Formula 1: Why it's special.

Formula One.

Formula Freaking One...

As a car fan you typically fall into two categories.

One: You've probably heard the term, and are a least familiar, but you don't really know much about WHY F1 is so special.

Or...

Two: You are a rabid, long time fan, and can't imagine how anyone who is a true fan of cars would not watch the sport with astonishment. It's a sport where each team (at a cost of several hundred million dollars per year) designs and builds purpose built, bespoke racing cars and engines... completely from scratch. It's a sport where these teams then risk their car's destruction every two weeks while drivers pilot them around harrowing race courses at speeds up to 200 mph.

This is a little insight into why I mostly fall into category "Two".

Formula One is almost a ridiculous proposition when you really think about it. It's a sport where just milliseconds matter. Not tenths or hundredths of a second... but thousandths of a second. Blink your eyes twice, right now. That's the difference in lap times over two and a half mile courses that separate the best (winning) teams from the teams that never win. It requires a herculean effort to make up those thousandths, from the standpoint of a team.

It has an allure that is magnetic. It's a near impossible feat in many ways.

It requires you to trot the globe. It requires absolute focus. It requires innovation 24 hours a day. Literally. This is a sport where lab coats, exotic metals and materials, autoclaves, 100 channel data acquisition and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) are the norm. It's a sport where a team's banks of high powered computers are crunching petabytes of gathered race and testing data, 24 hours a day. It's a sport that requires as many as 900 employees per team, to field a 2 car team for a season! Like I said.... ridiculous.

Did you know that each of the larger teams has wind tunnels that are manned 24 hours a day in three shifts no less, by engineers who are testing the aerodynamic qualities of an individual team's car? They are constantly making changes to parts on the car that affect airflow, drag, lift and downforce. Teams work 24 hours a day remanufacturing newly designed revisions to the cars, to specifically build their cars for a specific race. They spare no effort or expense to win. It's an exceptional thing to behold.

Here's a fascinating look into a winning team. This is behind the scenes stuff! (click on the video, let it load...and behold...) Image courtesy of Motorsport.com / Video Courtesy of Red Bull F1 Racing