The Formula 3000 International Championship was a motor racing series created by the Fédération Internationale de l ' Automobile ( FIA ) in 1985 to become the final preparatory step for drivers hoping to enter the Formula One championship.

Formula Two had become too expensive, and was dominated by works-run cars with factory engines ; the hope was that Formula 3000 would offer quicker, cheaper, more open racing.

The series was staged as the Formula 3000 European Championship in 1985, as the Formula 3000 Intercontinental Championship in 1986 and 1987 and then as the Formula 3000 International Championship from 1988 to 2004.

Formula 3000 replaced Formula Two, and was so named because the engines used initially were 3. 0 L ( 183ci ) Cosworth DFV engines made obsolete by popularization of 1. 5 L turbocharged engines in Formula One.

A Lola Cars | Lola chassis in the 2000 International Formula 3000 season | 2000 season.

International Formula 3000 was experiencing tough competition with cheaper formulae, such as European F3000 ( using ex-FIA 1999 and 2002 Lola chassis ), World Series by Nissan ( also known as Formula Nissan ) and Formula Renault V6 Eurocup.

: For a complete list of drivers, see List of International Formula 3000 drivers.

Sweden's Bjorn Wirdheim won the 2003 FIA Formula 3000 International Championship for Drivers

This was unusual for a young driver: most of Schumacher's contemporaries would compete in Formula 3000 on the way to Formula One.

Formula One was a new formula agreed after World War II during 1946, with the first non-championship races being held that year.

A few smaller teams tried obsolete three-litre Formula One cars ( from Tyrrell, Williams, Minardi and RAM ), with little success — the Grand Prix and Indycar-derived entries were too unwieldy — their fuel tanks were about twice the size of those needed for F3000 races, and the weight distribution was not ideal.

The following year the calendar was combined with that of Formula One, so the series became support races for the Grand Prix.

Hackman competed in Sports Car Club of America races driving an open wheeled Formula Ford in the late seventies.

He had a little more success in the non-championship Formula One races, where he ran his own private Coopers and took two victories.

Brabham won ten of the year's 16 European Formula Two races in his Brabham-Honda.

There was no European Formula Two championship that year, but Brabham won the Trophées de France, a championship consisting of six of the French Formula Two races.

Brabham's grandson Matthew ( son of Geoff ) graduated from karts in 2010 and races in the Victorian Formula Ford Championship.

Michael and his younger brother Ralf Schumacher are the only brothers to win races in Formula One, and they were the first brothers to finish 1st and 2nd in the same race, in Montreal in 2001, and there again ( in switched order ) in 2003.

The team is the second oldest active team ( after Ferrari ) and one of the most successful teams in Formula One, having won 180 races, 12 drivers ' championships and 8 constructors ' championships.

Some major races, such as the Singapore Grand Prix, Monaco Grand Prix ( sanctioned by Formula One ) and the Long Beach Grand Prix ( sanctioned by Indycar ), are held on temporary street circuits.

It won a large number of Formula One races between and.

Patrese entered 257 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix and started 256 races making him the third most experienced F1 driver in history, after Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher.

He won six Formula One races, with a record gap of over six years between two of these – the 1983 South African Grand Prix and 1990 San Marino Grand Prix.

After the crash, Hunt ( along with other drivers ) blamed Patrese for starting the accident, and viewers of Hunt's commentaries of Formula One races from 1980 – 1993 on BBC Television were regularly treated to bitter diatribes against Patrese when the Italian appeared on screen.

It pitted ten celebrities ( five male, five female ) against each other in a series of Formula One-style car races.

and holds the highest winning percentage in Formula One, 46 %, winning 24 of 52 Formula One races he entered.

Turbine cars were deemed illegal before the following year's race, so Lotus chief Colin Chapman developed the car for use in Formula One and an updated 56B competed in half a dozen Formula One races in 1971.

There was even enough interest in Group C to sustain a C2 championship for a few years ; at ' club ' level Modified Sports Car (" ModSports ") and Production Sports Car (" ProdSports ") races remained a feature of most British race meetings into the 1980s, evolving into a " Special GT " series that was essentially Formula Libre for sports or saloon cars.

Formula One World Championship races are always held on Sundays regardless of timezone / country, while MotoGP holds most races on Sundays, with Middle Eastern races being the exception on Saturday.

British businessman Bernie Ecclestone owned Brabham during most of the 1970s and 1980s, and later became responsible for administering the commercial aspects of Formula One.

Formula One had a total global television audience of 527 million people during the course of the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship.

Brabham briefly and unsuccessfully campaigned his own second hand Formula One Maserati 250F during 1956, but his season was saved by drives for Cooper in sports cars and Formula Two, the junior category to Formula One.

On 5 August 1961, during practice for the 1961 German Grand Prix, Phil Hill became the first person to complete a lap of the Nordschleife in under 9 minutes, with a lap of 8 minutes 55. 2 seconds ( 153. 4 km / h or 95. 3 mph ) in the Ferrari 156 " Sharknose " Formula One car.

Because of safety issues at 130R ( Formula One car driver Allan McNish had a serious crash during the Formula One car race the previous October there, resulting in a reprofiled 130R for 2003, known as 85R and 340R.

During a press conference held during the previous week before La Carrera del Año, Villeneuve stated that he would race the whole 2010 season if he did not get anything in Formula One or NASCAR.

During his early career Villeneuve took his family on the road with him in a motorhome during the racing season, a habit which he continued to some extent during his Formula One career.

After Villeneuve impressed James Hunt by beating him and several other Grand Prix stars in a non-championship Formula Atlantic race at Trois-Rivières in 1976, Hunt's McLaren team offered Villeneuve a Formula One deal for up to five races in a third car during the 1977 season.

With the 500 having been a part of the Formula One World Drivers ' Championship between 1950 and 1960, Ferrari made a discreet appearance at the 1952 event with Alberto Ascari, but European entries were few and far between during those days.

Scuderia Ferrari, a Formula One racing team, formerly used a traffic light system during their pit stops to signal to their drivers to when to leave the pits.

During the first half of his Formula One career, he consolidated his position as a fast driver and a race win challenger ; Montoya became a title contender during 2003 but the hopes of fighting for the title gradually faded as his cars lacked pace and stronger, more consistent, challengers arrived on the scene.

He announced, during that same month, that he would be taking a break from acting, in order to pursue a career in race car driving, under a full-time two-year deal with Jensen Motorsport in the Formula BMW competition.

Muniz entered fourteen races during the 2006 Formula BMW USA series, and failed to finish in a point-scoring position.

Lotus Racing then announced that they had acquired Team Lotus Ventures Ltd, the company led by David Hunt since 1994, during which Team Lotus had stopped competing in Formula One, and with it full ownership of the rights of the Team Lotus brand and heritage.

The BBC used Moroder's film soundtrack " Ivory Tower " as theme song during the broadcast of the motor-racing event Formula 1 Grand Prix, during the late 1980s and the early / mid 1990s.

He also tried his hand at sports car racing during and after his Formula One career.