Michael Schumacher's maiden win versus Max Verstappen's dominance with Red Bull, just 16 races swelling to a record-breaking 24, and revenue reaching $3.5 BILLION-a-season: How Formula One has changed in 30 years

There are aspects of the 2024 season that would be unrecognizable to 1994 fans  Not only has the calendar grown, but the race-day grid has shrunk dramatically Most notable is a raft of safety changes brought in after the death of Senna 

Formula One’s 75th season kicks off this weekend in Bahrain, a location which couldn’t have been further from the minds of the sport’s calendar organizers in 1994.

Time travelers tuning into the 2024 from 30 years ago would likely feel a little confused by the packed, globe-trotting calendar, which has swelled 16 (with none in the US or the Middle East) to a record-busting 24.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same – television rights still sell for staggering sums (and drivers command them), cars designed by Adrian Newey enjoy untold successes – and controversy remains rife on and off the track.

But how do the seasons compare?

Here, Mail Sport reviews the two eras and their highs and lows, three decades apart.

30 years ago, Michael Schumacher won his first ever world championship with Benetton

This season, Max Verstappen (centre) will look to claim his fourth-consecutive world title

Ownership groups – Bernie Ecclestone versus the Liberty Media era 

To say the sport has grown over the last 30 years is a billion-dollar understatement. If predictions are to come off, the annual revenue of Formula One is set to double the figure it brought in before Liberty Media’s acquisition of the Formula One Group – just eight years ago in 2016.

After a record-breaking 2023, Formula One is set to deliver a £2.5billion revenue which would mean a 27 per cent year-on-year increase – and while growth isn’t likely to be as bullish in 2024, Formula One Group are projected to bring in £2.8bn ($3.5bn) at the end of the season’s financial year.

In 1994, the group was bought to heel by one man – legendary chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, whose appointment in 1978 heralded a landmark fight with FIA (Federation Indeternationale de l’Automobile) for control of the sports commercial rights.

Winning them in 1981 ushered in a new era of commercialisation for Formula One, and by the early 1990s, the grid spend on budgets and sponsorships had surpassed £79million ($100m). One key change over the last 30 years? Drivers waved goodbye to their primary money-spinning sponsor, big tobacco, in 2005.

But even as the coffers swelled, the difference between the two eras is stark. In 1994, the BBC paid roughly £2.3m per season for a three season deal until 1996. Sky Sports paid one billion – with a B – for five-year rights in 2019, with £200m per season rumoured to be on the table for contract extensions from next season.

Bernie Eccleston was at the helm of a growing empire after winning commercial rights for the Formula One Group

Stefano Domenicali is CEO of the group in 2024, which is owned by US-based Liberty Media

A new champion in Schumacher and Verstappen’s dominance at Red Bull

At the start of the season, the big move on everyone’s mind was Aytron Senna’s switch to double-constructors-champions Williams, replacing his bitter rival Alain Prost in a bid to win his third world title. It seems fitting, then, that 30 years later, the driver that has called Senna his idol on more than one occasion – Lewis Hamilton – will have the biggest buzz after announcing his shock 2025 move to Ferrari.

The loss of Prost somewhat dimmed the star-wattage at the start of the season, the Frenchman’s spiky battle with the Brazilian icon a fan favourite as they traded championships between 1988 and 1991. But this seemed to have preordained the season for Senna, going into the season with a constructor that had started on pole for 30 of the last 32 races.

What Williams and Senna hadn’t accounted for was the fast start from future record-breaking world champion Michael Schumacher, whose upstart Benetton left his rivals in the dust in Brazil and then Japan in the season’s openers. Tragically, Senna was robbed of the opportunity to contest the remainder of 1994 after his shocking death at the year’s third race, the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.

Schumacher claimed his first world championship after a decisive shoot-out with Williams’ Damon Hill at the Australian Grand Prix, raising the curtain on what would prove an exceptionally decorated career.

But those looking to emulate Schumacher’s debut success might seem a little optimistic 30 years later. In 2024, there seems little that can knock Max Verstappen and Red Bull off their perch. The constructor has claimed back-to-back championship, and their star driver back-to-back-to-back titles.

Fans were denied the snarling rivalry between Alain Prost (left) and Aytron Senna in 1994 following the Frenchman’s retirement

Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 move to Ferrari from long-time constructor Mercedes will be one of the season’s talking points

1994 saw Williams falter after two seasons of unmatched dominance for the British team

30 years later, focus firmly on the United States 

A second season into having not one but three US-based races on the calendar, it seems curious that just three decades ago, there was no space for a trip to the States. Instead, the sport had ceded serious ground to IndyCar, going as far as to pilfer a number of their competitor’s innovations, such as serving time penalties in the pit, and the introduction of the Safety Car in 1993.

Of the 16 races, 11 took place in Europe, where the main focus of the sport was traditionally set. Years later, and the sport is truly a globe-trotting one – making lofty visions of its Net Zero Carbon by 2030 target a little hard to swallow.

The calendar is at its largest in history this year, with a mammoth 24 races, thanks to the return of the Chinese Grand Prix after a Covid-19 pandemic-related hiatus. 11 of the initial 16 remain, but the global split is much more egalitarian.

The Middle East and Australia and Asia have four races apiece, the Americas six, but Europe still claims the total, with 10 races on the calendar.

Big money for big-name drivers 

Every team on the grid would no doubt sacrifice an arm and a leg at the prospect of signing a young Michael Schumacher for £7.8m ($10m) a season. But at the more established end of the spectrum, it’s interesting to note that the salary increases haven’t been stratospheric in the intervening years since 1994.

Senna was able to command a salary of around £15m ($20m) with his move to Williams from McLaren, which adjusted for inflation comes out close to £33m ($42m) per year – a little more than Hamilton’s £27m-a-season salary with Mercedes.

Superstar Verstappen commands somewhat more, however, and he rakes in a mighty £43m ($55m) to dazzle at Red Bull. However, salaries are notably not included in the sport’s inflexible budget cap, which likely means they will only get higher.

Max Verstappen is the highest paid driver on the grid thanks to Dutchman’s heroics at Red Bull

Ferrari is one of the few teams from the 1994 season still competing over three decades later

A packed house on the grid

Unlike the uniform 20 recognisable to Formula One followers in 2024, there were 26 places to be scrapped over – and it really was a scrap. The 14 teams in total fielded 28 drivers at the start of a race weekend, which meant that two drivers would have to watch the Grand Prix from the garage.

Over a helter-skelter season, beset with fatalities, injuries, and changes to the line-up, a mammoth 54 drivers competed across 1994, with Lotus – whose final spell on the grid would come that season – fielding the most, with seven.

Only McLaren, Williams, Sauber, and Ferrari remain in contention for 2024 honours of the teams that battled one another 30 years ago.

Controversies loom large 

1994 seems a bitter season for the sport, marked by the deaths of Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, horrific accidents including Karl Wendlinger’s career-ending smash-up in Monaco, and furtive cheating allegations levelled at Benetton, McLaren, and Ferrari.

The tragedy of the San Marino Grand Prix is the most memorable, however. Ratzenberger’s death during qualifying, in a crash with the highest g-force – 500g – in the sport’s history, was the first at a race weekend since Ricardo Paletti’s in 1982.

A traumatised Senna withdrew from qualifying, but decided to feature in the race, only to run off the Tamburello corner in a crash that left him brain dead and saw him pass away that evening at Bologna’s Maggiore Hospital.

The death of Roland Ratzenberger (right) in qualifying ahead of the San Marino Grand Prix was just the start of a horrifying weekend at Imola

Senna’s crash was the first driver fatality at a Grand Prix in over 11 years and forced through a raft of safety regulations

The paddock has been consumed with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner’s internal investigation – of which he was found not guilty on Wednesday

The unexpected loss of life at Imola not only brought scrutiny on Williams – with key personnel including technical director Patrick Head and designer Adrian Newey dogged for years by manslaughter allegations in the Italian courts – but forced through a raft of mid-season safety changes designed to slow cars down and ensure safety before the end of the year.

Formula One recorded its last raceday fatality in 2014, with the death of Jules Bianchi after the Japanese Grand Prix. But the changes brought in ahead of the 1995 season had a seismic impact on the safety of the sport.

2024’s biggest controversy thus far however has taken place entirely off the track. Ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, the paddock was abuzz awaiting the results of a formal investigation at Red Bull into the conduct of team principal Christian Horner, after he was accused of controlling behaviour by a fellow Red Bull employee.

On Wednesday afternoon, Horner was cleared by the investigation, and will take up his seat in the pit for Saturday’s race.

Red Bull’s rocket versus the brilliant Benetton – but was foul play afoot?  

The fiercely competitive Red Bull of 2024 and the much-hyped Williams of 1994 have one thing in common – design guru Newey, who has helped transform Red Bull into the dominant force on the grid since his arrival at the fledgling constructor in 2006.

Chief technical officer at Red Bull Adrian Newey remains a giant of the sport 30 years after success with Williams

Benetton’s B194 came under scrutiny for its suspected use of electronic aids, but the allegations could not be proven by FIA’s investigation

Team manager Flavio Briatore had demanded success from his team at any cost at the start of the season

It will take a titanic challenge from Red Bull’s rivals to knock this year’s RB20 out of championship contention

But Newey would find his creation left behind thanks to the innovations at Benetton, whose agile B194 thrived in the hands of Schumacher. However, rivals – and the FIA – suspected that the constructor had a little help from freshly banned technology – driver aids – such as active suspension, anti-lock brakes, traction control, and launch control.

Williams’ FW15C, the car that had carried Prost to victory a season earlier, had been heavily reliant on driver aids, and failed to adapt. But Benetton’s renewed force in a car that had been less-than a season earlier seemed suspicious, and the constructor faced multiple allegations across the season that they were using traction control as well as launch control. Under investigation by the FIA, however, these allegations could not be proved.

Things will likely be far less turbulent this season. Teams have had to contend with a number of rule changes in 2022 and 2023, as well as 2021’s budget cap, but 2024 has seen only relatively minor tweaks made, allowing for constructors to refine and improve upon their 2023 models.