Ferrari are the oldest and most successful Formula One team all time, yet they may soon become the only team based outside the English motorsports valley, where until recently seven of the F1 teams were based. Grand Prix racing, where F1 finds its roots, began in France as early as 1894 and quickly evolved from simple road races from one town to the next for the ‘Big Prize’ (Grand Prix), into endurance tests for both car and driver.

Open road racing though took its toll as the routes upon which the GP cars raced, remained unmodified for the high speed machines and were suitable only for the sedentary machinery which were owned by the general public. Spectators were unprotected for the speeding machines and their naivety often saw them standing on the racing routes, often not taking proper attention and being hit by the racers which caused deaths for both the drivers and their audience.

Great Britain was the first European country to ban racing on public roads and to this end the speed freaks decided to build a purpose built venue called Brooklands which opened in 1907. This was an elliptic oval circuit and the first to deploy steep banking to allow the drivers to travel at greater speeds, although the penalty for getting it wrong was the car and driver may fly outside the top of the banking ending 30 feet up in a tree, but more often just simply dead.

 

 

 

England first to build European racing track

Yet Brooklands was not the first purpose built motor racing circuit, this claim to fame belongs to the Milwaukee mile oval constructed in 1903. This venue was previously a horse racing track, where amateur racing drivers would run competitions on the dirt track used by the equine beasts.

Indycar racing finally returned to the Milwaukee mile after an eight  year absence last year, with a double header race weekend after an eight year hiatus due to promoter conflicts. No history of purpose built motor racing circuits would be complete without a mention for the iconic Indianapolis Speedway known to US racers and fans alike as the ‘brickyard.’

Constructed in 1909, it was the second purpose-built, banked oval circuit after Brooklands and the first to be called a ‘speedway’. It is the third-oldest permanent automobile race track in the world, behind Brooklands and the Milwaukee Mile – and it remains today the largest capacity sports venue in the world.

The name the ‘brickyard’ stemmed from the original construction of the 2.5 mile long track, which completed in less than a year had a surface completely made from house bricks. Despite the cathedral of speed built in Indianapolis, motor racing remained predominantly the purview of the Europeans.

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The death of the European big F1 teams

Yet despite the spectacular Brooklands circuit, racing in Europe remained for many years as a road based sport with the Le Mans 24 hours of racing now the last of the great challenges from the days when the courageous racers hurtled along public roads which were closed for the event.

Grand Prix racing was not a particularly well co-ordinated sport. Wealthy promoters would put up a big prize for a race at a particular location, but the notion of a co-ordinated championship was only established with the inauguration of F1 in 1950.

The majority of the F1 racing took place in Europe, although for some years the Indy500 was an integral part of the drivers’  F1 championship. The big European car manufacturers had dominated Grand Prix racing pre-1950 and the same was to continue during the first decade following the inauguration of F1.

Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati and Mercedes shared the end of season prizes for the first nine years of Formula One, before a small team of ten hardy chaps overturned the might of the European manufacturers. Cooper had been building racing cars in the 1940’s and 1950’s dominating the F3 category winning 64 of 78 major races between 1951 and 1954. Yet it was the decision by the Cooper engineers to relocate the engine of their F1 car form the front to the rear, which was the catalyst for their first F1 success.

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Just two F1 European based minnows remain

In 1959 Jack Brabham rocked the F1 world as he cruised to becoming champion in his small lightweight Cooper Climax, breaking the grip of the European manufacturers.He was to repeat the feat the following year, as the likes of Ferrari suddenly realised that rear engined racing machines was the way to go in the future.

The heroes of Grand Prix racing now faded away as Auto Union, Mercedes, Maserati and Alfa Romeo all gave up the ghost as the ‘garagistes’ of England with their tiny teams proved their innovative designs and lightweight F1 cars were had become the  class of the F1 field. The nickname ‘garigistes’ was originally an insult adopted by the big European manufacturers to describe the British based racing outfits because these small but nimble outfits often operated out of properties not much bigger than a garage.

The passion of Enzo Ferrari kept the Italians in the F1 game  although from the moment Jack Brabham won his first championship in 1959, the iconic red liveried Italian based team won just five of the of the following F1 titles across the next twenty years. The rest were taken by the ‘garagistas.’

During the last quarter of the 20th century, F1 teams came and went on almost an annual basis, as gentleman racers and wealthy individuals found the way to complete in F1, but failed to establish long term organisations. The last of these remaining in F1 today are the team formally known as Minardi, along with Swiss based team Sauber, named after their founder Peter Sauber.

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Minardi and Sauber F1 will soon be gone

Minardi was established as an Italian racing team and constructor founded in Faenza in 1979 by Ginacarlo Minardi. It competed in the World Championship from 1985 until 2005 with little success, nevertheless as many Davids facing their Goliaths, they acquired a following of loyal fans as they took on the F1 elite. In 2001, to save the team from folding, Minardi sold it to Australian businessman Paul Stoddart, who ran the team for five years before selling it on to Red Bull GMbH in 2005 who renamed it Scuderia Toro Rosso

As part of the sale agreement, Minardi demanded that the Red Bull buyers invest a minimum of several millions into the team and that it remain in its historic home of Faenza, for at least a period of twenty years.

The current Kick Sauber team were formed earlier than Minardi, and became a Swiss motorsport engineering company founded by Peter Sauber in 1970. They progressed through the lesser ranks of motorsport such as hill climbing together with the World Sportswear Championship before deciding to turn there hand to Formula One in 1993.

Sauber have operated under their own name together with that of  BMW and Alfa Romeo over the years before returning to the Sauber roots in 2024 before becoming the Audi works team from 2026 onwards. Both outfits retained their bases outside the English motorsports valley, here some 6000 employees ply their trade for th British based team.

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Ferrari last original F1 team standing

Yet all this is soon to come to an end and it seems Ferrari will remain the only team with their base outside the UK as a reverse kind of Brexit is happening in F1. Red Bull Racing are blatantly relocating their Faenza based sister team to the Uk as per Dr. Helmut Marko and Sauber/Adui seem prepared to follow suit.

This week Sauber/Audi announced due to the lack of top engineers and other key personnel, they wold be relocating they operations to the UK as they morph into the Audi works based factory team. The team’s HQ will remain in Switzerland but given the struggles they’ve encountered recruiting staff, they have finally bitten the bullet and will search the pool of talent which is predominantly based in England.

The move is designed to attract the brightest and best F1 talent by appealing to workers already employed by other teams based with in 100km of the Silverstone circuit. Sauber were bottom of the pile last year and only scored their first points at the season penultimate event in Qatar.

This initiate is a key competent in Audi’s strategy to build a wining F1 team and the current sites being evaluated are in Bicester (where V-CARB will be soon fully based), Silverstone and Milton Keynes. All this should be completed before the Skae Sauber brand becomes Audi at the start of 2026.

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Audi shift F1 team to the UK

Audi ironically appointed ex-Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, last year as COO and CTO of Audi Motorsport, who now reveals the reasoning for the relocation of the historic Swiss F1 team: “We are excited to establish our technical centre in the UK to complement our key site in Hinwil, which will continue to lead our main engineering operations and experience the largest team growth.

“Expanding into the UK allows us to remain close to one of the world’s most dynamic motorsport ecosystems. Our vision is to create a strong, collaborative network across Hinwii and the UK, driving innovation and performance.”

Whilst the corporate functions of the team will remain in Switzerland, the boots on the ground engineering hub will now be UK based and will lose the cost cap exemptions agreed by the FIA due to the higher cost of living in the European state. Sauber had argued there were significantly higher staff costs due to the higher cost of living in Switzerland when compared to its UK based rivals and so had a higher spending limit than the rest of the F1 teams.

“It is our responsibility to be fair,” FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said at the 2024 United States Grand Prix. “It became obvious to us that salaries in certain countries are much, much higher and cost of life is much higher in certain countries.

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“I see it myself, I live in Geneva. Whenever I go to the supermarket I think about it. And we felt that a team based in a high-labour-cost country like Switzerland would end up having approximately 30 percent or even 40 percent fewer people working on the car, which we felt was fundamentally unfair.

“We’ve decided that this could either lead to us trying to take some protections from a regulatory point, or it would eventually mean that teams could not operate and a team like Sauber would have to basically close and move to another country, which we don’t think is the right way for a world championship to operate.”

Ferrari, being Ferrari have less of a struggle to attract the brightest and best of the F1 personnel. Yet even F1’s iconic team have struggled in their recruitment as team principal Fred Vasseur revealed in 2023. “It’s not the same situation – you can move from Red Bull to Mercedes, keep the same hours, keep children in the same school and from the Friday to the Monday you can change and everything is perfect,” the Ferrari boss told Sky Sports F1’s Rachel Brookes at the Canadian GP.

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The ‘garagistes’ complete F1 takeover

”If you want to come to Italy, it’s a different approach. You have to change the family environment and so on. But as soon as you are in Italy I think it’s more difficult to leave – the food is much better and the quality of life in Italy is mega,” was the philosophic musings of the Ferrari boss.

With Red Bull moving the day to day operations of their sister F1 team to the UK, now Audi are following suit, Ferrari will become the only F1 team to operate completely outside of the UK.

The irony that Grand Prix racing began in Europe and was dominated for decades by the big European auto manufactures may be lost on some, but now the conquest of F1 by the English “garagistes” would surely make Enzo Ferrari turn more than once in his Italian grave.

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SHOCK results from Hamilton Pirelli test

The Formula One world is waking up from it winter hibernation, with Lewis Hamilton the brightest and most alert of those awakening from their winter slumber. Ferrari’s latest driver has now completed his maximum limit of 1000km of testing for this year in previous year Ferrari F1 cars.

Whilst the lap times are largely irrelevant, with Charles Leclerc also running in the previous year car tests, some kind of benchmark between the team mates is possible to ascertain even at this early stage of the year.

As expected even his five year’s experience driving the Italian made F1 cars, the Monegasque driver was overall quicker than his new team mate and unlike the seven times world champion who practically destroyed his SF-23 in Barcelona, Lelcerc completed the test miles without incident… READ MORE