The regulations governing Formula One racing have changed many times throughout the history of the sport. Formula One's rules and regulations are set by the sport's governing body, the FIA. The primary reasons behind rule changes have traditionally been to do with safety. As each decade has passed the FIA have made more and more changes in the regulations so that better facilities and equipment are available in the event of an accident at race meetings. These rule changes have also been aimed at eliminating dangerous practices from the sport in an effort to make it safer. Many innovations and technological improvements have been banned over the years as a result of FIA regulation changes. The governing body have taken these actions to slow the cars down to a level where a Grand Prix car can be driven relatively safely. If cornering speeds were sufficiently high, an accident while cornering would almost certainly result in the death of the driver. Since 2000, the FIA has been issuing an increasing number of rule changes to limit the cost of the sport. The cost of running a team in the sport has increased dramatically in recent years and this situation has not proved sustainable. From 2009 onwards, Formula One has committed itself to dramatic reductions in expenditure.

1950s

Although Formula One races had been taking place since 1948, it was not until 1950 that the World Championship was established. Safety was almost a non-issue in the first 10 years of racing and technological progress was extremely slow compared to modern standards. All of the circuits that Formula One raced on in the 1950s had no safety features; the general mentality was that death was an acceptable risk for winning races, and as a result very few regulations were changed during this period.

1960s

The 1960s began the way the previous decade had ended for Formula One's rule book with relatively few changes made. However, with the advent of a new breed of innovative and forward thinking designers like Colin Chapman and the beginnings of drivers lobbying for safer racing conditions, the number of rule changes made began to accelerate as the decade came to a close.

1970s

The speed of Formula One cars had increased dramatically since 1950 but the standard of safety at race meetings had not followed suit. Deaths were still common, and there were many factors at play to blame. Many of the drivers felt that the danger level involved in the sport was unnecessarily high despite the changes in the rules that had been implemented by the end of the 1960s. The drivers' crusade for improved safety was led in the 1970s by Jackie Stewart. After the needless and avoidable death of Ronnie Peterson at the Italian Grand Prix in 1978, the sport finally made the wholesale changes needed to bring it up towards the modern standards of safety which it enjoys today. The 1970s was the last decade that Formula One raced at truly long circuits (i.e. with lap times close to or over 3 minutes); and going into the decade, Formula One still raced at the 5-mile Charade circuit, the 8.7-mile Spa-Francorchamps circuit and the 14.2-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife. Although all of the aforementioned circuits were improved with safety features, by 1977 Charade, Spa and the Nürburgring were all no longer on the calendar all for the same general reason- safety concerns. Safer circuits such as Paul Ricard, Zolder and Hockenheimring were built with safety features installed; and at the end of the decade Formula One had become a safer sport, although it was still dangerous. Ground effect, a technology that was able to create huge amounts of downforce with inverted aerofoils mounted on the sides of the car, was discovered and developed by Colin Chapman and his Lotus team in the mid 70s, and the technology was perfected with the dominant Type 79. All the other teams followed suit, and the performance of the cars skyrocketed over a period of 2 years.

1980s

With the raft of safety improvements as a result of Peterson's fatal crash being implemented during the late 70s and early 80s Formula One overall became much safer despite the deaths of Patrick Depailler in 1980 and Gilles Villeneuve & Riccardo Paletti in 1982. The huge amounts of downforce created by ground effect became increasingly dangerous as years went on, and aside from the fatal accidents mentioned above, a number of drivers crashed heavily enough for their careers to be brought to an end, and the technology was banned outright at the start of the 1983 season. These safety changes coupled with the much stronger carbon fibre replacing aluminium as the material of choice for chassis construction meant there was not a single driver fatality at a race meeting for the rest of the decade. However one factor threatening to undo all this progress was the almost exponential power increases being extracted from turbocharged engines. Renault proved in 1980 that turbocharging was the way to go to success, with their very dominant performances in qualifying in almost every race, especially on fast and high-altitude circuits, where the thinner air did not affect the turbocharged engines. With power output doubling in less than 10 years and figures in excess of 1400 bhp talked about by engine manufacturers, from 1986 onwards the FIA's primary goal was to rein in the turbo engines before finally banning them altogether at the end of the 1988 season. Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone and ex-March team owner Max Mosley set new organizational standards for Formula One, something they had been working on since 1972. All the races are now more organized by Formula One Management instead of circuit organizers doing their own things; such as setting specific times for when races, practice sessions and qualifying sessions are to start, and teams must commit to all of however many races are in a season, in order to assure sponsors that their advertising will be seen by television cameras, which was also an enterprise set up by Ecclestone and Mosley. This effectively transformed the sport into the multibillion-dollar business it is today.

1990s

Despite several near misses (particularly during the turbo era) Formula One had managed to go almost 12 whole years without a single fatality at a race meeting. The strength of the carbon fibre chassis being used and the fortunate escapes of many drivers involved in high speed accidents during this period made many people inside the sport believe that death was a thing of the past in Formula One. This attitude was made to look foolish when the FIA hastily banned virtually all of the performance enhancing electronic technology that the teams had become dependent on for the start of the 1994 season. This made many of that year's cars nervy and edgy to drive. With more horsepower than 1993 but with less in car stability some observers at the time (most notably Ayrton Senna) stated that they believed 1994 would "be a season with lots of accidents". Near-fatal accidents of JJ Lehto and Jean Alesi during pre-season and in season testing were both to prove Senna right. This was climaxed by the catastrophic 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, with Brazilian Rubens Barrichello being severely injured during a heavy crash in a Friday practice session. This set the stage for the disastrous events of the rest of the weekend, which led to the deaths of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger and Senna himself; all three accidents on consecutive days. The sweeping changes that the FIA implemented post-Imola proved to be almost as rash as the ones at the end of 1993 and nearly claimed the life of Pedro Lamy in a testing accident. The cause of the accident was put down as rear wing failure as a result of the FIA rushing through new rules including one reducing the size of the rear diffuser which reduced the number of anchoring points the attached rear wing assembly could use. To its credit the FIA learned from the mistakes of 1994 and much more consideration and forward thinking was put into changes made to the rules from there onwards. By the close of the decade a measure of the impact on the sport that the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix has had was that for the first time in its history, safety had become Formula One's number one concern.

2000s

By the end of the 1990s safety standards had risen dramatically for the second time in 20 years. The deaths of marshals in both 2000 and 2001 after being struck by wheels after accidents at the Italian and Australian Grand Prix respectively showed that the sport will never be completely safe. However, on the whole, the sport was in much better shape safety-wise than it had been before. Save for the introduction of HANS (head and neck support) system in 2003 there have been no major safety improvements in the sport since the turn of the millennium, until the introduction of the halo in 2018. Most of the changes that the FIA have implemented to the regulations in the nine seasons since the year 2000 have been aimed at trimming speed off the cars and, later in the decade, at reducing the costs involved in Formula One. These have risen by a factor of between three and four for the top teams like Ferrari and McLaren. This sudden increase in budgets has largely been down to the influx of big-spending car manufacturers setting up teams in the sport since Mercedes paved the way by buying 40% of the McLaren team. By 2008, with the global credit crunch turning into a full-blown global recession, many of the car manufacturers (whose sales have been hit hard by the economic crisis) can no longer afford the huge amounts of money they are investing in the sport. The gravity of the situation was realised when Honda suddenly withdrew its participation at the end of the 2008 season, later confirming to have sold the team, specifically blaming the world economic crisis. With Toyota and BMW also withdrawing from the sport at the end of the following year, the remaining manufacturers along with the FIA agreed changes to the rules over the next seasons to bring about dramatic cost savings in an effort to save the sport from collapsing under the weight of its own costs.

2010s

Previous regulation changes at the tail end of the first decade of the new millennium aimed at improving the show had largely proven to be a failure. With cost escalation now largely under control thanks to recently implemented budget caps and safety standards at an all-time high, the sport's focus for the new decade is around continuing to improve the race spectacle. Alongside this however is the medium term objective of making the sport more environmentally aware, both in an effort to secure its future in times of dwindling fossil fuel reserves, but also to bring in new sponsors put off by the sport's image of conspicuous consumption.

2020s

The 2020s saw the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which curtailed major sports events across the world, including Formula One and related feeder events. The 2020 Australian Grand Prix was cancelled minutes prior to the first practice session. The pandemic led to restrictions concerning car development; while the 2020 cars would be reused for the following season, the FIA implemented a token system that could be exchanged for new car components for the 2021 season (McLaren was granted special permission to change the engine for the 2021 season from the Renault power unit to Mercedes units). Postponement and outright cancellation of several races intended to be held occurred, and new regulations intended to be introduced during the 2021 season was postponed to the following year. Formula One would return with a shorter race calendar in Austria for the running of the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, most races during the 2020 and 2021 seasons were held behind closed doors or with reduced crowd capacity; by the 2021 French Grand Prix, however, crowd participation had returned, and by 2023, most COVID-19 safety protocols were relaxed.