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Truth be told, I still think its not trully international because of the absence of African, American, Australian drivers/tracks/sponsors. Throw in India just to be cool. I know that drivers from these parts have been went, but there has hardly been a time in history when everybody in the world could watch F1 and say "Look, their is carX that I own and driverY who lives less than 1000km from me, and their is a banner from companyZ whose brand I use"

Still, I would say it got sort of international when Bernie took coverage worldwide. And maybe when smoking advertising became more popular.

I think, when you look at the nationalities of the drivers in the first official year of the F1 WC (1950), then you see that 8 of the 22 participating drivers were from outside Europe (36.4%). This, compared to only 5 drivers out of 24 who participated in 1999 (20.8%).

Here's the drivers' nationality breakdown for 1950:

France - 6
USA - 6
Italy - 5
Great Britain - 2
Argentine - 1
Thailand - 1
Monaco - 1

Here's the drivers' nationality breakdown for 1999:

Italy 4
Great Britain 4
France 3
Germany 3
Brazil 3
Spain 2
Finland 2
Japan 1
Canada 1
Austria 1

On the other hand, there were more nationalities represented in 1999 compared to 1950, as there were more teams and more races.

I'm not sure you'll get a whole lotta different results if you compared the state of the Olympic games or the World Cup from back then and from the present.

Cheers,

Bira

For 2010 we now have 12 countries represented with the same number of seats available as 1999 :-)

Germany 6
Brazil 4
Spain 3
Italy 2
UK 2
Australia 1
Finland 1
India 1
Japan 1
Poland 1
Russia 1
Switzerland 1

There have been over 30 nationalities contesting the "World Championship".

The countries represented include:

South Africa, Chile, Morocco, Ireland, Portugal, and Uraguay.

Great Britain have provided by far the greatest number of drivers.

Stats are great but don't necessarily give you an accurate picture of the global nature of the "World Championship" unless you look at it as a whole. Some countries are only just getting drivers into the "World Championship" whilst others have dominated in some years but now have none.

Here's my list of drivers' countries:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg (arguable), Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco (arguable), Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Uruguay, USA, Venezuela.

Any advance on 40? Of these 40, over half are in Europe, so very much a Europe-centred 'World' Championship, even today.

Remind me who the Northern Rhodesian was? Vic Wilson?

A quick visit to Google reveals the name John Love, who competed in 10 GP's between 1962-1972, with a best result of 2nd in the 1967 Sth African GP driving a Cooper Climax.

Surely Love was from Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe?

'Course he was

Correct, he was born in Bulawayo which is currently the 2nd largest city in Zimbabwe after its capitol Harare (formerly called Salisbury).

On another note, though I'm sure Don's initial post was meant more as an invitation to look beyond mere phrases, it's not uncommon for US Americans to moan about the "so-called World Championship" not being a real world's championship because of the lack of US races and entries for most of its duration. It's interesting to note that, during many, many years, the "so-called National Championship" of the US was also not really a national chmapionship, because most of its drivers came from three or four states of the union, and as many as three out of four races were held in one single state!

... and now they get all sniffy because of all those "furriners" who keep winning their races ...

... and conveniently forget that their first Champion was an Englishman of Italian ancestry, and the second a Frenchman of Swiss ancestry!

I have Mike Harris as being born in Mufulira in what was then (1939) Northern Rhodesia. Richie Jenkins in Where Are They Now? agrees with this but lists him as South African, so I may be wrong here. Can anyone confirm definitely?