Formula One/Tropes A-M

""If I have any legacy to leave the sport I hope it will be seen to be an area of safety because when I arrived in Grand Prix racing so-called precautions and safety measures were diabolical.""
 * Accidental Athlete: Jim Clark, if we look at his skill, is perhaps the best example of this. His first race was due to a friend entering him (he went faster than the friend in the car they were sharing). Later, as a part of the Borders Reviers, he went with his friend to collect a sport car from Colin Chapman who offered them a chance in his single seater racing car. Chapman was pretty much impressed with Clark right up until he heard that not only had Clark never driven a single seater but he had never driven on that track. Chapman would soon hire Clark for his Team Lotus...
 * The Alleged Car: A good number of the privateer entries from the 70s to the early 90s showed up with cars so poorly designed that even in the hands of moderately talented drivers, they weren't even able to get past pre-qualifying half of the time. And the half they did? They usually didn't get past full qualifying/started at the very back of the grid and had something break a handful of laps into the race. The crowning example of this trope are the 1990 Life entry, occasionally up to 6 minutes off pole time.
 * Anticlimax: Any race after a driver has the championship already wrapped up. Notable examples were 1992, where Nigel Mansell had the championship by the eleventh race (out of sixteen), and 2002, where Michael Schumacher did the same (out of seventeen, this time).
 * The 2011 race at Monaco. Sebastian Vettel was leading Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button in the closing laps with heavily worn tyres. The finish was ruined however, when Vitaly Petrov became trapped in his car, bringing out a red flag, where Vettel was able to change his tyres. He went on to win the race.
 * Anyone Can Die: A worryingly common fact in the first three decades of the sport and what often encouraged new safety rules and regulations. Even in the dangerous 1960s drivers were shaken when Jim Clark was killed in a Formula Two crash, and the 1970 title was awarded posthumously, since Jochen Rindt had been killed at the Italian GP and nobody had beaten his points total. Luckily, this trope has become averted a lot in the lately. Starting with Jackie Stewart pushing for improved safety during the 60's and 70's when he had a serious crash at Spa and there were no marshals around to help. He was ridiculed for this at first, but his campaigning eventually paved way for improvements in medical care, marshaling and circuit safety, to the point where by the 90's, driver deaths are much rarer, despite such famous drivers as Ayrton Senna and Michele Alboreto losing their lives driver deaths are much less frequent. Stewart has been quoted as saying:

"Interviewer: You set pole position and 10 fastest laps during the race today, was there anything else that you could have done? Häkkinen: [pauses] No."
 * The Apartheid Era: The 1985 South African Grand Prix was a casualty of this. Two French teams, Ligier and Renault, were forbidden to race due to sanctions France took against South Africa. Zakspeed also withdrew by their own volition. Many drivers were almost forbidden to race by their own governments, including Prost, Senna, Piquet, and Rosberg, but they were permitted to race at the last minute. After this race, the FIA president vowed there would be no more South African Grand Prixs while apartheid was still law. (It was only held twice more, both after apartheid ended.)
 * Artifact Title: The 1982 Swiss Grand Prix was actually held in Dijon, France. This was both because France already had a grand prix that year, and Switzerland banned motorsport in the country after the 1955 Le Mans Disaster. This trope is also the reason why, during practices, qualifying, and races, Michael Schumacher is identified as 'MSC' rather than 'SCH': it was a leftover from back in the days when his brother Ralf ('RSC') was competing in F1.
 * Technically, it's not the only misleading title (the San Marino GP took place in Italy, and the Luxembourg GP took place in Germany), but it is the only one under this trope.
 * Ascended Extra: Ross Brawn, formerly a technical director for Benetton and then Ferrari, bought out Honda to form his own team. Said team, Brawn GP, became the first team to win the Constructors' Championship in its debut year.
 * Ascended Fanboy: Many of the later generation drivers became a Formula One driver because they were inspired by one or more drivers they watched in their childhood.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Cars with technologies ahead of their time that fail due to other reasons.
 * Badass Driver: It's a given you have to have a fair amount of self-confidence to even strap into one of these groundbound missiles, but the story going around back in the Sixties was that everyone gave John Surtees a little bit more respect because he had won a motorcycle World Championship before taking up F1. "We're crazy," the prevailing opinion went, "but Surtees is insane".
 * Badass Grandpa British ex Formula One driver Stirling Moss has stated he's glad he was racing in the era he did, because it's too safe now for his tastes and he survived a fall from an elevator shaft with only a few broken bones earlier in 2011 and is expected to fully recover. For a man in his 80's thats pretty badass too.
 * Best Served Cold: In 1989, Alain Prost punted Ayrton Senna off the track in the next-to-last race, thereby maintaining his points advantage and winning the title. The following year, in the same track, they were in reversed positions, so Senna unceremoniously crashed onto Prost before even the first corner.
 * Big Ol' Eyebrows: Nigel Mansell, to go with the Porn Stache below and Alonso's eyebrows are nothing to sneeze at either.
 * Billions of Buttons: Take a look at a 2011 Lotus steering wheel and despair.
 * Bittersweet Ending: Any session completed that resulted in a serious injury for a driver, most recently Felipe Massa at the 2009 Hungarian GP qualifying. Or for Mario Andretti in 1978: he won the title in the Italian GP, and hours later his teammate Ronnie Peterson died in hospital after a crash in the race.
 * On a less fatalistic note, the end of the 2008 season for Felipe Massa - he wins his home Grand Prix, the last race of the season, in dominating fashion, but failed to win the title because his main rival passed the opponent on the title-winning position in literally the last corner. This goes for any winner, if an opponent wins the title during that race.
 * Downer Ending: Any session that ends with a driver's death, averted since the 1994 San Marino GP, which sadly had a double downer: Roland Ratzenberger died in qualifying, Ayrton Senna during the race itself. And that's just part of the fiasco of that weekend as well. Rubens Barrichello almost died on Friday practice. The start of the race had a start-line accident where parts of car flew over the protective fencing and injured 9 people. A rear-right wheel came loose from Alboreto's Minardi as it left the pit lane. It hit two Ferrari and two Lotus mechanics, who were left needing hospital treatment. There's a reason why the 1994 San Marino Grand prix is called 'The Blackest Weekend'.
 * Bland-Name Product: Up to the mid-90's, some of the major F1 teams had tobacco sponsors because such sponsors paid a lot of money and thus could easily finance the team's huge budget. Then the European Union issued a ban on tobacco advertising. During the transition to change product sponsorship, such teams resorted to this trope, particularly during races held in European circuits. The results ranged from mudane to funny to weird. Some examples:
 * Ferrari/Marlboro: A barcode like symbol replacing the word Marlboro, or sometimes just the Marlboro logo without the name
 * Mclaren/West: The name of the driver stylized like the West logo
 * Williams/Rothmans: An "R" followed by the "?", perhaps a Shout-Out to The Riddler
 * Jordan/Benson and Hedges: The words "Bitten and Hisses" plus a snake head on the nose in 1997, then "Buzzing and Hornets" with a hornet's head on the nose in subsequent seasons. One year, they simply blanked out a few choice letters from Benson And Hedges from the brand name on their rear wing so it read "Be on edge". After 9/11, they had the text changed to "Bitten Heroes" for the 2001 Italian Grand Prix
 * Boring but Practical: Pit lane leapfrogging. Not the most exciting thing ever, but because current aero regulations make cars very hard to actually pass on the track, the vast majority of position-jockeying takes place in the pits.
 * But Not Too Foreign: Nico Rosberg has a German mother and races under a German license, but his father was Finland's first champion, Keke Rosberg.
 * Butt Monkey: Two of the racers with most starts, leader Rubens Barrichello (unable to achieve Senna's numbers, spent most of his career with middling cars, was second fiddle to Schumacher in Ferrari and had his bad luck attack him in Brawn) and eighth place Andrea de Cesaris (never won a race out of 218; holds a record 137 "Did Not Finish").
 * Calling the Old Man Out: This has happened frequently with the teams against Max Mosley, to the point they were willing to form a breakaway series untill he stepped down. Webber's response after he won the British Grand Prix, where he said that wasn't bad for a number 2 driver, falls under this trope as well.
 * Cameo: A fight scene in Iron Man 2 takes place at an Expy of the Monaco Grand Prix (as if it weren't dangerous enough already!)
 * Camera Abuse: I'm looking right at you, Barrichello. (He tends to bang on the camera in his face or give it a (inverted?) Smooch of Victory when celebrating a pole/victory.)
 * Car Fu: Taki Inoue was victim twice in the same season. In practice for the 1995 Monaco Grand Prix, he was hit from behind by the safety car, flipping it over (he was okay, the car was not). Later in the year, he was hit by a course car attending to his parked car, which was smoking. Except he wasn't in the car...
 * Cheaters Never Prosper: Inverted with Nelson Piquet Jr and Renault in Singapore 2008. Alonso won the race and it took a year for the truth to come out when Piquet got fired, even though he was utter shite in the 1.5 seasons he had. It seems unlikely he will ever get back into F1. Schumacher had a meeting with this trope as well, resulted in him being disqualified from the championship when he tried to turn in on Jacques Villeneuve and then retired, handing the title to Jacques.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Before commercial sponsorship started in the late 1960s, cars were painted according to the official country racing color. German cars were white or silver, Italian red, British dark green, French blue etc. Nowadays cars take the colors of its sponsors, but there are remnants of the old ways: Ferrari's red, for instance, Mercedes and McLaren-Mercedes silver, and the new Lotus is painted green.
 * The Comically Serious: Nick Heidfeld when asked to tell a typically German joke: "There is no fun in Germany". Also, Kimi Raikkonen at all times.
 * Conspiracy Theory: Many of them, mostly centered on 'whether fill-in-the-blank team is cheating', 'whether this driver is cheating', 'whether Ecclestone is letting money blind his judgement', 'whether the FIA is biased for/against someone', and 'theories involving Senna's death',namely whether he died on impact or in hospital.
 * Cool Car: The series bleeds this trope. Although F1 cars are, usually, automatically awesome, special mentions go to the Williams FW14B, the most advanced F1 car up to this day, the McLaren MP4/4, the most dominant car ever driven in F1, winning 15 out of 16 races in 1988.
 * Cool Old Guy: Drivers who continue to race despite being over 40, even if they raced in F1 and then moved onto other forms of racing, examples include Juan Manuel Fangio, all his championships came when he was 40 or over, Stirling Moss for surviving a perilous era and for pitying modern drivers and their sponsor obligations and PR events, when in his era they spent most of their spare time "chasing crumpet". Modern examples are former partners Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.
 * Special mention goes to Murray Walker for being the voice of F1 for over 50 years. Many motorsport fans grew up listening to him.
 * Cowboy Bebop at His Computer: Naming other racing series like Indycar, A 1 GP, or even Le Mans as 'Formula One'. The use of the term 'Grand Prix' in the other series is probably the main cause of confusion, since it's not a term limited to Formula One or even motorsport.
 * Crazy Prepared: Stefan GP, a team that already has a car prepared, crash tested, and shipped to Bahrain, and is also on the verge of signing drivers-despite the fact that it failed to get one of the open slots on the grid, and that its only chance to get on the grid is for one of the new teams to drop out (which none plan on doing) or for FOTA to vote to allow 14 teams on the grid (which Williams already declared its intention of voting against). US F1 did drop out by now, but the FIA denied Stefan GP the empty slot, choosing instead to run with 12 teams.
 * Creator Killer: Michelin brought tires to the 2005 US Grand Prix that couldn't survive the cornering loads imposed by the banked last turn at Indianapolis, resulting in an utter farce of a race with only the six drivers for the Bridgestone teams taking part. Michelin didn't survive in the sport for long after that.
 * Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Ayrton Senna's staccato throttle technique. In cars that were so nervous that hitting the throttle wrong entering or exiting any corner would cause a spin, he rapidly feathered the throttle and jiggled the wheel to induce oversteer in his car to get it to round corners faster than if the car was driven "properly". Modern traction control wouldn't allow such a technique, and most drivers would be so afraid of spinning the car or wearing out the tires that few ever dared to try the same technique. Telemetry data suggested that another driver who flirted with this technique was Michael Schumacher.
 * F1 hasn't had traction control since 2007, so it would now be possible, but modern cars are lot narrower than in Senna's day so it's not a good idea to try. That said, most drivers today like a front end that overpowers the back, so they can get the tail to slide even with zero throttle just by turning in really hard. Vettel in particular seems to like hanging the tail out this way.
 * Dark Horse Victory: Almost enforced since the driver leading the championship before the last race has never won the title if there were three or more drivers with a shot at winning the title, no matter how good his chances were.
 * Dead Drivers Are Better: Let's face it, this is why Ayrton Senna and Gilles Villeneuve are so beloved and remembered. As the trope page noted, more Senna merchandise is shifted now than it ever had been when he was alive.
 * Determinator: Due to the mental and physical strength needed to make it in F1, there are countless stories of drivers fighting illness and injury to achieve great results. Also, a number of drivers have managed to do great things despite suffering the loss of someone close to them.
 * Diabolus Ex Machina: In play whenever a leading driver suffers a mechanical failure towards the end of a race with perhaps the most heartbreaking example in Damon Hill's case: so close to winning the only victory in Arrows' history with quite a slow car but suffering from throttle problems and being taken on the last lap by Villeneuve.
 * Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Done quite literally by Michael Schumacher in the 2006 Monaco GP.
 * Disaster Dominoes: the 1998 Belgian GP, where in the first lap David Coulthard crashed into the wall and ricocheted into traffic, causing a horrendous crash involving thirteen drivers. Miraculously, only a couple drivers were injured, and only four drivers missed the restart (one of the aforementioned injured, and three that had no car to start with since his teammate's car was in the wreck as well, and they chose to give the teammate the spare car).
 * Again in the 2006 United States Grand Prix. 7 cars crashed out nearly all at once at the same corner, an accident reputedly blamed on Juan Pablo Montoya for crashing into his teammate Kimi Raikkonen, allegedly starting the whole thing.
 * On a much smaller scale, but happening twice on the same lap - the 2000 Italian Grand Prix. The first chicane had 4 cars crash, then six more at the next chicane, this one also resulting in the death of a race marshall.
 * Doing It for the Art: All of the marshals are volunteers, usually because their such fans of the sport. Most racing careers start by this since starting a racing career takes a considerable amount of money not always completely paid by sponsorship.
 * Down to the Last Play: As in many sports, can happen to drivers if they are in a winning or points position on the last lap and encounter a problem, or if they are Championship contenders and retire on the last race.
 * Drives Like Crazy: Kobayashi being the most recent example among virtually all Japanese drivers with a longer career. Senna and Mansell also have done this on occasion. Also, drivers uses this as a complaint about new drivers, especially when they get overtaken by them.
 * Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: Lauda survived the accident described in Heroic BSOD below largely because four other drivers stopped to extricate him from the burning car. In other occasions it didn't end so well.
 * Every Year They Fizzle Out: Williams are the current example of this, the last few years have seen them making cars that show a lot of promise but fail to deliver during the season.
 * Eye Scream: Austrian Helmut Marko was blinded by a pebble shot from another car's rear tyre. Massa luckily only inverts this, he has an obvious scar next to his left eye after his crash but was saved from otherwise assured blindness by superior modern helmet technology.
 * In a self-inflicted example, Jacques Laffite once eliminated himself from a race meeting after he confused visor cleaning fluid for his eye drops.
 * Fashionable Asymmetry: Former Benetton driver Alexander Wurz would wear mismatching colored shoes when racing. It was said they were good luck charms for him. The British American Racing team cars in the 1999 season count as well - blue livery on the right side, red/white livery on the left side.
 * Friendly Enemy: Considering this is a sport where drivers could be teammates one year and rivals the next, this trope is invoked often.  Michael Schumacher said he often had a beer with his rival Mika Häkkinen after a race.
 * Inverted greatly with Prost and Senna, despite getting on initially at McLaren they quickly became bitter rivals, climaxing at Japan in 1989 when Senna collided with Prost at the last chicane. Senna continued and was disqualified; handing Prost the title. One year later at the same race Senna ran into Prost and took them both out at the start, giving Senna the title; he would later admit that was deliberate. Which did eventually lead to Antagonist in Mourning: Prost was one of Senna's pallbearers. He and Senna had started to repair their relationship at the end of 1993 and even spoke to each other the day before Senna died.
 * Generation Xerox: It was an unusually rich era for drivers:
 * One experienced and ultra-smooth, waiting for his moment and making the right calls when it mattered
 * His teammate, an emotional hard-charger in a yellow helmet who courted controversy but had pace in abundance
 * Another that was considered past it despite his guts and slog, until he finally got a car worthy of his talent
 * A relative newcomer who was a nailed-on future star, his talents clear even in a car stuck in the midfield
 * And one with an unsavoury reputation, who simply did not care and got the most out of the car without fail.
 * Now, was this the late 80s to early 90s, or the mid-to-late 00s?
 * Giant Killing: This is usually averted due to how close the field has gotten in reecent times, less than 2 seconds apart, meaning anyone has some chance of winning something. Toro Rosso pulled this off when they won at Monza in 2008 due to some unfavourable conditions allowing Vettel to take pole in the rain and then lead from start to finish. However the best example I can remember would be when Damon Hill came within half a lap of winning the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix in an unfancied Arrows car. Qualifying 3rd and the car set up perfectly he took Villenueve and then Schumacher and led untill his throttle got stuck open, allowing Villeneuve to take the win and for Hill to crawl home in second.
 * Girly Run: No, seriously.
 * Grumpy Old Man: Niki Lauda in his old age.
 * Half the Man He Used To Be: François Cévert, while attempting to qualify for the United States Grand Prix in 1973. He presumably overcompensated going through the track's famous Esses complex, losing control and crashing hard into the barrier at nearly 90 degrees, actually UPROOTING the barrier. Cevert's body was cut in half from his neck to just above his hip. Stewart would later go back on track to discover the cause of the crash, discovering that while he liked to take the complex in low 4th gear to ensure a smoother ride, Cevert preferred to take it in a high 3rd gear for the added speed, which made the car more jumpy over bumps.
 * The death of Cevert and the retirement of Jackie Stewart was also the sad point where Tyrell began their slow decline. Cevert had been Stewart's protege and had showed he was more then capable of matching the Scot on track. 1974 would have seen him lead the team alongside a young Jody Scheckter, however despite Scheckter managing to take the odd win the team were unable to seriously challenge for the title again.
 * Hates Small Talk: Phil Hill, the first American Formula One Champion was described as being uncomfortable with small talk, but would happily have a serious discussion on any topic.
 * Heroic BSOD: Five weeks after his horrific 1976 crash, Niki Lauda forced himself in the cockpit again, in order to defend his title. In his absence, runner-up James Hunt had steadily eaten the points advantage Lauda had. Fighting fear and pain from his unhealed face burns, he managed a third and a fourth place, which slowed Hunt's catching up. In the last race, it rained torrentially and Lauda couldn't bring himself to race anymore (the Nurburgring crash had happened on a wet track). He retired at lap two, Hunt finished third and won the championship.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: We can say this in hindsight now, but Senna and Ratzenberger. Ratzenberger's death was the impetus for the reformation of the Grand Prix Drivers Association. Sadly, the one who was chosen to lead it, Senna, died that day, jumpstarting improvements in safety techniques and technology.hampion.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: The friendship between Gerhard Berger and Ayrton Senna toes the line to this.
 * Honor Before Reason: Ferrari tends to invoke this in MANY drivers, due to it being a prestigious Long Runner. Many of the current drivers have expressed interest in driving for Ferrari someday, as had many past drivers. Even Ayrton Senna had intended to become a Ferrari driver someday. Not to say that it's ALWAYS this trope, as Ferrari have had their good, championship winning years, but they've had their bad years too. Other classic teams tend to invoke this as well.
 * Husky Russkie: Vitaly Petrov, Russia's first F1 driver, is the tallest driver on the grid and one of the heaviest.
 * I Am Not Spock: Part of the Hype Backlash some fans had to Michael Schumacher coming out of retirement was because he was driving for Mercedes, when he's been long associated with Ferrari, giving it many driver and constructor championships. Many of them forgot his first two championships were earned at Benetton.
 * I Call It Vera: Sebastian Vettel has named his cars with girls' names. Names included 'Randy Mandy', 'Kate', 'Kate's Dirty Sister', and 'Luscious Liz'. His 2011 car was 'Kinky Kylie' and his 2012 car is called "Abbey" (or Abby).
 * I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: Some of the theories about Schumacher's problems after his F1 return are about the fact that he gets dizzy in the simulators team use these days as a replacement for testing.
 * I Know Mortal Kombat: Several of the drivers have raced on simulators to practice and get a feel for the track prior to a race. Notably, Fernando Alonso once claimed he was ready for a then-new track because he played it in a video game, leading Jeremy Clarkson to try the same thing on Top Gear.
 * Instant Drama Just Add Tracheotomy: Australia 1995. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for prof. Sid Watkins.
 * Insufferable Genius: Senna could be considered the natural example for this trope when you look at how he was at races. Although he subverts this by being quite a different man off track, being highly religious and donating millions of of pounds of his fortune to childrens charities. The same thing has been done by Hamilton since he has been developing an bad attitude for a couple of seasons now.
 * Interestingly, Senna's rival Alain Prost counts as well, although his kind of genius highly varied from Senna's genius. His nickname was the Professor.
 * In the Blood: Springing up more in the 90's and 2000's are the sons of former drivers, seeking to emulate Dad's glory. However Damon Hill still remains the only son of a world champion to win the title himself. Most other drivers are not so lucky and generally are accused of only getting where they are due to their surnames. Michael Andretti is a respected racer at least in the US where he has had some success like his father. Although most people still only remember him for 1993 though.
 * Jacques Villeneuve won the 1997 World Championship. His dad Gilles died before he could achieve the same.
 * In Universe Nickname: Due to the (generally) friendly nature between the drivers and the others involved many racers will end up with nicknames, even if it's just shortened versions. Many are ascended from the fandom (or the other way around).
 * Schumacher is called "Schumi", David Couthard is "DC", Vettel was called "Baby Schumi" (but this didn't last long), Timo Glock is "Tim O'Glock" (after somebody mistook him for an Irish driver and a previous (Irish) team he drove for called him this), Kimi Raikkonen is "Iceman" and Nico Rosberg is "Britney" (due to his Pretty Boy looks).
 * It Got Worse: How to best sum up Michael Andretti's tenure in the sport. Granted his last race ended in a podium but before that has to be seen or read to be believed. It's no wonder he ended up the most request driver on F1rejects despite not being eligible for it. Andrea Moda also qualify for this. The whole effort was just one huge joke that just got more unbelievable as time went on.
 * The 1994 season in general, and the San Marino Grand Prix in particular, where tragedy was heaped upon tragedy with two drivers killed, a third nearly killed and multiple bystanders injured. One of the new teams for that season was Simtek, which started off full of optimism and high spirits but everything that could go wrong for them did.
 * I Was Never Here: Teams that get an entry for the Formula 1 World Championship but fail to appear for even one race, examples being Prodrive or USF 1.
 * I Will Only Slow You Down: When a front runner comes to lap a backmarker the backmarker is supposed to move out of the way or get a penalty. This can lead to disastrous consequences if they are in fact fighting for position, as Webber in Valencia can testify. In past years there was the 107% rule in place to make sure drivers that were too slowly would not be able to qualify. This is coming back for the 2011 season.
 * Kavorka Man: Alain Prost, despite his less-than average looks, still managed to run off with Jacques Laffite's wife. He had brains, money and influence. More than enough for many women.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: For such a high tech sport Formula One has been laughably slow in embracing modern communications. Want to watch classic race highlights on the official website? Good luck. Official F1 YouTube? Nope. Thankfully the BBC have managed somehow to get their original broadcasts up on the web, but only for UK viewers.
 * This might change. Finally.
 * This was probably due to Ecclestone being Wrong Genre Savvy. He was all for the digital technologies, but he wanted it done in such a way that he would have the most of it. Cue Bernie TV, camera restrictions, etc. of the early 00's. Unfortunately, the time he was deploying this system coincided with the Web finally coming into mainstream. Internet doesn't work this way, Bernie!
 * The Lancer: Number two drivers to the number one drivers. The most notorious example is Rubens Barrichello to Michael Schumacher in the early '00s.
 * Lantern Jaw of Justice: David Coulthard.
 * Large Ham: Long time announcer Murray Walker, many of his colleagues around the planet and certain drivers like Graham Hill qualify.
 * Law of Chromatic Superiority: Ferrari. Also, back in the day, the awesome black Lotus.
 * Legacy Character: A lot of teams aren't precisely new, but rather renames of older teams that were bought out by new buyers.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: As (sort of) discussed in the discussion page, there are a lot of important names in F1, hence why the character page is limited to drivers on this year's grid.
 * Loads and Loads of Rules: There's a set of Sporting Regulations 'and' a set of Technical Regulations. Part of the appeal of the sport is seeing designers and strategists work around these rules
 * Long Runner: Ferrari have participated in almost literally every F1 championship race ever. The record for the most entries of a single driver is with Rubens Barrichello who will have, baring force majeure, entered 326 races at the end of 2011, that being 38 % of all races ever held.
 * Love Hotels: Believe it or not, this was one of the bigger complaints about Korea: because of a combination of the circuit getting an eleventh hour reprieve and the lack of more appropriate hotels to stay at (which all got snapped up by drivers and bosses), the teams had to scramble to find accommodation, with the result that most of the personnel had to stay at these sorts of hotels.
 * Ludicrous Speed: Physically, modern F1 cars, even as far back as the ground effect days in the late '70s and early '80s, were and still are extremely physically demanding cars to drive. Modern drivers are often examples of physical fitness just to cope with the G-forces of acceleration, braking and turning. Mentally, F1 cars accelerate and corner so quickly and are meant to be driven so fast in order to generate grip via downforce that a normal person would simply be unable to think as fast as the car can maneuver.
 * Modern F1 cars are even somewhat slower than the cars of yonder, most spectacularly the late turbo era machines. Extremely wide, low, with ridiculously powerful engines (since the introduction of turbo chargers the engine power skyrocketed to the point that FIA had to officially limit it at 1000 bhp late into the period) and wide, ultrasoft tires, these were easily capable of up to 380 kph on the straights. During the ground effect era in the late 70's to early 80's the cars were somewhat slower overall, but due to the aerodynamic effects they generated so much downforce that they were but glued to the track, which allowed drivers to corner without lowering the speed. Unfortunately, even the minor handling problems like a somewhat higher curb or a stone under the wheel tented to disturb the ground effect, resulting in car immediately losing much of the downforce and catapulting out of the corner at high speed, which has finally lead to the ground effect ban in 1983.
 * Man On Fire: Riccardo Paletti. He qualified for his first race at Canada in 1982. However at the start Pironi stalled but the start could not be aborted due to no procedure for it. While most cars managed to squeeze past him, Paletti failed to react quickly and hit the Ferrari head on, crushing the front of it and causing him chest injuries and weding him against his steering wheel, Pironi and Professor Watkins tried to stabilize and get him out. It Got Worse however, petrol leaked and caught fire with him still unconscious inside. By the time it was put out and he was cut free he had no pulse and died in hospital. This was witnessed by his Mum too, he was the last driver to die at a Grand prix untill Ratzenberger and Senna 12 years later. This counts as a Tear Jerker. When refueling was a part of Formula 1, this happened - although thankfully not often.
 * Did we mention that this happened merely 2 days before his birthday?
 * This also happened to Niki Lauda (who thankfully recovered), and Roger Williamson (who sadly didn't).
 * Similarly, the Dutch Jos Verstappen almost "joined the club" in the 1994 German GP. While he himself only got small burns on his face, his car and crew weren't that lucky.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Michael Schumacher. Between all the times he's tried to blatantly cheat to come out on top, the establishment of the 'number one/number two' status, and the mind games he's played with other drivers, he can't be called anything else. Just in case one thinks I'm exaggerating, he made a bid to get the number 3, despite Nico Rosberg being signed first, and got it.
 * Manly Tears: Barrichello again at Germany in 2000.
 * Both Michael Schumacher AND Mika Ice Man Hakkinen after the 2000 Italian GP, after a reporter told Michael he'd just equalled Senna's win record. Both drivers had finished on the podium in the 1994 San Marino GP which claimed Senna's life.
 * Mathematician's Answer: Häkkinen's speciality.

"May: And they're also, they're quite, um...quite reserved, the Finns. I mean, you, famously, when you were a Formula One driver, they'd ask you a really complicated question and you'd just say 'Yes'. Häkkinen: Yes."
 * Discussed in Top Gear:


 * The Medic: For 27 years since 1978 it was Professor Sid Watkins, a renowned British neurosurgeon, who's been the main F1 field medic. Moreover, it was Prof. Watkins who established such a position after the death of Ronnie Peterson in 1978 and his inability to even reach him due to police cordoning off the area. The fact that ambulance arrived only 18 minutes after the crash was probably a reason of Peterson's subsequent death, and certainly was a reason for establishing a modern medical system in F1.
 * Modern Major-General: In the past, a lot of teams were founded and managed by wealthy playboys or corporate types with a lot of economic and advertising know-how, but with absolutely ZERO idea of how to properly run a motorsports team.
 * My Car Hates Me: When a feature on the car works against a driver, perhaps with the anti-stall aid being the most famous example of recent times.
 * My Greatest Failure: If Coulthard is to be believed, this is why Ron Dennis, former McLaren team leader, favored Mika Häkkinen: guilt over Häkkinen nearly dying in his car in 1995. That was confirmed by Ron Dennis.
 * My Hero Zero: In normal circumstances, the reigning champion would have the number 'one' on his car for the next year. In the very rare circumstances that the champion decides to retire after his winning season, the first driver for the winning constructors team would get the number 'zero' instead, to represent that the number one driver is no longer racing in F1. The last time this happened was in 1994, when Alain Prost retired, leaving Damon Hill with the number zero (ironically, for the second year in a row, after Nigel Mansell decided to go to Indy Car instead).