🏎️Great Matches

F1

A Formula 1 season now runs to 24 rounds, but only a handful of Sundays have genuinely changed the sport. Some races set the technical direction; others rewrote safety rules entirely; others swapped the champion's name on the last corner. The ten grands prix below did at least one of those three things.

They span 71 years from Silverstone in 1950 to Abu Dhabi in 2021, listed in chronological order. Each entry recounts what happened that day, lap by lap where it mattered, and separately what it changed in Formula 1 afterwards.

Matches that changed the sport

1950-05-13

1950 British Grand Prix

Giuseppe Farina (Alfa Romeo) vs Juan Manuel Fangio (Alfa Romeo) · Farina wins; Alfa Romeo 1-2-3

F1 World Championship opener

1957-08-04

1957 German Grand Prix

Juan Manuel Fangio (Maserati) vs Mike Hawthorn & Peter Collins (Ferrari) · Fangio wins by 3.6 seconds

F1 World Championship

1958-01-19

1958 Argentine Grand Prix

Stirling Moss (Cooper-Climax) vs Luigi Musso (Ferrari) · Moss wins by 2.7 seconds

F1 World Championship opener

1976-10-24

1976 Japanese Grand Prix

James Hunt (McLaren) vs Niki Lauda (Ferrari) · Andretti wins; Hunt 3rd, champion by 1 point

F1 World Championship finale

1979-07-01

1979 French Grand Prix

Jean-Pierre Jabouille (Renault) vs Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari) vs René Arnoux (Renault) · Jabouille wins; Villeneuve 2nd by 0.24 seconds

F1 World Championship

1988-10-30

1988 Japanese Grand Prix

Ayrton Senna (McLaren) vs Alain Prost (McLaren) · Senna wins by 13.4 seconds — first world title secured

F1 World Championship

1994-05-01

1994 San Marino Grand Prix

Ayrton Senna (Williams) vs Michael Schumacher (Benetton) · Schumacher wins — Senna fatally crashed on lap 7

F1 World Championship

2000-10-08

2000 Japanese Grand Prix

Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) vs Mika Häkkinen (McLaren) · Schumacher wins by 1.8 seconds — Ferrari's first drivers' title in 21 years

F1 World Championship

2008-11-02

2008 Brazilian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) vs Felipe Massa (Ferrari) · Massa wins; Hamilton 5th, champion by 1 point

F1 World Championship finale

2021-12-12

2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Max Verstappen (Red Bull) vs Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) · Verstappen wins — first title on last-lap pass

F1 World Championship finale

Keep exploring