The end of the Second World War triggered the return of racing to a battered Europe and with it a completely new racing formula: Formula One. The first non-championship events were occurring from 1947, but in the background the FIA (formerly the AIACR) were planning something even bigger: the first ever World Championship, which ran in 1950. Under its rules, each competing nation was to enter two drivers, with the best performing driver and nation being declared the World Drivers’ Champion and World Nations’ Champion. Each nation was supposed to supply its own car, but this was broken straight away, with only three nations (Italy, UK and France) being able to provide their own cars.
The first Drivers’ Championship was won by Giuseppe Farina, with his Team Italy taking the Nations’ Championship, in a season that would set the tone for the first half of the decade, with the Italian and Argentine drivers almost untouched by the other participants. The death of Alberto Ascari in the 1954 German Grand Prix signalled the end of this early era, with the Argentines taking the lead for the rest of the decade, winning all five of the remaining Nations’ Championships and three Drivers’ Championships between 1955 and 1959, putting Juan Manuel Fangio on four Driver’s Championships, an amount that would not be matched until Alain Prost claimed his fourth in 1991, and would not be surmounted until Michael Schumacher claimed his fifth in 2004.
1958 saw Roy Salvadori become the first of several drivers to change their official nationality to secure a seat, making use of his Italian heritage to avoid the struggle for the two seats in the oversaturated Team UK. 1958 also saw the arrival of one Jack Brabham and most importantly, the first successful mid-engined car. He saw little success in his first season, but was consistently scoring points in his second and followed this with three consecutive World Championships.
Team UK emerged on top afterwards, claiming the 1962 Nations’ Championship, but losing the Drivers’ to Brabham, followed by two Drivers’/Nations’ doubles, first with Jim Clark in 1963, and then with Graham Hill in 1964. The 1965 championship was plagued with reliability issues all round, with reigning champion Hill winning two races and failing to finish any others. The championship quickly developed into a two-horse race between the two Italians Giancarlo Baghetti and Lorenzo Bandini, with the former winning out to claim the title for himself. British victory followed afterwards, with Surtees and the UK claiming both titles for the next two years.
The late 1960s would see the start of more aerodynamically designed cars, with wings appearing on cars for the first time. The early 1970s would also see the safety campaign start gaining serious traction following Jochen Rindt’s death at the 1970 United States Grand Prix. However, this campaign would be ignored at first, and it would not be until a lot later that deaths became rarer. 1972 would see Brazil burst emphatically into Formula One, with Emerson Fittipaldi claiming second and José Carlos Pace claiming fourth. Pace would somewhat fizzle out in the next years, but Fittipaldi would claim back-to-back world championships in 1973 and 1974. He would lose to Ronnie Peterson in 1975, but would claim his third title in 1976.
1977 saw Team UK become the first to make use of ground effect – allowing them to harness more downforce with much less drag. This allowed them to claim two consecutive Nations’ Championships, although they lost both Drivers’ Championships to Niki Lauda due to the Austrian car’s superior aerodynamic wings. Team France were also trialling the first turbocharged engine in this time, which initially seemed to be a failure until Patrick Depailler’s surprise victory at the 1978 finale in Australia. 1979 and 1980 would serve to be better, but unpredictable for the French with podiums mixed in with many retirements and poor finishes, but by 1981 they were consistent enough to claim the Nations’ Championship.
The early 1980s was also intended to be the final push for driver safety – the 1970s had averaged at one on-track death per year from an average pack of 26, but Jo Gartner’s death at the 1983 Dutch Grand Prix would prove the last for five years. 1983 would also see the first Drivers’ Championship for ‘the Professor’: Alain Prost – one of the most successful drivers to date. Prost would lose his title following a close fight with a resurgent Niki Lauda in 1984, but would retake the title in 1985, becoming the first driver to score 100 points in a season in the process, before claiming his third title the following year. Meanwhile, two new threat were rising: one in the form of the young Brazilian Ayrton Senna, the other as German Stefan Bellof. Both having debuted in 1984, Senna had quickly become a consistent points scorer, even taking victory at that year’s Swedish Grand Prix, while Bellof finished highly or not at all. This time would see the grid grow rapidly, to the point of unsustainability. After 1986, which saw 32 cars start the grand prix, pre-qualifying was introduced, with only the fastest 26 cars being allowed to race, with anyone that had already scored points given an automatic bye into the race.
Brazilian Nelson Piquet claimed the Drivers’ Championship in 1987, 6 years after his first, but 1988 was Senna’s year, although marred by the death of the German Bernd Schneider at the Swedish Grand Prix. 1989, 1990 and 1991 would see a very close title fight between Prost, Senna and Bellof, creating a legendary rivalry, with Senna triumphing in 1989, Bellof claiming 1990 and Prost winning in 1991. 1992 would see Briton Nigel Mansell join the fight and pip Prost by a mere three points. 1992 would also see future deity Michael Schumacher claim his first victory, at Belgium, and would come very close to challenging Bellof to the title in 1993, losing it to him by only 5 points. 1993 would however see the tragic death of Belgium’s Thierry Boutsen at the Canadian Grand Prix. Following this, there would be a massive push towards increasing driver safety. To date, Boutsen is the last casualty of an MSWC Grand Prix. Boutsen’s death would also trigger Bellof to retire, despite his Drivers’ Championship victory. Schumacher would suffer another close defeat at the final round the 1994 season, finishing second to Senna and losing him the championship by a single point. Schumacher would finally claim victory in 1995 and 1996, winning them by 2 and 1 point respectively.
By 1997, the grid had expanded further, to the point where 10 cars would have been eliminated every pre-qualifying session and there were already complaints about the grid was becoming locked-out by mostly the same cars and that many smaller nations would rarely see their drivers race. To counter-act this, the current two-tier system was implemented, in which the entire MSWC would be divided into two championships. At the end of each season, the worst Tier-1 teams would be demoted to Tier-2 and the best Tier-2 teams would be promoted to Tier-1. The points system that had lasted since 1950 was also changed, so that 1st place earned 10 points, instead of 9. The first seasons run under this system were won by Jacques Villeneuve and Team Canada in Tier-1, and Ukyo Katayama and Team Japan in Tier-2.
Ayrton Senna would retire on a high, with a flawless 1998 season seeing him finish in the points in all 17 races, with a victory in his final race sealing his fourth Drivers’ Championship. Meanwhile, Tier-2 was experiencing serious domination from Team France, clearly unhappy at their demotion the previous year, with six 1-2 finishes seeing Olivier Panis take the championship on 99 points, clinching it from teammate Jean Alesi on 97. Mika Hakkinen would take the 1999 and 2000 Drivers’ Championships, but Schumacher would claim the 2001 championship in one of the most dominant performances ever seen – falling only four points short of doubling the score of second placed Juan Pablo Montoya and with a retirement at Monaco being the only thing between him and a podium in every race. Schumacher’s 2002 campaign was notably closer but the challenges from David Coulthard and Montoya were not quite enough to stop Schumacher joining the ranks of Fangio, Prost and Senna as a four-time World Champion. Coulthard would provide some respite from Schumacher, clinching the 2003 title, but Schumacher would claim his unprecedented fifth title in 2004, despite a strong challenge from a new challenger – the Finn Kimi Raikkonen.
Following complaints from the middle table teams that a points system that only rewarded six drivers per race could not accurately decided the worst teams, 2005 had a new points system implemented, which rewarded the top eight drivers instead. Schumacher would use the 2005 season to one-up himself and claim his third set of back-to-back championships and firmly establishing himself in the record books. Despite this, Schumacher would drop off during 2006, with the main title battle being between Raikkonen and Spaniard Fernando Alonso, with the latter claiming his first championship. The same title fight the following year would yield the same result. Alonso would narrowly miss his third straight title to Felipe Massa following a tense season finale in China. Raikkonen would finally get to claim his World Championship in 2009, beating Robert Kubica who had retired at the final race of the season. Schumacher would once again challenge for the title in 2010, but it was Kubica who would be victorious, only to fall to disaster. In a small off-season rally, Kubica was so badly injured that he had to retire immediately without the ability to defend his championship.
By 2011, both tiers had grown to 13 nations and once again there had been complaints that the points system needed to be extended. The new system awarded the top ten finishers and gave 15 points to the winner. It would be Schumacher that would capitalise on the new system, taking his seventh Drivers’ Championship while becoming the second driver to break the 200-points barrier, after Will Power who had done so two races beforehand in Tier-2. Sebastian Vettel, who had debuted rather impressively in 2010, shot to the top in 2012, claiming the world title in his third year, but was unable to defend it from Alonso, who finally claimed his third after a 6 year gap. Schumacher retired after 2013, with the longest career in MSWC history, as well as a near lock-out of the record books. 2014 saw a very close title fight between Vettel and Alonso, with the German able to reclaim the championship, but with Lewis Hamilton looking to finally make his way into the history book, and teammate Nico Hulkenburg showing large amounts of potential in his debut season, how long he can hold it for is another matter entirely.