Grand Prix Rejects

Hello everyone,

I have a question that should be relatively easy to answer, yet I can't find the answer anywhere online. Surely there must be one of you here on this forum that knows it.

The question is: When was the formation lap introduced in F1? I suspect it must've been somewhere in the early 1970s, but truthfully I have no idea.

Waris wrote:Hello everyone,

I have a question that should be relatively easy to answer, yet I can't find the answer anywhere online. Surely there must be one of you here on this forum that knows it.

The question is: When was the formation lap introduced in F1? I suspect it must've been somewhere in the early 1970s, but truthfully I have no idea.

That is a good question. I don't really know. Surely they never did one around Nurburgring Nordschliefe? I wonder how and why it became common place?

dr-baker wrote:

Waris wrote:Hello everyone,

I have a question that should be relatively easy to answer, yet I can't find the answer anywhere online. Surely there must be one of you here on this forum that knows it.

The question is: When was the formation lap introduced in F1? I suspect it must've been somewhere in the early 1970s, but truthfully I have no idea.

That is a good question. I don't really know. Surely they never did one around Nurburgring Nordschliefe? I wonder how and why it became common place?

That is a good question, and it does seem to be the case that they might not have used a formation lap at venues like the Nordschliefe.

Like yourself, I suspect that it probably would have been the 1970s when the formation lap first started to be used on a more regular basis. There is a Reddit thread out there that asked that question, and it seems that somebody found footage of the 1972 British GP which did show a formation lap - however, it looks as if it wasn't universally followed at all venues throughout that era, so it might have been at the discretion of some of the local organisers.

They must have definitely become part of the standard protocol of the sport by 1978 at the latest though, as it seems that was when they introduced a rule stating that the medical car would follow the cars round the circuit on the formation lap - that would be consistent with an early to mid 1970s start date.

Another reason why I think that an early 1970s date might be plausible is the fact that it would also coincide with the introduction of slick tyres. Goodyear and Firestone were pushing towards a full slick in the early 1970s, and it looks like the 1971 Spanish GP was the first time that a full slick tyre was first used successfully when Firestone brought a full slick (it looks like Dunlop did try a prototype slick in the mid 1960s, but couldn't perfect the material compounds to make it work successfully).

Now, I am wondering if the introduction of slick tyres might have given the impetus for a warm up lap to help warm the tyres on the way to the grid, given that the compounds of the time would still have been reasonably hard and taken a while to bring up to operating temperature. That problem might not have been quite so bad with a treated tyre, but might have become more noticeable with a slick tyre - it does seem that the introduction of slicks is at about the same time as the formation lap.

Surely they never did one around Nurburgring Nordschliefe?

I'm not sure about F1, but e.g. in the sportscar races, like the 1000km, they did a formation lap - but they took a shortcut - on the backside of the old pits, where you turn left into Hatzenbach at Nordkehre, you could then turn right and enter at the beginning of the main straight. This was actually used as a track configuration for smaller races, called "Betonschleife"

http://www.racingcircuits.info/europe/g ... gring.html

This is an interesting point, and (spoiler) , I'm not going to be able to supply an answer.
But I remember from race reports of the 1970s much talk of the 'dummy grid' - where the cars would line up apparently a few metres back from the start position , and at a signal advance to the start position , to be held there for a minimal time before the flag waved.
This would have been mid-70s - but what wasnt clear to me was that when the report spoke of the 'dummy grid' I wasnt sure whether it was referring to the line prior to the formation lap, or it may have referred to just that line up prior to advancing 30 metres to the start grid.
I'll just add that I find the current practice of everyone spacing out so far on the formation lap that it takes ages for the grid to form up to be mostly a bit irritating, but sometimes gives enough time for a last minute 'comfort break' before I settle into the sofa for the race. I like having a formation lap - it helps build the anticipation ..but some of the dawdling about/ half burnout antics are a bit pointless . It'd be better if the drivers acknowledged the crowd.

yannicksamlad wrote:This is an interesting point, and (spoiler) , I'm not going to be able to supply an answer.
But I remember from race reports of the 1970s much talk of the 'dummy grid' - where the cars would line up apparently a few metres back from the start position , and at a signal advance to the start position , to be held there for a minimal time before the flag waved.
This would have been mid-70s - but what wasnt clear to me was that when the report spoke of the 'dummy grid' I wasnt sure whether it was referring to the line prior to the formation lap, or it may have referred to just that line up prior to advancing 30 metres to the start grid.
I'll just add that I find the current practice of everyone spacing out so far on the formation lap that it takes ages for the grid to form up to be mostly a bit irritating, but sometimes gives enough time for a last minute 'comfort break' before I settle into the sofa for the race. I like having a formation lap - it helps build the anticipation ..but some of the dawdling about/ half burnout antics are a bit pointless . It'd be better if the drivers acknowledged the crowd.

Well, at least that gives us a "terminus post quem" -- it was certainly not before the mid-70s then.

Formula 1 The Knowledge says the formation lap was made mandatory from 1973 Spain. Only took me three weeks to remember this thread existed....

UncreativeUsername37 wrote:Formula 1 The Knowledge says the formation lap was made mandatory from 1973 Spain. Only took me three weeks to remember this thread existed....

Thanks!
But we're pretty sure the Nurburgring races didn't go a full 14 miles, aren't we. Aren't we?

Wikipedia says the following: "There also was a 2.281 km (1.417 mi) warm-up loop called Zielschleife ("Finish Loop") or Betonschleife ("Concrete Loop"), around the pit area"

This would make sense as I'm pretty sure that in the WTCR race at the Nordschleife, they do something similar.

They used the Betonschleife before doing qualifying laps. So I don't know how the formation lap went, but F1 did acknowledge its existence
Edit: I've found footage of 1973, which is a pretentious way of saying I stumbled across a YouTube video once, and they used a dummy grid