Grand Prix motor racing, a form of motorsport competition, has its roots in organised automobile racing that began in France as early as 1894.[1] It quickly evolved from simple road races from one town to the next, to endurance tests for car and driver. Innovation and the drive of competition soon saw speeds exceeding 100mi/h, but because early races took place on open roads, accidents occurred frequently, resulting in deaths both of drivers and of spectators.[1] A common abbreviation used for Grand Prix racing is "GP" or "GP racing".
Grand Prix motor racing eventually evolved into formula racing, with Formula One considered its direct descendant. Each event of the Formula One World Championships is still called a Grand Prix; Formula One is also referred to as "Grand Prix racing". Some IndyCar championship races are also called "Grands Prix".
See main article: History of auto racing. Motor racing was started in France, as a direct result of the enthusiasm with which the French public embraced the motor car.[2] Manufacturers were enthusiastic due to the possibility of using motor racing as a shop window for their cars. The first motoring contest took place on July 22, 1894, and was organised by a Paris newspaper, French: [[Le Petit Journal (newspaper)|Le Petit Journal]]. The Paris–Rouen rally was 126km (78miles), from Porte Maillot in Paris, through the Bois de Boulogne, to Rouen. Count Jules-Albert de Dion was first into Rouen after 6 hours 48 minutes at an average speed of 190NaN0. He finished 3 minutes 30 seconds ahead of Albert Lemaître (Peugeot), followed by Auguste Doriot (Peugeot, 16 minutes 30 seconds back), René Panhard (Panhard, 33 minutes 30 seconds back), and Émile Levassor (Panhard, 55 minutes 30 seconds back). The official winners were Peugeot and Panhard as cars were judged on their speed, handling and safety characteristics, and De Dion's steam car needed a stoker which the judges deemed to be outside of their objectives.[3] [4]
In 1900, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the owner of the New York Herald and the International Herald Tribune, established the Gordon Bennett Cup. He hoped the creation of an international event would drive automobile manufacturers to improve their cars.[5] Each country was allowed to enter up to three cars, which had to be fully built in the country that they represented and entered by that country's automotive governing body. International racing colours were established in this event. The 1903 event occurred in the aftermath of the fatalities at the Paris-Madrid road race, so the race, at Athy in Ireland, though on public roads, was run over a closed circuit: the first ever closed-circuit motor race.
In the United States, William Kissam Vanderbilt II launched the Vanderbilt Cup at Long Island, New York in 1904.
Some anglophone sources wrongly list a race called the French: [[Pau Grand Prix]] in 1901. This may stem from a mistranslation of the contemporary French sources such as the magazine French: La France Auto of March 1901.[6] The name of the 1901 event was the French: Circuit du Sud-Ouest and it was run in three classes around the streets of Pau. The French: Grand Prix du Palais d'Hiver was the name of the prizes awarded for the lesser classes ('Light cars' and 'Voiturettes'). The French: Grand Prix de Pau was the name of the prize awarded for the 'Heavy' (fastest) class. Thus Maurice Farman was awarded the French: Grand Prix de Pau for his overall victory in the French: Circuit du Sud-Ouest driving a Panhard 24 hp.[7]
In French: L'Histoire de l'Automobile/Paris 1907 Pierre Souvestre described the 1901 event as: "in the Circuit du Sud-Ouest, at the meeting in Pau" (French: "dans le Circuit du Sud-Ouest, à l'occasion du meeting de Pau").[8]
The only race at the time to regularly carry the name Grand Prix was organised by the Automobile Club de France (ACF), of which the first took place in 1906. The circuit used, which was based in Le Mans, was roughly triangular in shape, each lap covering 105km (65miles). Six laps were to run each day, and each lap took approximately an hour using the relatively primitive cars of the day. The driving force behind the decision to race on a circuit – as opposed to racing on ordinary roads from town to town – was the Paris to Madrid road race of 1903. During this race a number of people, both drivers and pedestrians – including Marcel Renault – were killed and the race was stopped by the French authorities at Bordeaux. Further road based events were banned.
From the 32 entries representing 12 different automobile manufacturers, at the 1906 event, the Hungarian-born Ferenc Szisz (1873–1944) won the 1260km (780miles) race in a Renault. This race was regarded as the first French: Grande Épreuve, which meant "great trial" and the term was used from then on to denote up to the eight most important events of the year.[9]
Races in this period were heavily nationalistic affairs, with a few countries setting up races of their own, but no formal championship tying them together. The rules varied from country to country and race to race, and typically centred on maximum (not minimum) weights in an effort to limit power by limiting engine size indirectly (10–15 L engines were quite common, usually with no more than four cylinders, and producing less than 50 hp). The cars all had mechanics on board as well as the driver, and no one was allowed to work on the cars during the race except for these two. A key factor to Renault winning this first Grand Prix was held to be the detachable wheel rims (developed by Michelin), which allowed tire changes to occur without having to lever the tire and tube off and back on the rim. Given the state of the roads, such repairs were frequent. Early Grand Prix cars could be technically innovative, with marques such as Peugeot using technology that would later become more widespread.[10]
A further historic confusion arose in the early 1920s when the Automobile Club de France attempted to pull off a retrospective political trick by numbering and renaming the major races held in France before the 1906 French Grand Prix as being French: Grands Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, despite their running pre-dating the formation of the Club. Hence, the 1895 Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail was renamed French: I Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France; and the true first Grand Prix in 1906 race was renamed the French: IX Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France (9th). The ACF used this numbering in 1933, although some members of the Club dismissed it, "concerned the name of the Club was lent to the fiction simply out of a childish desire to establish their Grand Prix as the oldest race in the world".[11] [12]
For the most part, races were run over a lengthy circuit of closed public roads, not purpose-built private tracks. This was true of the Le Mans circuit of the 1906 Grand Prix, as well as the Italian: [[Targa Florio]] (run on 93miles of Sicilian roads), the 75miles German German: [[Kaiserpreis]] circuit in the Taunus mountains, and the French circuit at Dieppe (a mere 48miles), used for the 1907 Grand Prix. The exceptions were the steeply banked egg-shaped near oval of Brooklands in England, completed in 1907; the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, first used in 1909 with the first Indianapolis 500-Mile Race in 1911; and the, in Italy, opened in 1922.
In 1908, the United States of America became the first country outside France to host an automobile race using the name Grand Prix (or Grand Prize), run at Savannah. The first French: Grande Épreuve outside France was the 1921 Italian Grand Prix held at Montichiari. This was quickly followed by Belgium and Spain (in 1924), and later spread to other countries including Britain (1926). Strictly speaking, this still was not a formal championship, but a loose collection of races run to various rules. (A "formula" of rules had appeared just before World War I, finally based on engine size as well as weight, but it was not universally adopted.)
In 1904, many national motor clubs banded together to form the French: [[Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus]] (AIACR). In 1922 the French: [[Commission Sportive Internationale]] (CSI) was empowered on behalf of AIACR to regulate Grand Prix racing and other forms of international racing. Since the inception of Grand Prix racing, competitions had been run in accordance with a strict formula based on engine size and vehicle weight. These regulations were virtually abandoned in 1928 with an era known as Formula Libre when race organisers decided to run their events with almost no limitations. From 1927 to 1934, the number of races considered to have Grand Prix status exploded, jumping from five events in 1927, to nine events in 1929, to eighteen in 1934 (the peak year before World War II).
During this period a lot of changes of rules occurred. There was a mass start for the first time at the 1922 French Grand Prix in Strasbourg. The 1925 season was the first season during which no riding mechanic was required in a car, as this rule was repealed in Europe after the death of Tom Barrett during the 1924 Grand Prix season. At the German: [[Solituderennen]] in 1926 a well thought-out system, with flags and boards, giving drivers tactical information, was used for the first time by Alfred Neubauer, the racing manager of the Mercedes-Benz team. The 1933 Monaco Grand Prix was the first time in the history of the sport that the grid was determined by timed qualifying rather than the luck of a draw.
All the competing vehicles were painted in the international auto racing colors:
French cars continued to dominate (led by Bugatti, but also including Delage and Delahaye) until the late 1920s, when the Italians (Alfa Romeo and Maserati) began to beat the French cars regularly. At the time, the Germans engineered unique race vehicles as seen in the photo here with the Benz aerodynamic "teardrop" body introduced at the 1923 European Grand Prix at Monza by Karl Benz.
In the 1930s, however, nationalism entered a new phase when the Nazis encouraged Mercedes and Auto Union to further the glory of the Reich. (The government did provide some money to the two manufacturers, but the extent of the aid into their hands was exaggerated in the media; government subsidies amounted to perhaps 10% or less of the costs of running the two racing teams.)[14] The two German marques utterly dominated the period from 1935 to 1939, winning all but three of the official Championship Grands Prix races run in those years. The cars by this time were single-seaters (the riding mechanic vanished in the early 1920s), with 8 to 16 cylinder supercharged engines producing upwards of 600-1NaN-1 on alcohol fuels.
As early as October 1923, the idea of an automobile championship was discussed at the annual autumn conference of the AIACR (Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus) in Paris. However, discussion centered on the increased interest in racing by manufacturers and holding the first European Grand Prix at Monza in 1923. The first World Championship took place in 1925, but it was for manufacturers only, consisting of four races of at least 8000NaN0 in length. The races that formed the first Constructors' Championship were the Indianapolis 500, the European Grand Prix, and the French and Italian Grands Prix. A European Championship, consisting of the major Grand Prix in a number of countries (named French: Grandes Épreuves) was instituted for drivers in 1931, and was competed every year until the outbreak of World War II in 1939 with the exception of 1933 and 1934.
In 1946, following World War II, only four races of Grand Prix calibre were held. Rules for a Grand Prix World Championship had been laid out before World War II, but it took several years afterward until 1947 when the old AIACR reorganised itself as the French: [[Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile]] or "FIA" for short, headquartered in Paris. It announced the new International Formula, also known as Formula 1 or Formula A, to be effective from 1947. At the end of the 1949 season the FIA announced that for 1950 they would be linking several national Formula One Grands Prix to create a World Championship for drivers, although due to economic difficulties the years and were actually competed in Formula Two cars. A points system was established and a total of seven races were granted championship status including the Indianapolis 500. The first World Championship race was held on 13 May 1950 at Silverstone in the United Kingdom.
The Italians once again did well in these early World Championship races, both manufacturers and drivers. The first World Champion was Giuseppe Farina, driving an Alfa Romeo. Ferrari appeared at the second World Championship race, in Monaco, and has the distinction of being the only manufacturer to compete in every season of the World Championship, still competing in .
Italics denote that the race was also known as the European Grand Prix.
For wartime events, see Grands Prix during World War II.
| Race | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Swiss |  Monaco | British | |
| 2 |  Belgian | Swiss | Belgian | |
| 3 |  Italian |  French | Swiss | |
| 4 | French | Italian | French | |
| 5 | Italian |
See also:
Notable drivers of the Grand Prix motor racing era included a few women who competed equally with the men:
Antonio Ascari – Italy Robert Benoist – France Clemente Biondetti – Italy Georges Boillot – France
Manfred von Brauchitsch – Germany Rudolf Caracciola – Germany/
Luigi Chinetti – Italy; United States after the war Louis Chiron – Monaco Albert Divo – France René Dreyfus – France Philippe Étancelin – France Luigi Fagioli – Italy Giuseppe Farina – Italy; he became the first Formula One champion Enzo Ferrari – Italy Jules Goux – France Hermann Lang – Germany Christian Lautenschlager – Germany Emilio Materassi – Italy Ferdinando Minoia – Italy Felice Nazzaro – Italy Guy Moll – Algeria Hellé Nice – France Tazio Nuvolari – Italy Charles Pozzi – France Georges Philippe (Baron Philippe de Rothschild) – France Bernd Rosemeyer – Germany Raymond Sommer – France Hans Stuck – Germany Achille Varzi – Italy Emilio Villoresi – Italy Luigi Villoresi – Italy Jean-Pierre Wimille – France
Juan Zanelli – ChileFrom 1925 onwards, the AIACR and later the FIA organised World and European Championships for Grand Prix manufacturers, drivers and constructors:
