ever seen”

Practice & Qualifying session

A Formula One Grand Prix event spans an entire weekend, beginning with two free practice sessions on Friday (except in Monaco, where Friday practices are moved to Thursday), and one free practice on Saturday.

Third drivers are allowed to run on Fridays, but only two cars may be used per team, requiring a race driver to give up their seat. After these practice sessions, a qualifying session is held.

The format of this qualifying session has been through several iterations since 2003. Attempts were made to reinvigorate interest in the qualifying session by using a “one-shot” system in which each driver would take turns on an empty track to set their one and only time.

Cost of entering a new team in the Formula One World Championship

The Formula One Drivers’ Trophy

Entering a new team in the Formula One World Championship requires a £25 million (about US$47 million) up-front payment to the FIA, which is then repaid to the team over the course of the season. As a consequence, constructors desiring to enter Formula One often prefer to buy an existing team: B.A.R.’s purchase of Tyrrell and Midland’s purchase of Jordan allowed both of these teams to sidestep the large deposit and secure the benefits that the team already had, such as TV revenue

Driver Numbering

Each car is assigned a number. The previous season’s World Drivers’ Champion is designated number 1, with his team-mate given number 2. Numbers are then assigned according to each team’s position in the previous season’s World Constructors’ Championship.

There have been exceptions to this rule, such as in 1993 and 1994, when the current World Drivers’ Champion was no longer competing in Formula One. In this case the drivers for the team of the previous year’s champion are given numbers 0 (Damon Hill, on both occasions) and 2 (Prost himself and Ayrton Senna – replaced after his death by David Coulthard and occasionally Nigel Mansell – respectively).

The number 13 has not been used since 1976, before which it was occasionally assigned at the discretion of individual race organisers. Before 1996 only the world championship winning driver and his team generally swapped numbers with the previous champion – the remainder held their numbers from prior years, as they had been originally set at the start of the 1974 season.

For many years, for example, Ferrari held numbers 27 and 28, regardless of their finishing position in the world championship.

F1 Feeder series

For the most part F1 drivers start in Karting and then come up through traditional European single seater series like Formula Ford, Formula Renault, Formula 3, and finally GP2. Before GP2, Formula Two and then Formula 3000 had filled the role of the last major “stepping stone” into F1.

No F2, F3000 or GP2 champion has yet won the Formula One championship, however Drivers are not required to have competed at this level before entering Formula One.

British F3 has long been considered one of the best places to spot F1 talent, with champions including Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna and Mika Häkkinen having moved straight from that series to Formula One. Again, though, it is possible to be picked earlier, as was the case with Kimi Räikkönen, who went straight from Formula Renault to an F1 drive.

American Championship Car Racing has also contributed to the Formula One grid. Champions Mario Andretti and Jacques Villeneuve, as well as Michael Andretti, Juan-Pablo Montoya, Cristiano da Matta and Sébastien Bourdais have all moved to F1 from America, with varying degrees of success.

F1 retirement for drivers

Most F1 drivers retire before their mid-30s; however, many keep racing in disciplines which are less physically demanding. The DTM is a popular category involving ex-drivers such as two-times F1 champion Mika Häkkinen and Jean Alesi, and some F1 drivers “crossed the pond” to race in America – Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi duelled for the 1993 IndyCar title, and Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Speed and Jacques Villeneuve have moved to NASCAR.

Some drivers have gone to A1GP, and some, such as Gerhard Berger and Alain Prost, returned to F1 as team owners. In 2005, though, a new series appeared, Grand Prix Masters, pitting retired grand prix drivers against each other, with the requirement that the drivers be over 40 and have been retired at least two years. However the series fell into financial difficulty in 2007, and ceased running

Drivers neck problems

Those few circuits that run anticlockwise (and therefore have predominantly left-handed corners) can cause drivers neck problems due to the enormous lateral forces generated by F1 cars pulling their heads in the opposite direction to normal. Singapore Grand Prix is one of them

F1 car weight

The whole car, including engine, fluids and driver, weighs only 600kg. In fact this is the minimum weight set by the regulations – the cars are so light that they often have to be ballasted up to this minimum weight. The race teams take advantage of this by placing this ballast at the extreme bottom of the chassis, thereby locating the centre of gravity as low as possible in order to improve handling and weight transfer.

Sources via Wiki