Entering its 76th anniversary, the Formula 1 season is back for another 24-race world-spanning campaign. The season officially kicks off this month in Australia, bringing racing fanatics together once again. Last year, the championship attracted 6.7 million spectators worldwide, with 19 of the 24 races selling out, which shows the sport’s ever-growing appeal.
As we gear up for another season of F1 to be swept away with all the speeding action, we’re taking this opportunity to reflect on its history. So, take a step back in time to learn about the events that have shaped F1 into the global sport it is today and how it continues to evolve.
1894
In the late 19th century, the ‘Le Petit Journal Horseless Carriage Contest’, also known as the ‘, was the first competitive motorsport racing event. The race was held on 22nd July 1894 and went from Paris to Rouen. Thanks to the publication ‘ advertising the event, it generated local interest with a hundred entrants paying the entrance fee for the race. However, only twenty vehicles made it into the final qualifying round, with seventeen of them completing the competition.
Unlike racing today, the competition did not focus on speed but instead on the vehicles meeting the conditions for the race, which were that they had to be safe, easy to handle and economical to operate. The winners of this race were two French manufacturers, Panhard & Levassor and Les Fils de Peugeot Frères – which some of us may know today as famous brands ARQUUS  and Peugeot.
1900-1905Ìý
Six years later, at a time when the automobile industry was flourishing, the ‘ was the first international motor racing competition. This cup paved the way for what we know as the Grand Prix today, as it was the first race to take place in a closed-circuit format. The countries which took part were only allowed to use vehicles manufactured within the nation they represented, and it was a shift from individual drivers to national teams.
Vehicles during this period had an update from the late 19th century and weren’t carriages anymore! In these events, the cars utilised pressed-steel chassis frames with large engines, such as 9896 cc four-cylinder engines. Speed was also another factor that improved during this Cup, with cars going as fast as approximately 50 mph.
1906
Organised by the ‘ (´¡°ä¹ó)’ and widely recognised as the French Grand Prix, the 1906 event was an alternative to the Gordon Bennett Cup, which limited the number of entries each nation could submit. At the time, France had the largest automobile industry in Europe and sought the opportunity to enter as many vehicles as possible. In response, the French Grand Prix was created with no restrictions placed on the number of cars that could be entered per country – France entered 23 cars that year!
The race was held on the 26th and 27th of June 1906 on public roads in Le Mans, and regulations insisted that the cars could not weigh more than 1,000 kilograms. This event primarily served as a way for automobile manufacturers to highlight their revolutionary cars rather than being a race between drivers.
1950
Using newly redundant wartime airfields in Britain, the Formula 1 Championship was established in 1950. The first race took place on 13th May at Silverstone, a location that would become one of the sport’s most well-known circuits in the UK. The event was dominated by the Alfa Romeo 158, also nicknamed the ‘Alfetta’. Despite being a pre-war car, it proved to be competitive, winning every championship race it entered that season. The drivers Giuseppe Nino Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio, and Luigi Fagioli became known as the ‘Three Fs’ when competing in the Alfetta.
The post-war championships captured the public, with an estimated 200,000 spectators attending the Silverstone race, and even the reigning monarch, King George VI, came to see the race, which has so far been the only time a reigning monarch has attended the British Grand Prix.
1960s OnwardsÂ
As we know from the brief history outlined above, the motorsport industry has made tremendous technological advancements within just 65 years, which it continues to make to this day. However, from the 1960s onwards is where we really start to see engineers pushing the limits of what is possible in motorsport. During this decade, there were many changes made to F1 cars; shifting from front-engine spaceframes to mid-engines, the introduction of the aluminium sheet monocoque, and the first high-winged car, to name just a few.
You can read more in depth about the developments in F1 .
°Õ´Ç»å²¹²âÌý
F1 has been popular since it began and, while fans have always been traditionally drawn to the cars and the manufacturers behind them, its cultural reach has expanded massively in recent years. Since 2018, global interest in the sport has reportedly with a noticeable shift in its audience. This can largely be attributed to increased mainstream media exposure and streaming services such as Netflix, which have produced series like ‘ (2019). Shows like these feature behind-the-scenes action of F1 and attract younger audiences, who may not have been interested in the sport before.
Social media has also transformed how audiences connect with the sport and the drivers. Fans have become increasingly interested in the personalities behind the helmets, and drivers have become celebrities, with drivers such as Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen becoming household names in F1 and beyond the racetrack.
Check out our newly curated lightbox of ‘F1 Destinations’, which showcases the locations that can be visited during the 2026 season and how fans are turning these into full-on adventure weekends.
If you want to keep up with all the racing action, make sure to follow our live news feed here, where our live news contributors will be uploading their ·´²îϵÁÐ over the season, including from the ‘’ – the new circuit in Madrid.