2016 Formula One season

The 2016 Formula One season will be the 67th season of the FIA Formula One World Championship, a motor racing championship for Formula One cars which is recognised by the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars. Teams and drivers are scheduled to take part in twenty-one Grands Prix—making for the longest season in the sport's history—starting in Australia on 20 March and finishing in Abu Dhabi on 27 November as they compete for the World Drivers' and World Constructors' championships.

The 2016 season will see the grid expand to 22 cars with the addition of the Haas F1 Team entry.Renault will return to the sport as a constructor after a four-year absence following their takeover of Lotus prior to the start of the season. The calendar will also expand, with the return of the German Grand Prix and the revival of the European Grand Prix in Azerbaijan.

Lewis Hamilton will start the season as the defending Drivers' Champion for the second year running, after winning his third World Championship title at the 2015 United States Grand Prix. His team, Mercedes, will start the season as the defending Constructors' Champion, having secured its second championship title at the 2015 Russian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton,MBE (born 7 January 1985) is a British Formula One racing driver from England, currently racing for the Mercedes AMG Petronas team. He is the 2008, 2014 and 2015 Formula One World Champion.

In December 1995, at the age of ten, he approached McLaren team principal Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, "I want to race for you one day ... I want to race for McLaren." Less than three years later McLaren and Mercedes-Benz signed him to their Young Driver Support Programme. After winning the British Formula Renault, Formula Three Euroseries, and GP2 championships on his way up the racing career ladder, he drove for McLaren in 2007, making his Formula One debut 12 years after his initial encounter with Dennis. Hamilton's contract for the McLaren driver development program made him the youngest ever driver to secure a contract which later resulted in a Formula One drive.

Coming from a mixed background, with a black father and white mother, Hamilton is often labelled "the first black driver in Formula One", although Willy T. Ribbs tested a Formula One car in 1986.

Racing wheel

A racing wheel is a method of control for use in racing video games, racing simulators, and driving simulators. They are usually packaged with a large paddle styled as a steering wheel, along with a set of pedals for gas, brake, and sometimes clutch actuation, as well as various shifter controls. An analog wheel and pedal set such as this allows the user to accurately manipulate steering angle and pedal control that is required to properly manage a simulated car, as opposed to digital control such as a keyboard. The relatively large range of motion further allows the user to more accurately apply the controls. Racing wheels have been developed for use with arcade games, game consoles, personal computers, and also for professional driving simulators for race drivers.

Force feedback

Racing wheels started off as simple plastic wheels hooked up to a rotary potentiometer, which were sprung by springs or bungees. Eventually manufacturers began to use electric motors in the controllers, in place of springs, in order to achieve a level of force feedback, first seen in Microsoft's Sidewinder wheel. At first this technology simply provided the centering force and other artificial effects such as shaking the wheel in a crash or other vibrations. However, as driving simulations have evolved, their physics engines have become more accurate and the developers have linked their in-game physics more closely to the force feedback. This allows the user to truly feel what forces go through the steering rack, instead of just artificial effects, and genuinely enhance the realism of the game. Despite this, some high end manufacturers believe that force feedback has still not been perfected, and therefore companies such as Thomas SuperWheel have not adopted a force feedback system in their products. Frex, on the other hand, has gone the other way and equips their high-end Simwheel with powerful force feedback and no mechanical centering device.

Grand Prix

Grand Prix (French pronunciation: ​[ɡʁɑ̃pʁi], meaning Grand Prize; plural Grands Prix) may refer to:

Sports competitions

2015 Formula One season

The 2015 Formula One season was the 66th season of the Formula One World Championship, a motor racing championship for Formula One cars, recognised by the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars. Twenty-two drivers representing ten teams contested nineteen Grands Prix, starting in Australia on 15 March and ending in Abu Dhabi on 29 November as they competed for the World Drivers' and World Constructors' championships.

Lewis Hamilton was the defending Drivers' Champion after securing his second title at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. His team, Mercedes, began the season as the defending Constructors' Champion, having secured its first championship title at the 2014 Russian Grand Prix.

The calendar featured two significant changes; the first being the return of the Mexican Grand Prix, held for the first time since 1992, while the German Grand Prix was ultimately scrapped after a venue could not be secured, leaving the nation without a World Championship event for the first time in fifty-five years.