2003 Formula One season

The 2003 Formula One season was the 57th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 2003 FIA Formula One World Championship, which commenced on 9 March 2003 and ended on 12 October after sixteen races. World Championship titles were awarded for both drivers and constructors with Michael Schumacher winning the former and Ferrari awarded the latter.

The 2003 season saw the introduction of new regulations intended to increase F1's excitement and to help alleviate the financial difficulties of the smaller teams. One-lap qualifying was introduced as a way for smaller teams to get more television exposure. Optional Friday testing at Grand Prix events was introduced in exchange for fewer miles on stand-alone test days. This was intended to give smaller teams a cheaper alternative to these test days, which were to be banned in 2004. Only one type of wet weather tyre was allowed to be used in wet weather races. The points system for both the Constructors' and Drivers' titles was changed from 10–6–4–3–2–1 for the first six finishers at each round to 10–8–6–5–4–3–2–1 for the first eight finishers in an attempt to make the title contests closer.

While Ferrari's Michael Schumacher had won the 2002 championship by 67 points from his teammate Rubens Barrichello, the 2003 season was much closer. For a great part of the 2003 season, several drivers from several teams had mathematical chances of winning the world championship. Eight different drivers won a Grand Prix, amongst them three first time winners. Kimi Räikkönen, driving for McLaren-Mercedes, and Juan Pablo Montoya, driving for BMW Williams, both had a chance of claiming the 2003 championship until late in the season, with Räikkönen still mathematically in contention at the final race, the Japanese Grand Prix. Räikkönen lost the championship to Schumacher by two points, although he won only one race to Schumacher's six. It was Schumacher's sixth world drivers' title overall, breaking Juan Manuel Fangio's 46-year-old record of five world drivers' titles for most drivers' championships won since 1957. Ferrari's defence of the Constructors' title was challenged throughout the year by Williams and McLaren, one of the few seasons where there were three front-running teams but in the end, Ferrari emerged victorious once again and the team clinched their fifth consecutive world constructors' title since 1999.

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