Terminology
In Formula One racing the terms "constructor" and "entrant" have specific and differing meanings. An entrant is the person or corporate entity that registers a car and driver for a race, and is then responsible for preparing and maintaining that car during the race weekend. As a result of this preparation role and active involvement in the running of the race, the term "team" has become commonly applied to an entrant organisation.[ citation needed ] Statisticians do not always agree on how to count statistics related to these entities. [16]
Constructors
Under Article 6.3 of the FIA Sporting Regulations, "A constructor is the person (including any corporate or unincorporated body) which designs the Listed Parts set out in Appendix 6. The make of an engine or chassis is the name attributed to it by its constructor." [7] These "listed parts" include the survival cell, the front impact structure, the roll structures and bodywork. However, if the chassis and engine are made by different entities, the constructor comprises both (e.g. McLaren-Mercedes, Lotus-Climax etc.), with the name of the chassis constructor being placed before that of the engine constructor. [7] [17] As both chassis and engine are included in the constructor name, chassis run with different engines are counted as two separate constructors and score points separately. [7] This occurred for the last time in the 1985 season when the Tyrrell team ran their chassis powered by both Ford and Renault engines, scored points with both engines and thus finishing 9th as Tyrrell-Ford and 10th as Tyrrell-Renault in the World Constructors' Championship.
Under article 6.2 of the FIA sporting regulations, "The title of Formula One World Champion Constructor will be awarded to the competitor which has scored the highest number of points". [7] From the inaugural season of the World Constructors' Championship in 1958 up until the 1978 season only the highest-scoring driver in each race for each constructor contributed points towards the World Constructors' Championship (then officially as the International Cup for Formula One Constructors ); since the 1979 season points from all cars entered by each constructor have counted towards their championship total.
Teams
Since the 1981 season the FIA have required that Formula One entrants own the intellectual rights to the chassis that they enter, and so the distinction between the terms "entrant" and "constructor", and hence also "team", have become less pronounced, though the intellectual rights of engines may still be owned by a different entity. [lower-alpha 1] That season also saw the International Cup for Formula One Constructors be officially renamed to the World Constructors' Championship.
Before this time, constructors were free to sell their chassis to as many other teams as they liked. Brabham and Lotus chassis were used extensively by other teams during the 1960s and 1970s and several quite competitive privateer teams never built their own chassis. Rob Walker Racing Team was the most successful example, being responsible for the first victories in Formula One for both Cooper and Lotus. The concept of a "works" or "factory" team (i.e. the official team of the company producing the cars, as opposed to a customer team which buys them off the shelf) therefore applied to chassis in the same way as it does in rallying and sports car racing.
There have been some recent exceptions where a specialist company, not itself entered in the championship, has been commissioned to design and build a chassis for a team, e.g. Lola built cars for the Larrousse team (1987-1991) and the Scuderia Italia team (1993) and Dallara built cars for the Scuderia Italia team (1988-1992). Larousse had their points from the 1990 season erased after the FIA decided that they had falsely nominated themselves and not Lola as the chassis constructor. In 1978, the new Arrows team which had been established by former Shadow personnel was sued by Shadow on the grounds that the Arrows FA/1 car was a copy of Shadow's DN9 – a view upheld by the UK High Court, which placed a ban on Arrows racing the FA/1. There have been more recent cases with Ligier (1995), Sauber (2004), Scuderia Toro Rosso (2006–2007) and Super Aguri (2007–2008) where teams have been accused of using a chassis produced by another constructor (respectively Benetton, Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and Honda). No action was taken against any of these teams, the sporting authorities being satisfied in each case that the team owned the intellectual property to the chassis they raced.
From the middle of the 1973 season (the 1973 Belgian Grand Prix) [18] until the end of the 2013 season, each team had permanent racing numbers from race to race throughout the season. Between the 1974 and 1995 seasons the numbers were based on the teams' finishing positions in the 1973 Constructors' Championship (with slight modifications, e.g. Ferrari's traditional numbers were 11–12 until 1980 and 27–28 from 1981 onwards) and each team only changed numbers if they had the driver who had won the World Drivers' Championship in the previous season – the winning driver taking the number 1 and his teammate the number 2, and the team that had previously had those numbers switching to the newly vacated ones. Between 1996 and 2013 the numbers were based on the teams' finishing positions in the Constructors' Championship from the previous season, with numbers 1 and 2 assigned to the defending champion and his teammate. During the period of 1974–1995 Tyrrell was the only team to keep the same numbers (3 and 4) every season. Since 2014, racing numbers have been assigned to drivers instead of teams.
The number of cars entered by one team into a single race was not strictly limited in the 1950s and early 1960s. Since the 1963 season teams were generally allowed to enter only two regular cars, with the third car reserved for an occasional driver. This rule was further promoted in the 1974 season when the permanent racing numbers were assigned to each team in pairs, with the third car having the racing number out of the pair. Entering more than three cars was exceptionally tolerated, most notably regarding the BRM team in the 1971 and 1972 seasons. However, many teams during this period entered only two cars, e.g. Ferrari have entered no more than two cars (with one exception at the 1976 Italian Grand Prix in connection with Lauda's comeback) [19] every season since 1973. Since the 1985 season the FIA have required that teams enter no more than two cars for a race; during this season Renault became the last team to have entered three cars for a race at the 1985 German Grand Prix, but only two of their cars were eligible for championship points.
Team's nationality
Unlike drivers who are required to compete in the FIA Formula One World Championship under the nationality of their passport,[ which? ][ citation needed ] the FIA's International Sporting Code states that teams competing in the FIA Formula One World Championship shall compete under the nationality of their parent National Automobile Club that issued their FIA racing licence. [20] On the basis of this regulation, despite the fact that most current teams are based in the UK, this country is officially represented in Formula One only by teams holding a racing licence issued by the British National Sporting Authority.
Teams take the nationality of their parent National Automobile Club that issued their licence for the period of validity of that licence and the change of the nationality is allowed. Several teams changed their nationality during their competition in Formula One, some of them even twice (e.g. Shadow in 1976 from American to British, [21] Benetton in 1996 from British to Italian, [22] Red Bull in 2007 from British to Austrian, [23] Renault in 2011 from French to British and in 2016 back to French [24] ). At the 1997 German Grand Prix Benetton became the only team to have achieved victories while racing under two different nationalities. The team's nationality, determined by a racing licence that a team holds, subsequently determines a national anthem played after a race on the podium in honour of a winning team following a national anthem played in honour of a winning driver. [lower-alpha 2]
Before the arrival of sponsorship liveries in the 1968 season the team's nationality also determined the colour of a car entered by the team; thus, Italian teams' cars were rosso corsa red, French were bleu de France blue, and British (with several exceptions, such as cars entered by teams Rob Walker, [25] Brabham [26] and McLaren [27] ) were British racing green. Since the licence is given to a team and not to a constructor, [28] privateer teams entering cars built by constructors from another country before the 1968 season painted cars in the national colour of their home country, e.g. the French Guy Ligier's privateer team entered cars painted in bleu de France blue in 1966 and 1967 seasons despite the fact that they were built by the British constructor Cooper. [29]
Relating to the team's nationality because of teams' bases in Britain several mistakes occurred on official entry lists issued by or podium ceremonies organized by the FIA or race organisers, e.g. Wolf [30] [31] holding the Canadian nationality and Shadow (in 1973) [32] and Penske [33] [34] both holding the American nationality all identified as the British teams by official entry lists, or the British national anthem played on the podium in honour of the Irish-licensed Jordan team and the Austrian-licensed Red Bull team when they achieved their maiden victories at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix and 2009 Chinese Grand Prix respectively. [35] [36]
