THE ARCHIVE

STORIES

Cinematic histories of Formula 1 — read in order, or wander.

  1. The Founding · 1950–1958

    WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

    A disused airfield, four red cars, a kidnapped maestro, and the decade that built a world championship — and counted its dead.

  2. The Rear-Engine Turn · 1958–1959

    THE ENGINE MOVED BACKWARD

    A whisky heir, a backyard garage in Surbiton, and a quiet Australian overturned half a century of how a racing car should be built.

  3. The Rear-Engine Revolution · 1962–1967

    ENGINE BEHIND THE DRIVER

    A bathtub of riveted aluminium, a £100,000 Ford engine, and a Scottish farmer who drove like no one before — the decade that built the modern racing car, and counted its dead at Monza.

  4. Sponsorship & FOCA · 1968–1980

    THE COLOUR OF MONEY

    The decade a Grand Prix car stopped wearing its country's colours and started wearing a cigarette packet — and a used-car dealer turned the whole sport into a business.

  5. Power and Grief · 1966–1969

    WINGS, POWER AND LOSS

    Power came back, wings sprouted and then tore themselves apart, money arrived painted on the cars — and on a damp morning at Hockenheim the sport lost the finest driver it had.

  6. Fire and Return · 1976

    SIX WEEKS, ONE POINT

    Niki Lauda burned at the Nürburgring, took the last rites, came back in six weeks — and lost the title by a single point in the rain, to a playboy who would never win another.

  7. Ground Effect · 1976–1978

    THE GROUND BENEATH THE WING

    Lotus found downforce not above the car but beneath it, a rival answered with a giant fan, a six-wheeler stole a win — and a championship season ended in a fire at Monza.

  8. The Turbo Years · 1977–1984

    BOOST

    A mocked little engine that trailed white smoke became a thousand-horsepower war — fought in the paddock, paid for on the track, and settled by half a point.

  9. McLaren-Honda · 1988

    FIFTEEN FROM SIXTEEN

    Fifteen wins from sixteen races, two of the finest who ever lived sharing one garage, and the season that lit the Senna–Prost war.

  10. The Active Era · 1992

    THE COMPUTER THAT DROVE

    For three seasons a Williams thought faster than the men inside it — then a sport, and a single black weekend, took the steering back.

  11. The Safety Reset · 1994

    IMOLA, AND AFTER

    One weekend at Imola, the contested season it scarred, and the long, deliberate work of making the sport survivable.

  12. Ferrari Dynasty · 2000–2004

    THE RED EMPIRE

    Todt, Brawn and Schumacher turned Ferrari into the closest thing Formula One had to an empire — a podium in every race, a points haul to rival the whole grid, and a fine for winning too well.

  13. The Fairy Tale · 2009

    BRAWN FROM THE ASHES

    A manufacturer walks away, an engineer buys the wreckage, and a hidden trick in the floor wins two world titles in a single season.

  14. Article III · Hybrid Era

    THE SILVER MACHINE

    How Brackley built eight.

  15. Article II · Hybrid Era

    THE 2014 RESET

    The rulebook that rewrote the grid.

  16. Article IV · Hybrid Era

    ISTANBUL 2020

    Seven.

  17. Article V · Hybrid Era

    2021

    The War

  18. Article I · Hybrid Era

    ABU DHABI 2021

    The race that changed Formula 1.

  19. Race Recap · Round 6 · Hybrid Era

    MONACO 2026

    Antonelli leads every lap. Behind him, Monaco comes apart.