F1’s 10 longest-running teams – and why most of them have been lost · RaceFans

As the most popular sport on the planet, soccer has many established clubs whose histories span far more than a century.

From Notts County, Glasgow Rangers or even Wrexham, fans of many European domestic clubs can trace their team’s unbroken lineage back to the 1800s in a lot of cases.

The same cannot be said for Formula 1. Not just because the world championship itself only officially began in 1950, but because not a single one of the entities who participated in that first race at Silverstone all those years ago remains active in the sport today.

Instead, F1 teams have much more in common with the franchises that comprise the major North American sports like the NFL, NBA and MLB. There, teams regularly change identity or even move from the cities they’ve called home for decades, relocating thousands of miles away in some cases.

But that does not mean that there are not teams on the current grid with decades of heritage and storied histories in the sport. In fact, several of the longest-running teams in the sport’s history are still active on the grid today.

Tracking the teams that have enjoyed the most sustained time in Formula 1, there are some surprising names that appear. It is also partly a subjective exercise.

Even the likes of Ferrari, the only team to have competed in every season of the world championship, did not take part in every race. Some teams entered only a handful of a races over several years before becoming regular entrants. Others have come and gone, such as Honda, Renault and Sauber.

The following 10 teams had the longest periods of unbroken competition under the same identity in Formula 1, as of the end of last season, based on whether they started at least half of the races in a championship.

10. BRM – May 18th 1958-Sept 7th 1975 (17 years, 116 days)

The tale of BRM – British Racing Motors – is a complicated one. Formula 1’s first British team first competed in a 1951, racing in the British and Italian grands prix, with BRM constructed cars also racing in 1956 and 1957.

But from the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix to the penultimate grand prix of 1975 in Monza, at least one BRM car was entered in at least one round of the world championship – aside from the Indianapolis 500s that counted. BRM cars were entered in a handful of one-off grands prix after 1975, however, this was their longest continuous stretch, allowing them to just squeeze inside the top ten.

BRM took 17 grand prix victories in their extensive stint in the sport, the…