F1 General | Joe Unplugged | 177 | Making Sense of F1 History: How Do We Define the Eras?

Listener Heath asks: how do you define different F1 eras, and what are the markers that separate one from another? It's a question that sounds straightforward until you realize there's no official answer — and that the FIA has never even defined what counts as a Formula 1 driver.

In this episode, Dick and Sabrina explore F1 history and how we make sense of it with Joe Saward, a trained historian who has covered the sport since 1988 and has met drivers from nearly every era it has produced. Joe's argument: eras are journalistic constructs, not official designations, and the blurry edges between them reveal as much about the sport as the eras themselves.

The conversation covers what actually marks a true transition — and why the turbo era, the Schumacher era, and the Bernie era are all legitimate frameworks that describe different dimensions of the same history simultaneously. Dick shares 8mm footage he shot at the 1980 US Grand Prix at Long Beach at 22 years old. Joe recalls an encounter in 1980s Czechoslovakia with a legendary figure from the sport's earliest years — one he didn't recognize until long after the moment had passed. And the three of them wrestle with a question that matters more than it might seem: does any of this history actually matter to fans who came to F1 through Drive to Survive — and should it?

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