F1 History

The modern era of Formula One Grand Prix racing began in 1950, but the roots of F1 are far earlier, tracing to the pioneering road races in France in the 1890s, through the Edwardian years, the bleak twenties, the German domination of the 1930s and the early post-war years of Italian supremacy. 

At the birth of racing, cars were upright and heavy, roads were tarred sand or wood, reliability was problematic, drivers were accompanied by mechanics, and races — usually on public roads from town to town — were impossibly long by modern standards. Regarded as the first motor race proper was a 1,200 km road race from Paris to Bordeaux and back in 1895, won by Émile Levassor with his Panhard et Levassor in 48 hours. One of the most successful drivers of the early years was Fernand Charron, who won the Paris-Bordeaux race in 1899, also in a Panhard, at the blazing average speed of 29.9 mph. 

The first race using the appellation "Grand Prix" was 1901's French Grand Prix at Le Mans, won by Ferencz Szisz with a Renault, who covered the 700 miles at 63.0 mph. In 1908 the Targa Florio in Sicily saw the appearance of "pits," shallow emplacements dug by the side of the track where mechanics could labor with the detachable rims on early GP car tires — themselves a major technical improvement over the earlier technique of permanently attached wheels and spokes. But even so, racing cars of the early years were too heavy and fast for their tires; Christian Lauteschalnger's winning Mercedes shredded 10 tires in the 1908 French Grand Prix at Dieppe! 

In 1914, the massive 4 1/2 litre Mercedes of Daimler-Benz dominated the French Grand Prix at Lyons — 20 laps of a 23.3 mile circuit — taking the first three places and introducing control of drivers by signal from the pits. During World War I, racing was halted in Europe, and many drivers participated in the U.S. Indianapolis 500. Enzo Ferrari — who's real fame was to follow as a team manager and manufacturer with Scuderia Ferrari, formed in 1929 to race Alfa Roméo P2s —- finished second in the 1920 Voiturette race at Le Mans, the first international road race in France in six years.
 
By tradition the Italian racing driver in action is an excitable character given to shouting, gesticulating, waving his fists, baring his teeth and in general giving way to his emotions. Tazio Nuvolari filled this role splendidly. 

The Farmer's Son - Cyril Posthumus 
 

The first (and, until Dan Gurney's Eagle-Weslake at Spa-Francorchamps in 1967, the only) Grand Prix victory by an American-built car was by Jimmy Murphy in the 1921 French Grand Prix at Le Mans, driving a Duesnberg. Among the best of the 1920s manufacturers were Bugatti, whose straight-eight Type 35Bs won the French and Spanish GPs in 1929 and the Monaco, French and Belgian GPs in 1930, and Fiat, which introduced the supercharger for the first time in 1923. 

The Great Depression of the early 1930s led to a lack of money and interest in Grand Prix racing, but saw the emergence of the legendary Tazio Nuvolari, whose wins in the Alfa Romeo P3 "Monza" in the Mille Miglia, at Monaco and the Italian GP at Monza were stunning. His victory in the 1933 Monaco GP was the first in which staring grid positions were determined by qualifying times. But in 1934, the balance of power in racing would begin to shift from Italy to Germany, with the emergence of factory teams from Auto Union (now Audi) and Mercedes-Benz, behind massive financial support from the Third Reich government on orders from Adolph Hitler.

These powerful and beautiful German machines introduced aerodynamics into Grand Prix car design and ran on exotic, secret fuel brews. Driving the sleek, silver 3-litre V12 Auto Union in his trademark canary yellow jersey, Nuvolari achieved new greatness with these incredibly well-engineered automobiles — but nothing to top his 1935 German GP victory at the Nürburgring, where he defeated nine modern German cars in a four-year old Alfa Roméo.

Gaming addiction

Gaming Addiction is an increasing problem in the 21st century, where technology has since evolved to the point where gaming devices are so readily available and easily accessible.

Technological devices, once solely owned by the government and corporate businesses, are now falling into the hands of the average person on the block, also known as the consumer. Many of these technological devices are capable of being used for entertainment, such as listening to music, playing videos or browsing the Internet.

With the many capabilities of our modern technological devices, addictive games can be manifested in many ways. Such examples include, but are not limited to, PC Games, Online Gaming Websites and Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, or MMORPGs. These games usually have objectives, and while some may be easy to achieve, others may take months or years to even come close to. Hence, people are devoting more of their time, consciously or subconsciously, to playing these games in hopes of achieving those objectives, laying the basis for gaming addiction.

With the continuous evolution of gaming hardware, technological devices, such as computers, are being used more extensively for gaming. As time went by, they have also changed tremendously from the big and heavy box that can only play 2D games such as Pac-Man, to the light and mobile computer less than 2 inches thick and weighing in as light as 2 pounds, capable of playing highly complex 3D games with unbelievable realism. This continuous evolution has also resulted in the creation of separate video console games, from handhelds to plug-and-play devices, which enables video games to be played from virtually anywhere.

With readily accessible technological devices getting more powerful and cheaper by the day, a greater number of people are starting to own those devices, and as a result, are getting exposed to the world of video gaming. This has led to a distressing issue, for schools; companies; and basically society collectively, as gaming addiction become more widespread.

This site was created with the hope of educating the public about the dangers of gaming addiction and how to prevent it.

Interview

Interview

An interview was also conducted with a previous gaming addict to find out how gaming addiction has affected his life. The interviewee, who only wishes to be addressed as Tom, is fifteen years of age this year. He is of Caucasian descent and currently resides in Singapore. He started playing video games three years ago at the young age of twelve, mainly because of the influence that he was being subjected to by his peers. We chose him as our interviewee as we wanted to illustrate the impacts of gaming addiction to its very extreme and instill a sense of awareness in the public’s mind about the topic in question. Although he has cut down on his gaming time as of today, he is still being haunted by his addiction.

Q: How long have you been gaming now?
A: I started about 3 years ago when I was about 12.

Q: What was the main reason(s) that you decided to game?
A: Well, everyone my age then were just crazy about video games, so I figured I should try it out, and who knew? I ended up gaming for 3 whole years. It began initially because of the hype and to kill whatever free time I have, but yeah, it pretty much escalated to an addiction pretty quickly.

Q: When do you normally game?
A: Right away when I get back from school till as late as three in the morning the next day. Sometimes, I even forgo my meals to continue gaming. The only time I leave my console is when I have to go to the washroom.

Q: How has gaming affected your life?
A: Well, to fund my gaming habit, I ended up spending over $200 a month on the newest gaming titles and upgrading my hardware components. I do not come from a family that was well off, so it was really a strain for my folks to manage. As a result, this caused distress within my family. Also, my grades hit rock bottom almost immediately after I got “into the game” and started to stay up till as late as 3 in the morning to finish up a mission. I used to be scoring in the top half of my class at the least, but not anymore. Because of gaming, I also neglected other important things in life like socializing and such.

Q: Why would you say that you’re addicted to games for such a long period of time?
A: Basically, what had me hooked on for so long was the continuous expansion packs and such for the franchise. The objectives also get increasingly harder with each expansion pack and there was no such thing as shortcuts or cheats for this game. I guess that’s what got me hooked for so long. Also, I had this desire to strive for better achievements so that I could be respected by the people in this game, and I guess that was a contributing factor as well.

Q: Given your experience, what would you say to other kids or even adults out there who may be in the same situation as you were?
A: I would say that they still have a choice. Are they going to continue to let gaming addiction take control of their lives? Or are they going to do something about it? I guess I can say that I'm a living example here of what might happen should we have the addiction overcome us. I had a chance all these 3 years to make that choice. I could have quit, but I didn't. Now I'm just wasted. I hope folks out there would not turn out to be like me, as even I look down on myself for what I did, or rather did not do. No doubt, gaming is fun, but it's pretty much like drugs. It could help you overcome stress and such if used adequately, but could also harm you if used excessively.