Formula One celebrates 1,000th race

F1 Formula One - Austrian Grand Prix - Red Bull Ring, Spielberg, Austria - July 1, 2018 Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas lead the field at the start of the race [Courtesy]

Formula One celebrates its 1,000th world championship race this weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, one of the sport’s newer tracks, but the milestone requires careful wording.

The sport has often had a problem with anniversaries, with statisticians quibbling over how many starts teams and drivers have made according to different definitions, and this one is no exception.

The fact is that some of the 999 championship races thus far have been questionable grand prix and several past race winners never even drove a Formula One car.

From 1950 to 1960 — 11 races in all — the Indianapolis 500 was included as part of the championship even if very few Formula One drivers crossed the Atlantic to compete in it and homegrown racers took all the points and raced to their own rules.

Bill Vukovich finished seventh in the 1953 Formula One championship, and sixth in 1954, after winning the Indy 500 in those years but racing in no other rounds.

His death in the 1955 Indy technically made him the first driver to be killed while competing in a Formula One championship race.

Yet Vukovich never drove a Formula One car even if his F1 record stands at a remarkable two wins, one pole position, three fastest laps and 19 points from five races — all of them in Indiana.

By the time Britain’s Jim Clark won at The Brickyard in 1965, followed by compatriot and fellow F1 champion Graham Hill in 1966, the Indy 500 was no longer part of the F1 calendar.

In 1952 and 1953 the world championship was run to Formula Two rules due to there not being enough Formula One cars to fill the grid after Alfa Romeo pulled out.

That means, therefore, that 26 races included in the championship tally since the first at Silverstone in 1950 did not actually feature Formula One cars.