How fast can a Formula 1 car go?

1985 was to see Keke Rosberg set the all-time Formula 1 qualifying lap record for 17 years after posting fastest qualifying time for the race with an average speed of 258.983 km/h (160.92 mph). Silverstone, which was already a very fast circuit, was becoming faster and faster and the cars were lapping the circuit in the low 1-minute range. The race was an exciting one with Brazilian rising star Ayrton Senna making a great start from 4th and taking the lead by the first corner. He led until late in the race, when his car was running out of fuel while Prost was pushing him hard; Senna eventually ran out of fuel and Prost went on to take victory. 1986 saw a huge crowd thanks to Mansell being a favourite to win; his newly found fame and place in a competitive team would help the British Grand Prix to see huge crowds for several years. This race saw 42-year-old Jacques Laffite get involved in a first corner accident and slam head-on into the barriers, breaking both his legs and ending his Formula One career. Nigel Mansell, whose car broke at the start of the first race, got into his teammate Piquet's spare car and won the race; although this was the last F1 race at Brands Hatch. A number of people had concerns about the speeds of the cars on the small track; particularly the European Grand Prix held at Brands Hatch the previous year. The southern English circuit was getting to be very fast- now with these 1,000+ hp, 1,180 pound cars, pole sitter Piquet's average qualifying speed was 140.483 mph (227.583 km/h) and his lap time was in the 1 minute 6-second range, compared to the 1 minute 20-second range in 1976. But Brands Hatch's demise was for political reasons- the international motorsports governing body at the time, FISA, had instituted a policy of long-term contracts for one circuit per Grand Prix. Brands Hatch was perceived as a poorer facility, and considering most of the track was located in a very old forest it did have very little run-off and room to expand, something Silverstone had in acres. Silverstone and the BRDC had signed a seven-year contract with Formula 1 and FISA at some point in 1986, to run from 1987 to 1993.

British Grand Prix

The British Grand Prix is a race in the calendar of the FIA Formula One World Championship. It is currently held at the Silverstone Circuit near the village of Silverstone in Northamptonshire in England. The 2018 event was the 69th time that the race had been run as a World Championship event since the inaugural season in, and the 52nd time that a World Championship round had been held at Silverstone.

The British race is the oldest in the Formula One calendar as the 1950 race at Silverstone was round one of the first championship season in. It and the Italian Grand Prix are the only two Formula One World Championship Grands Prix that have been staged during every season that the championship has been held. It was designated the European Grand Prix five times between 1950 and 1977, when this title was an honorary designation given each year to one Grand Prix race in Europe. All British Grands Prix dating back to 1926 have been held in England; where the British motor racing industry is primarily located.

Since 1948, it has been customary that the winner of the race is awarded the British Grand Prix Trophy.

The concrete Brooklands oval was built in 1907 near Weybridge in Surrey, located just outside the British capital of London. It was the first purpose-built motor racing venue, as well as one of the first airfields in the United Kingdom. Grand Prix motor racing was first established in Britain by Henry Segrave in 1926 after his winning of the 1923 French Grand Prix and the San Sebastián Grand Prix the following year, which raised interest in the sport. The first ever British Grand Prix was won by the French team of Louis Wagner and Robert Sénéchal driving a Delage 155B. The second British Grand Prix was held at Brooklands in 1927.

Several non-championship races known as the Donington Grand Prix were held at Donington Park in 1937 and 1938, where the German Mercedes and Auto Unions dominated the proceedings. Drivers such as German Bernd Rosemeyer and Italian Tazio Nuvolari won this race (both driving mid-engined Auto Union cars).

Brooklands had been severely damaged by the onset of World War II and the circuit was abandoned. Most new British circuits were being built on disused Royal Air Force airfields, and Silverstone, located in Northamptonshire in central England, was one of those circuits. It staged its first race, the Royal Automobile Club International Grand Prix on 2 October 1948, which was won by Italian Luigi Villoresi in a Maserati. In 1949, the circuit was heavily modified and made very fast; and it remained in this configuration for decades on.

In 1950, the World Championship of Drivers was introduced, and the 1950 British Grand Prix was the first World Championship Formula One race ever held, with new regulations and 6 other races in Europe. This race was won by Alfa Romeo driver Giuseppe "Nino" Farina. King George VI was among the attendees of the race. The 1951 race was particularly exciting, as it was the first F1 race not won by an Alfa Romeo; the gas-guzzling Italian cars were beaten by another Italian car- the more fuel-efficient Ferrari of Argentine José Froilán González in what was the famed Scuderia's first ever Formula One victory. For the 1952 event, the original pits between Abbey and Woodcote was abandoned and demolished. A new pit complex was constructed between Woodcote and Copse corners; Alberto Ascari dominated this and the next year's race; González won again in 1954 in a Ferrari.

In 1955, the Formula One circus began to alternate between Silverstone and the Aintree circuit, located on the Grand National horse racing course near Liverpool. Mercedes drivers Juan Manuel Fangio and home favourite Stirling Moss arrived at Aintree expecting to win. They took the lead at the start and the two drivers battled throughout, and Moss passed Fangio on the 26th lap; and he kept the lead for a while; but Fangio fought back and was about to pass Moss on the last corner on the last lap, and all were certain Fangio would pip Moss at the chequered flag. But he didn't, and Moss won his first Formula One race on home soil. Moss later asked Fangio "did you let me through?" and the Argentine replied "No. You were better than me that day." Mercedes romped to the finish 1-2-3-4, with German Karl Kling and Italian Piero Taruffi finishing 3rd and 4th.

The even-numbered years were at Silverstone and the odd numbered and 1962 were at Aintree. 1956 saw Fangio win in a Ferrari, and 1957 returned to see Moss win again in a Vanwall; he took over his ill teammate Tony Brooks's car and stormed through the field to take victory. This was the first Grand Prix victory for a British-built car- Formula One would soon be mostly made up of British teams. 1958 was when Peter Collins won in a Ferrari and Bernie Ecclestone was entered in a Connaught but his car was driven by Jack Fairman; and 1959 and 1960 saw Australian Jack Brabham win in a mid-engined Cooper. The last race at Aintree was in 1962, when Briton Jim Clark won his first of 5 British Grands Prix; Aintree was later decommissioned in 1964.

1964 saw the first Formula One race at the southern English circuit known as Brands Hatch, located in Kent, just outside London. The track was built in the early 1950s and had been extended in 1960. Silverstone hosted the British Grand Prix in odd-numbered years and Brands Hatch in even-numbered years. Like Silverstone, the circuit was popular with drivers, and unlike the flat Northamptonshire circuit and Aintree, Brands Hatch had many cambered corners and lots of elevation change. Like the year before at Silverstone, Clark won the 1964 race, and the next year's race. 1967 saw Clark take yet another dominant win, and 1968 saw a monumental battle between Swiss Jo Siffert in a Lotus and New Zealander Chris Amon in a Ferrari; Siffert won the race, his first of two victories in F1 on the circuit where he would lose his life in a non-championship race 3 years later.

1969 saw another big battle between home favourite Jackie Stewart and Austrian Jochen Rindt, that went on for a while; although Rindt had a loose rear wing and had to come into the pits to get it repaired; Stewart took the chequered flag driving a Ford/Cosworth-powered Matra for Ken Tyrrell. Rindt won the 1970 event at the expense of Brabham running out of fuel at the end of the race, and 1971 saw Stewart win again in a Tyrrell (Ken Tyrrell had started building his own cars). 1973, however, saw a huge first lap accident at Woodcote that took out 11 cars, including all 3 works Surtees cars. Amazingly, there were no deaths or any fires and the worst news was that Andrea de Adamich received career-ending ankle injuries. 1974 saw Austrian up-and-comer Niki Lauda dominate the race in his Ferrari, however a rear-tire puncture slowed his car and rivals Jody Scheckter and Emerson Fittipaldi passed Lauda to take 1st and 2nd.

1975 saw a chicane added to Woodcote to slow cars going through the very high speed corner; and this was another race of variables as a rain storm hit the track and a number of drivers including Scheckter and Briton James Hunt hydroplaned off the track at the same corner; Fittipaldi won the race after it was called short. 1976 also saw changes to Brands Hatch including making the fearsome Paddock Hill bend a bit more tame and South Bank corner more of a left hand apex rather than a long hairpin. This race proved to be very controversial; as home favourite Hunt won the race but was later disqualified following a protest from Ferrari and other teams about Hunt not completing the first lap of the race; and the victory went to 2nd-placed Lauda. 1977 saw Hunt take victory without any controversy and when F1 returned to Silverstone 2 years later, Australian Alan Jones lapped the circuit more than 6 seconds inside the lap record in his ground-effect Williams. His teammate Clay Regazzoni won the race, Williams's first F1 victory. 1980 saw Jones win after the Ligiers of Jacques Laffite and Didier Pironi retired; and 1981 saw French rising star Alain Prost thoroughly dominate the first part race in his Renault; and there was an accident involving Canadian Gilles Villeneuve at the Woodcote Chicane which held up Briton John Watson; but Watson passed several cars and won the race; the first for a car with an all-carbon fibre chassis. 1982 saw polesitter Keke Rosberg having to start from the back due to problems with his Williams and he begun a charge that brought him far up the field; but he retired, and there was another spectacular showing from Briton Derek Warwick in his underfunded Toleman; he managed to pass Pironi for 2nd, but he also retired with a broken driveshaft; the victory went to Austrian Lauda.

1983 saw Prost win his 1st of 5 British Grands Prix and a spectacular performance from Briton Nigel Mansell in his first outing in a turbocharged Lotus, he started 16th and finished 4th. Lauda won again at Brands Hatch in 1984, during which FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre announced that the Tyrrell team was to be excluded from that year's championship for fuel irregularities, and the restarted race after a huge accident at Bottom Bend caused more controversy; Prost and Lauda had passed Brazilian Nelson Piquet on the last lap of the first race, but Piquet started in front of the two McLaren drivers; regulations dictated that the positions were on the grid were to be determined 2 laps before the restart was called; and an irate Prost made scathing comments about his countryman Balestre.

1987 saw Silverstone modified; the Woodcote chicane was no longer used and a new left-right chicane was built on the Farm Straight just before Woodcote. Silverstone's layout, like Brands Hatch, had changed little since 1949. The circuit was still fast; and it saw Mansell charge after Piquet (who had decided to run the whole race on one set of tires) and the British driver broke the lap record 11 times, caught and passed Piquet and took victory; the Silverstone crowd broke ranks and ran onto the circuit after the race was over; this was to start a number of dramatic events surrounding Mansell for the next 5 years. 1988 saw Senna win a rain-soaked event, and Mansell finished 2nd after driving very hard and passing many cars to attempt to catch Senna; this was one of Mansell's two race finishes that season. 1989 saw Prost win in a McLaren after his teammate Senna went off at Becketts; Mansell finished 2nd again driving for Ferrari; and sometime after the event, it was decided that Silverstone, the fastest circuit on the Formula One calendar, was to be heavily modified, and the project would be completed for 1991. The 1990 Grand Prix was the last motor race on the high-speed circuit; and Mansell drove hard and led a lot of the race; but gearbox problems eventually forced him to retire, where he threw his gloves into the crowd and announced that he was going to retire, a decision that he would later take back; and he effectively dominated the next two events, driving for Williams. The circuit was now slower and every corner on the circuit except Copse was different, and it also included an infield section right before the pits. After 1992, Mansell had retired from F1, and 1993 saw new Williams driver Damon Hill lead much of the race until his engine blew up, and Hill's French teammate Alain Prost took his 50th career Grand Prix win.

After the tragedies of Imola in 1994, a chicane was installed at the flat-out Abbey corner 6 weeks before the event was due to take place and Stowe corner was slowed considerably. Hill won the event, something his double world champion father Graham never did. 1995 saw another British driver, Johnny Herbert, take victory in his Benetton. 1996 saw further changes to the circuit, where Stowe was more or less restored to its 1991 design, and the 1999 event saw double world champion Michael Schumacher crash heavily at Stowe; he broke his leg, missed many races and this put him out of championship contention. There were attempts to bring the British GP back to Brands Hatch for 2002, but this never materialised.

The 2003 event was disrupted by a defrocked priest, Cornelius Horan, who ran onto the Hangar Straight during the race while cars were coming at him at 160+ mph. Marshals were able to get him off the track before he hurt himself or anyone else and he was later arrested; Brazilian Rubens Barrichello won the race for Ferrari. A dispute between Silverstone's owners, the British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC), and the Formula One authorities in 2003 over the funding of necessary improvements to the track's facilities led to doubts over the future of the race. In October 2004 the British Grand Prix was left off the preliminary race schedule for 2005 because the BRDC refused to pay the race fee demanded by Bernie Ecclestone. However, after months of negotiation between the BRDC, Ecclestone and the Formula One constructors, a deal was made for the Grand Prix to be held at Silverstone until 2009. 2008 saw Briton Lewis Hamilton win for McLaren; and on 4 July, it was announced that Donington Park had been awarded the contract to host the British Grand Prix for 10 years from 2010. However, Donington failed to secure the necessary funding to host the race, and its contract was terminated in November 2009. On 7 December 2009, Silverstone signed a 17-year contract to host the British Grand Prix from 2010 onwards. The 2010 race saw a new circuit configuration being used, using the brand new "Arena" layout. For 2011 a new pit complex was built between Club and Abbey Corners, to where the start/finish line was moved. Silverstone is still a very fast circuit- with average speeds up in the 145 mph range for Formula 1 cars; one of the highest average speeds on the F1 calendar.

On 11 July 2017, the BRDC, the owners of Silverstone, activated a break clause in their contract meaning unless a new contract is signed, 2019 will be the final year the British Grand Prix takes place at Silverstone.

"Drivers in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season."

"Teams in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season."
"A pink background indicates an event which was not part of the Formula One World Championship."

"A pink background indicates an event which was not part of the Formula One World Championship."

Top speeds are in practice limited by the longest straight at the track and by the need to balance the car's aerodynamic configuration between high straight line speed (low aerodynamic drag) and high cornering speed (high downforce) to achieve the fastest lap time. During the 2006 season, the top speeds of Formula 1 cars were a little over 300 km/h (185 mph) at high-downforce tracks such as Albert Park, Australia and Sepang, Malaysia. These speeds were down by some from the 2005 speeds, and from the 2004 speeds, due to the recent performance restrictions (see below). On low-downforce circuits greater top speeds were registered: at Gilles-Villeneuve (Canada) 325 km/h (203 mph), at Indianapolis (USA) 335 km/h (210 mph), and at Monza (Italy) 360 km/h (225 mph). In testing one month prior to the 2005 Italian Grand Prix, Juan Pablo Montoya of the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team recorded a record top speed of 372.6 km/h (231.5 mph), which got officially recognised by the FIA as the fastest speed ever achieved by an F1 car, even though it was not set during an officially sanctioned session during a race weekend. In the 2005 Italian GP Kimi Räikkönen of McLaren-Mercedes was recorded at 370.1 km/h (229.9 mph). This record was broken at the 2016 Mexican Grand Prix by Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, whose top speed in race conditions was 372.54 km/h (231.48 mph). However, even though this information was shown in FIA's official monitors, the FIA is yet to accept it as an official record. Bottas had previously set an even higher record top speed during qualifying for the 2016 European Grand Prix, recording a speed of 378.035 km/h (234.9 mph), albeit through the use of slipstream drafting. This top speed is yet to be confirmed by any official method as currently the only source of this information is the Williams team's Twitter post, while the FIA's official speed trap data measured Bottas's speed at 366.1 kmh in that instance. At the moment Montoya's speed of 372.6 kmh (231.5 mph) is still regarded as the official record, even though it was not set during a sanctioned session.

Formula One car

A Formula One car is a single-seat, open cockpit, open-wheel racing car with substantial front and rear wings, and an engine positioned behind the driver, intended to be used in competition at Formula One racing events. The regulations governing the cars are unique to the championship. The Formula One regulations specify that cars must be constructed by the racing teams themselves, though the design and manufacture can be outsourced.

The modern-day Formula One cars are constructed from composites of carbon fibre and similar ultra-lightweight materials. The minimum weight permissible is including the driver but not fuel. Cars are weighed with dry-weather tyres fitted. Prior to the 2014 F1 season, cars often weighed in under this limit so teams added ballast in order to add weight to the car. The advantage of using ballast is that it can be placed anywhere in the car to provide ideal weight distribution. This can help lower the car's centre of gravity to improve stability and also allows the team to fine-tune the weight distribution of the car to suit individual circuits.

The 2006 Formula One season saw the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) introduce a then-new engine formula, which mandated cars to be powered by 2.4-litre naturally aspirated engines in the V8 engine configuration, with no more than four valves per cylinder. Further technical restrictions, such as a ban on variable intake trumpets, have also been introduced with the new 2.4 L V8 formula to prevent the teams from achieving higher RPM and horsepower too quickly. The season limited engines to 18,000 rpm in order to improve engine reliability and cut costs.

For a decade, F1 cars had run with 3.0-litre naturally aspirated engines with all teams settling on a V10 layout by the end of the period; however, development had led to these engines producing between, and the cars reaching top speeds of (Jacques Villeneuve with Sauber-Ferrari) on the Monza circuit. Teams started to use exotic alloys in the late 1990s, leading to the FIA banning the use of exotic materials in engine construction, with only aluminium, titanium and iron alloys being allowed for the pistons, cylinders, connecting rods and crankshafts. The FIA has continually enforced material and design restrictions to limit power. Even with the restrictions, the V10s in the 2005 season were reputed to develop, power levels not seen since the ban on turbo-charged engines in 1989.

The lesser funded teams (the former Minardi team spends less than 50 million, while Ferrari spent hundreds of millions of euros a year developing their car) had the option of keeping the current V10 for another season, but with a rev limiter to keep them competitive with the most powerful V8 engines. The only team to take this option was the Toro Rosso team, which was the reformed and regrouped Minardi.

In 2012, the engines consumed around 450 l (15.9 ft) of air per second (at the 2012 rev limit of 18,000 rpm); race fuel consumption rate was normally around 75 l/100 km travelled (3.1 US mpg, 3.8 imp mpg, 1.3 km/l).

All cars have the engine located between the driver and the rear axle. The engines are a stressed member in most cars, meaning that the engine is part of the structural support framework, being bolted to the cockpit at the front end, and transmission and rear suspension at the back end.

In the 2004 championship, engines were required to last a full race weekend. For the 2005 championship, they were required to last two full race weekends and if a team changes an engine between the two races, they incur a penalty of 10 grid positions. In 2007, this rule was altered slightly and an engine only had to last for Saturday and Sunday running. This was to promote Friday running. In the 2008 season, engines were required to last two full race weekends; the same regulation as the 2006 season. However, for the 2009 season, each driver is allowed to use a maximum of 8 engines over the season, meaning that a couple of engines have to last three race weekends. This method of limiting engine costs also increases the importance of tactics, since the teams have to choose which races to have a new or an already-used engine.

As of the 2014 season, all F1 cars have been equipped with turbocharged 1.6-litre V6 engines. Turbochargers had previously been banned since 1988. This change may give an improvement of up to 29% fuel efficiency. One of the many reasons that Mercedes dominated the season early, was due to the placement of the turbocharger's compressor at one side of the engine, and the turbine at the other; both were then linked by a shaft travelling through the vee of the engine. The benefit is that air is not traveling through as much pipework, in turn reducing turbo lag and increases efficiency of the car. In addition, it means that the air moving through the compressor is much cooler as it is further away from the hot turbine section.

Formula One cars use semi-automatic sequential gearboxes, with regulations stating that 8 forward gears (increased from 7 from the 2014 season onwards) and 1 reverse gear must be used, with rear-wheel drive. The gearbox is constructed of carbon titanium, as heat dissipation is a critical issue, and is bolted onto the back of the engine. Full automatic gearboxes, and systems such as launch control and traction control, are illegal, to keep driver skill important in controlling the car. The driver initiates gear changes using paddles mounted on the back of the steering wheel and electro-hydraulics perform the actual change as well as throttle control. Clutch control is also performed electro-hydraulically, except to and from a standstill, when the driver operates the clutch using a lever mounted on the back of the steering wheel.

A modern F1 clutch is a multi-plate carbon design with a diameter of less than, weighing less than and handling around. race season, all teams are using seamless shift transmissions, which allow almost instantaneous changing of gears with minimum loss of drive. Shift times for Formula One cars are in the region of 0.05 seconds. In order to keep costs low in Formula One, gearboxes must last five consecutive events and since 2015, gearbox ratios will be fixed for each season (for 2014 they could be changed only once). Changing a gearbox before the allowed time will cause a penalty of five places drop on the starting grid for the first event that the new gearbox is used.
Aerodynamics have become key to success in the sport and teams spend tens of millions of dollars on research and development in the field each year.

The aerodynamic designer has two primary concerns: the creation of downforce, to help push the car's tyres onto the track and improve cornering forces; and minimising the drag that gets caused by turbulence and acts to slow the car down.

Several teams started to experiment with the now familiar wings in the late 1960s. Race car wings operate on the same principle as aircraft wings, but are configured to cause a downward force rather than an upward one. A modern Formula One car is capable of developing 6 G's of lateral cornering force thanks to aerodynamic downforce. The aerodynamic downforce allowing this, is typically greater than the weight of the car. That means that, theoretically, at high speeds they could drive on the upside down surface of a suitable structure; e.g. on the ceiling.

Early experiments with movable wings and high mountings led to some spectacular accidents, and for the 1970 season, regulations were introduced to limit the size and location of wings. Having evolved over time, similar rules are still used today.

In the late 1960s, Jim Hall of Chaparral, first introduced "ground effect" downforce to auto racing. In the mid 1970s, Lotus engineers found out that the entire car could be made to act like a giant wing by the creation of an airfoil surface on its underside which would cause air moving relative to the car to push it to the road. Applying another idea of Jim Hall's from his Chaparral 2J sports racer, Gordon Murray designed the Brabham BT46B, which used a separately-powered fan system to extract air from the skirted area under the car, creating enormous downforce. After technical challenges from other teams, it was withdrawn after a single race. Rule changes then followed to limit the benefits of 'ground effects' – firstly a ban on the skirts used to contain the low pressure area, later a requirement for a'stepped floor'.

Despite the full-sized wind tunnels and vast computing power used by the aerodynamic departments of most teams, the fundamental principles of Formula One aerodynamics still apply: to create the maximum amount of downforce for the minimal amount of drag. The primary wings mounted on the front and rear are fitted with different profiles depending on the downforce requirements of a particular track. Tight, slow circuits like Monaco require very aggressive wing profiles – cars run two separate 'blades' of 'elements' on the rear wings (two is the maximum permitted). In contrast, high-speed circuits like Monza see the cars stripped of as much wing as possible, to reduce drag and increase speed on the long straights.

Every single surface of a modern Formula One car, from the shape of the suspension links to that of the driver's helmet – has its aerodynamic effects considered. Disrupted air, where the flow'separates' from the body, creates turbulence which creates drag – which slows the car down. Almost as much effort has been spent reducing drag as increasing downforce – from the vertical end-plates fitted to wings to prevent vortices forming to the diffuser plates mounted low at the back, which help to re-equalise pressure of the faster-flowing air that has passed under the car and would otherwise create a low-pressure 'balloon' dragging at the back. Despite this, designers can't make their cars too'slippery', as a good supply of airflow has to be ensured to help dissipate the vast amounts of heat produced by the engine and brakes.
In recent years, most Formula One teams have tried to emulate Ferrari's 'narrow waist' design, where the rear of the car is made as narrow and low as possible. This reduces drag and maximises the amount of air available to the rear wing. The 'barge boards' fitted to the sides of cars have also helped to shape the flow of the air and minimise the amount of turbulence.

Revised regulations introduced in 2005 forced the aerodynamicists to be even more ingenious. In a bid to cut speeds, the FIA reduced downforce by raising the front wing, bringing the rear wing forward, and modifying the rear diffuser profile. The designers quickly regained much of this loss, with a variety of intricate and novel solutions such as the 'horn' winglets first seen on the McLaren MP4-20.
Most of those innovations were effectively outlawed under even more stringent aero regulations imposed by the FIA for 2009. The changes were designed to promote overtaking by making it easier for a car to closely follow another. The new rules took the cars into another new era, with lower and wider front wings, taller and narrower rear wings, and generally much 'cleaner' bodywork. Perhaps the most interesting change, however, was the introduction of'moveable aerodynamics', with the driver able to make limited adjustments to the front wing from the cockpit during a race.

That was usurped for 2011 by the new DRS (Drag Reduction System) rear wing system. This too allows drivers to make adjustments, but the system's availability is electronically governed – originally it could be used at any time in practice and qualifying (unless a driver is on wet-weather tyres), but during the race, it could only be activated when a driver is less than one second behind another car at pre-determined points on the track. (From 2013 DRS is available only at the pre-determined points during all sessions). The system is then deactivated once the driver brakes. The system "stalls" the rear wing by opening a flap, which leaves a 50mm horizontal gap in the wing, thus massively reducing drag and allowing higher top speeds. However, this also reduces downforce so it is normally used on longer straight track sections or sections which do not require high downforce. The system was introduced to promote more overtaking and is often the reason for overtaking on straights or at the end of straights where overtaking is encouraged in the following corner(s). However, the reception of the DRS system has differed among drivers, fans, and specialists. Former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica has been quoted of saying he "has not seen any overtaking moves in Formula 1 for two years", suggesting that the DRS is an unnatural way to pass cars on track as it does not actually require driver skill to successfully overtake a competitor, therefore, it would not be overtaking.

The use of aerodynamics to increase the cars' grip was pioneered in Formula One in the season by Lotus, Ferrari and Brabham. At first Lotus introduced modest front wings and a spoiler on Graham Hill's Lotus 49B at the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix, then Brabham and Ferrari went one better at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix with full width wings mounted on struts high above the driver.

Early designs linked wings directly to the suspension, but several accidents led to rules stating that wings must be fixed rigidly to the chassis. The cars' aerodynamics are designed to provide maximum downforce with a minimum of drag; every part of the bodywork is designed with this aim in mind. Like most open-wheel cars they feature large front and rear aerofoils, but they are far more developed than American open-wheel racers, which depend more on suspension tuning; for instance, the nose is raised above the centre of the front aerofoil, allowing its entire width to provide downforce. The front and rear wings are highly sculpted and extremely fine 'tuned', along with the rest of the body such as the turning vanes beneath the nose, bargeboards, sidepods, underbody, and the rear diffuser. They also feature aerodynamic appendages that direct the airflow. Such an extreme level of aerodynamic development means that an F1 car produces much more downforce than any other open-wheel formula; Indycars, for example, produce downforce equal to their weight (that is, a downforce:weight ratio of 1:1) at, while an F1 car achieves the same at, and at the ratio is roughly 2:1.
The bargeboards in particular are designed, shaped, configured, adjusted and positioned not to create downforce directly, as with a conventional wing or underbody venturi, but to create vortices from the air spillage at their edges. The use of vortices is a significant feature of the latest breeds of F1 cars. Since a vortex is a rotating fluid that creates a low pressure zone at its centre, creating vortices lowers the overall local pressure of the air. Since low pressure is what is desired under the car, as it allows normal atmospheric pressure to press the car down from the top; by creating vortices, downforce can be augmented while still staying within the rules prohibiting ground effects.

The F1 cars for the 2009 season came under much questioning due to the design of the rear diffusers of the Williams, Toyota and the Brawn GP cars raced by Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, dubbed "double diffusers". Appeals from many of the teams were heard by the FIA, which met in Paris, before the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix and the use of such diffusers was declared as legal. Brawn GP boss Ross Brawn claimed the double diffuser design as "an innovative approach of an existing idea". These were subsequently banned for the 2011 season. Another controversy of the 2010 and '11 seasons was the front wing of the Red Bull cars. Several teams protested claiming the wing was breaking regulations. Footage from high speed sections of circuits showed the Red Bull front wing bending on the outsides subsequently creating greater downforce. Tests were held on the Red Bull front wing and the FIA could find no way that the wing was breaking any regulation.

Since the start of the 2011 season, cars have been allowed to run with an adjustable rear wing, more commonly known as DRS (drag reduction system), a system to combat the problem of turbulent air when overtaking. On the straights of a track, drivers can deploy DRS, which opens the rear wing, reduces the drag of the car, allowing it to move faster. As soon as the driver touches the brake, the rear wing shuts again. In free practice and qualifying, a driver may use it whenever he wishes to, but in the race, it can only be used if the driver is 1 second, or less, behind another driver at the DRS detection zone on the race track, at which point it can be activated in the activation zone until the driver brakes.

F1 regulations heavily limit the use of ground effect aerodynamics which are a highly efficient means of creating downforce with a small drag penalty. The underside of the vehicle, the undertray, must be flat between the axles. A 10 mm thick wooden plank or "skid block" runs down the middle of the car to prevent the cars from running low enough to contact the track surface; this skid block is measured before and after a race. Should the plank be less than 9 mm thick after the race, the car is disqualified.

A substantial amount of downforce is provided by using a rear diffuser which rises from the undertray at the rear axle to the actual rear of the bodywork. The limitations on ground effects, limited size of the wings (requiring use at high angles of attack to create sufficient downforce), and vortices created by open wheels lead to a high aerodynamic drag coefficient (about 1 according to Minardi's technical director Gabriele Tredozi; compare with the average modern saloon car, which has a "C" value between 0.25 and 0.35), so that, despite the enormous power output of the engines, the top speed of these cars is less than that of World War II vintage Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union Silver Arrows racers. However, this drag is more than compensated for by the ability to corner at extremely high speed. The aerodynamics are adjusted for each track; with a low drag configuration for tracks where high speed is more important like Autodromo Nazionale Monza, and a high traction configuration for tracks where cornering is more important, like the Circuit de Monaco.

With the 2009 regulations, the FIA rid F1 cars of small winglets and other parts of the car (minus the front and rear wing) used to manipulate the airflow of the car in order to decrease drag and increase downforce. As it is now, the front wing is shaped specifically to push air towards all the winglets and bargeboards so that the airflow is smooth. Should these be removed, various parts of the car will cause great drag when the front wing is unable to shape the air past the body of the car. The regulations which came into effect in 2009 have reduced the width of the rear wing by 25 cm, and standardised the centre section of the front wing to prevent teams developing the front wing.

The driver has the ability to fine-tune many elements of the race car from within the machine using the steering wheel. The wheel can be used to change gears, apply rev. limiter, adjust fuel/air mix, change brake pressure, and call the radio. Data such as engine rpm, lap times, speed, and gear are displayed on an LCD screen. The wheel hub will also incorporate gear change paddles and a row of LED shift lights. The wheel alone can cost about $50,000, and with carbon fibre construction, weighs in at 1.3 kilograms. In the 2014 season, certain teams such as Mercedes have chosen to use larger LCDs on their wheels which allow the driver to see additional information such as fuel flow and torque delivery. They are also more customizable owing to the possibility of using much different software.

The fuel used in F1 cars is fairly similar to ordinary petrol, albeit with a far more tightly controlled mix. Formula One fuel can only contain compounds that are found in commercial gasoline (such as octane), in contrast to alcohol-based fuels used in American open-wheel racing. Blends are tuned for maximum performance in given weather conditions or different circuits. During the period when teams were limited to a specific volume of fuel during a race, exotic high-density fuel blends were used which were actually more dense than water, since the energy content of a fuel depends on its mass density.

To make sure that the teams and fuel suppliers are not violating the fuel regulations, the FIA requires Elf, Shell, Mobil, Petronas and the other fuel teams to submit a sample of the fuel they are providing for a race. At any time, FIA inspectors can request a sample from the fueling rig to compare the "fingerprint" of what is in the car during the race with what was submitted. The teams usually abide by this rule, but in 1997, Mika Häkkinen was stripped of his third-place finish at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium after the FIA determined that his fuel was not the correct formula, as well as in 1976, both McLaren and Penske cars were forced to the rear of the Italian Grand Prix after the octane number of the mixture was found to be too high.

The 2009 season saw the re-introduction of slick tyres replacing the grooved tyres used from 1998 to 2008.

Tyres can be no wider than at the rear, front tyre width reduced from 270 mm to 245 mm for the 2010 season. Unlike the fuel, the tyres bear only a superficial resemblance to a normal road tyre. Whereas a roadcar tyre has a useful life of up to, a Formula One tyre does not even last the whole race distance (a little over ); they are usually changed two or three times per race, depending on the track. This is the result of a drive to maximize the road-holding ability, leading to the use of very soft compounds (to ensure that the tyre surface conforms to the road surface as closely as possible).

Since the start of the 2007 season, F1 had a sole tyre supplier. From 2007 to 2010, this was Bridgestone, but 2011 saw the reintroduction of Pirelli into the sport, following the departure of Bridgestone. Nine compounds of F1 tyre exist; 7 are dry weather compounds (superhard, hard, medium, soft, super-soft, ultra soft and hypersoft) while 2 are wet compounds (intermediates for damp surfaces with no standing water and full wets for surfaces with standing water). Three of the dry weather compounds (generally a harder and softer compound) are brought to each race, plus both wet weather compounds. The harder tyres are more durable but give less grip, and the softer tyres the opposite. In 2009, the slick tyres returned as a part of revisions to the rules for the 2009 season; slicks have no grooves and give up to 18% more contact with the track. In the Bridgestone years, a green band on the sidewall of the softer compound was painted to allow spectators to distinguish which tyre a driver is on. With Pirelli tyres, the colour of the text and the ring on the sidewall varies with the compounds. Generally, the three dry compounds brought to the track are of consecutive specifications.

Disc brakes consist of a rotor and caliper at each wheel. Carbon composite rotors (introduced by the Brabham team in 1976) are used instead of steel or cast iron because of their superior frictional, thermal, and anti-warping properties, as well as significant weight savings. These brakes are designed and manufactured to work in extreme temperatures, up to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1800 °F). The driver can control brake force distribution fore and aft to compensate for changes in track conditions or fuel load. Regulations specify this control must be mechanical, not electronic, thus it is typically operated by a lever inside the cockpit as opposed to a control on the steering wheel.

An average F1 car can decelerate from 100 to 0 km/h (62 to 0 mph) in about 15 meters (48 ft), compared with a 2009 BMW M3, which needs 31 meters (102 ft). When braking from higher speeds, aerodynamic downforce enables tremendous deceleration: 4.5 "G's" to 5.0 "G's" (44 to 49 m/s), and up to 5.5 "G's" (54 m/s) at the high-speed circuits such as the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (Canadian GP) and the Autodromo Nazionale Monza (Italian GP). This contrasts with 1.0 "G's" to 1.5 "G's" (10 to 15 m/s) for the best sports cars (the Bugatti Veyron is claimed to be able to brake at 1.3 "g"). An F1 car can brake from 200 km/h (124 mph) to a complete stop in just 2.9 seconds, using only 65 metres (213 ft).

Every F1 car on the grid is capable of going from 0 to 160 km/h (100 mph) and back to 0 in less than five seconds. During a demonstration at the Silverstone circuit in Britain, an F1 McLaren-Mercedes car driven by David Coulthard gave a pair of Mercedes-Benz street cars a head start of seventy seconds, and was able to beat the cars to the finish line from a standing start, a distance of only 3.2 miles (5.2 km).

As well as being fast in a straight line, F1 cars have outstanding cornering ability. Grand Prix cars can negotiate corners at significantly higher speeds than other racing cars because of the intense levels of grip and downforce. Cornering speed is so high that Formula One drivers have strength training routines just for the neck muscles. Former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya claimed to be able to perform 300 repetitions of with his neck.

The combination of light weight (642 kg in race trim for 2013), power (900 bhp with the 3.0 L V10, with the 2007 regulation 2.4 L V8, 950+ bhp with 2016 1.6 L V6 turbo), aerodynamics, and ultra-high-performance tyres is what gives the F1 car its high performance figures. The principal consideration for F1 designers is "acceleration", and not simply top speed. Three types of acceleration can be considered to assess a car's performance:

All three accelerations should be maximised. The way these three accelerations are obtained and their values are:

The 2016 F1 cars have a power-to-weight ratio of 1,400 hp/t (1.05 kW/kg). Theoretically this would allow the car to reach in less than 1 second. However the massive power cannot be converted to motion at low speeds due to traction loss and the usual figure is 2.5 seconds to reach. After about traction loss is minimal due to the combined effect of the car moving faster and the downforce, hence continuing to accelerate the car at a very high rate. The figures are (for the 2016 Mercedes W07):The acceleration figure is usually 1.45 "G's" (14.2 m/s) up to, which means the driver is pushed by the seat with a force whose acceleration is 1.45 times that of Earth's gravity.

There are also boost systems known as kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS). These devices recover the kinetic energy created by the car's braking process. They store that energy and convert it into power that can be called upon to boost acceleration. KERS typically adds and weighs. There are principally two types of systems: electrical and mechanical flywheel. Electrical systems use a motor-generator incorporated in the car's transmission which converts mechanical energy into electrical energy and vice versa. Once the energy has been harnessed, it is stored in a battery and released at will. Mechanical systems capture braking energy and use it to turn a small flywheel which can spin at up to 80,000 rpm. When extra power is required, the flywheel is connected to the car's rear wheels. In contrast to an electrical KERS, the mechanical energy does not change state and is therefore more efficient. There is one other option available, hydraulic KERS, where braking energy is used to accumulate hydraulic pressure which is then sent to the wheels when required.

The carbon brakes in combination with tyre technology and the car's aerodynamics produce truly remarkable braking forces. The deceleration force under braking is usually 4 "G's" (39 m/s), and can be as high as 5–6 G's when braking from extreme speeds, for instance at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit or at Indianapolis. In 2007, Martin Brundle, a former Grand Prix driver, tested the Williams Toyota FW29 Formula 1 car, and stated that under heavy braking he felt like his lungs were hitting the inside of his ribcage, forcing him to exhale involuntarily. Here the aerodynamic drag actually helps, and can contribute as much as 1.0 "G's" of braking force, which is the equivalent of the brakes on most road sports cars. In other words, if the throttle is let go, the F1 car will slow down under drag at the same rate as most sports cars do with braking, at least at speeds above.

There are three companies who manufacture brakes for Formula One. They are Hitco (based in the US, part of the SGL Carbon Group), Brembo in Italy and Carbone Industrie of France. Whilst Hitco manufacture their own carbon/carbon, Brembo sources theirs from Honeywell, and Carbone Industrie purchases their carbon from Messier Bugatti.

Carbon/carbon is a short name for carbon fibre reinforced carbon. This means carbon fibres strengthening a matrix of carbon, which is added to the fibres by way of matrix deposition (CVI or CVD) or by pyrolysis of a resin binder.

F1 brakes are in diameter and a maximum of thick. The carbon/carbon brake pads are actuated by 6-piston opposed callipers provided by Akebono, AP Racing or Brembo. The callipers are aluminium alloy bodied with titanium pistons. The regulations limit the modulus of the calliper material to 80 GPa in order to prevent teams using exotic, high specific stiffness materials, for example, beryllium. Titanium pistons save weight, and also have a low thermal conductivity, reducing the heat flow into the brake fluid.

The aerodynamic forces of a Formula 1 car can produce as much as three times the car's weight in downforce. In fact, at a speed of just, the downforce is equal in magnitude to the weight of the car. At low speeds, the car can turn at 2.0 "G's". At already the lateral force is 3.0 "G's", as evidenced by the famous esses (turns 3 and 4) at the Suzuka circuit. Higher-speed corners such as Blanchimont (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps) and Copse (Silverstone Circuit) are taken at above 5.0 "G's", and 6.0 "G's" has been recorded at Suzuka's 130-R corner. This contrasts with a maximum for high performance road cars such as Enzo Ferrari of 1.5 "G's" or of above 1.7 "G's" for the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

The large downforce allows an F1 car to corner at very high speeds. As an example of the extreme cornering speeds; the Blanchimont and Eau Rouge corners at Spa-Francorchamps are taken flat-out at above, whereas the race-spec touring cars can only do so at 150–160 km/h (note that lateral force increases with the square of the speed). A newer and perhaps even more extreme example is the Turn 8 at the Istanbul Park circuit, a 190° relatively tight 4-apex corner, in which the cars maintain speeds between (in 2006) and experience between 4.5 "G's" and 5.5 "G's" for 7 seconds—the longest sustained hard cornering in Formula 1.

Away from the track, the BAR Honda team used a modified BAR 007 car, which they claim complied with FIA Formula One regulations, to set an unofficial speed record of 413 km/h (257 mph) on a one way straight line run on 6 November 2005 during a shakedown ahead of their Bonneville 400 record attempt. The car was optimised for top speed with only enough downforce to prevent it from leaving the ground. The car, badged as a Honda following their takeover of BAR at the end of 2005, set an FIA ratified record of on a one way run on 21 July 2006 at Bonneville Speedway. On this occasion the car did not fully meet FIA Formula One regulations, as it used a moveable aerodynamic rudder for stability control, breaching article 3.15 of the 2006 Formula One technical regulations which states that any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance must be rigidly secured.1.6-litre V6 turbo engine and two Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) with ~750 hp.In an effort to reduce speeds and increase driver safety, the FIA has continuously introduced new rules for F1 constructors since the 1980s.
These rules have included the banning of such ideas as the "wing car" (ground effect) in 1983; the turbocharger in 1989 (these were reintroduced for 2014); active suspension and ABS in 1994; slick tyres (these were reintroduced for 2009); smaller front and rear wings and a reduction in engine capacity from 3.5 to 3.0 litres in 1995; reducing the width of the cars from over 2 metres to around 1.8 metres in 1998; again a reduction in engine capacity from 3.0 to 2.4 litres in 2006; traction control in 1994, and again in 2008 alongside launch control and engine braking after electronic aids were reintroduced in 2001. Yet despite these changes, constructors continued to extract performance gains by increasing power and aerodynamic efficiency. As a result, the pole position speed at many circuits in comparable weather conditions dropped between 1.5 and 3 seconds in 2004 over the prior year's times. The aerodynamic restrictions introduced in 2005 were meant to reduce downforce by about 30%, however most teams were able to successfully reduce this to a mere 5 to 10% downforce loss. In 2006 the engine power was reduced from by shifting from the 3.0L V10s, used for over a decade, to 2.4L V8s. Some of these new engines were capable of achieving 20,000 rpm during 2006, though for the 2007 season engine development was frozen and the FIA limited all engines to 19,000 rpm to increase reliability and control at increasing engine speeds.

In 2008, the FIA further strengthened its cost-cutting measures by stating that gearboxes are to last for 4 Grand Prix weekends, in addition to the 2 race weekend engine rule. Furthermore, all teams were required to use a standardised ECU supplied by MES (McLaren Electronic Systems) made in conjunction with Microsoft. These ECUs have placed restrictions on the use of electronic driver aids such as traction control, launch control and engine braking. The emphasis being on reducing costs as well as placing the focus back onto driver skills as opposed to the so-called 'electronic gizmos' mainly controlling the cars.

Changes were made for the 2009 season to increase dependency on mechanical grip and create overtaking opportunities – resulting in the return to slick tyres, a wider and lower front wing with a standardized centre section, a narrower and taller rear wing, and the diffuser being moved backwards and made taller yet less efficient at producing downforce. Overall aerodynamic grip was dramatically reduced with the banning of complex appendages such as winglets, bargeboards and other aero devices previously used to better direct airflow over and under the cars. The maximum engine speed was reduced to 18,000 rpm to increase reliability further and conform to engine life demand.

Due to increasing environmental pressures from lobby groups and the like, many have called into question the relevance of Formula 1 as an innovating force towards future technological advances (particularly those concerned with efficient cars). The FIA has been asked to consider how it can persuade the sport to move down a more environmentally friendly path. Therefore, in addition to the above changes outlined for the 2009 season, teams were invited to construct a KERS device, encompassing certain types of regenerative braking systems to be fitted to the cars in time for the 2009 season. The system aims to reduce the amount of kinetic energy converted to waste heat in braking, converting it instead to a useful form (such as electrical energy or energy in a flywheel) to be later fed back through the engine to create a power boost. However unlike road car systems which automatically store and release energy, the energy is only released when the driver presses a button and is useful for up to 6.5 seconds, giving an additional 80 hp (60 kW) and 400 kJ. It effectively mimicks the 'push to pass' button from IndyCar and A1GP series. KERS was not seen in the 2010 championship – while it was not technically banned, the FOTA collectively agreed not to use it. It however made a return for the 2011 season, with all teams except HRT, Virgin and Lotus utilizing the device.

The regulations for the 2014 season limit the maximum fuel mass flow to the engine to 100 kg/h, which reduces the maximum power output from the current 550 kW to about 450 kW. The rules also double the power limit of the electric motor to 120 kW for both acceleration and energy recovery, and increase the maximum amount of energy the KERS is allowed to use to 4 MJ per lap, with charging limited to 2 MJ per lap. An additional electric motor-generator unit may be connected to the turbocharger.


When did János Kádár die?

János Kádár (; ; 26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989) was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his retirement in 1988. His 32-year term as General Secretary covered most of the period the People's Republic of Hungary existed. Due to Kádár's age, declining health and declining political mastery, he retired as General Secretary of the party in 1988 and a younger generation consisting mostly of reformers took over.

János Kádár

Kádár was born in Fiume to a poor family. He never met his father, who left his mother when he was young. After living in the countryside for some years, Kádár and his mother moved to Budapest. After quitting school, Kádár joined the Communist Party of Hungary's youth organisation, KIMSZ. Kádár would go on to become a prominent figure in the pre-World War II communist party, even becoming First Secretary. As leader, he dissolved the party and reorganised it as the Peace Party. This new party failed to win any popular support for the communist cause and he would later be accused of dissolving the Hungarian communist party. With the German invasion of Hungary, the Peace Party tried again to win support from the Hungarian populace, but failed. At the time of the Soviet occupation, the communist movement led by Kádár was small.

As the Communists took over Hungary in 1947-48, Kádár rose quickly through the Party ranks, serving as Interior Minister from 1948 to 1950. He took part in the trial and interrogation of former secret police chief László Rajk, one of the most infamous show-trials in the post-war Eastern bloc. In 1951, he was imprisoned by the Stalinist regime of Mátyás Rákosi, released in 1954 by reformist Prime Minister Imre Nagy. On 25 October 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, Kádár replaced Ernő Gerő as General Secretary of the Party, taking part in Nagy's short-lived revolutionary government. However, on 1 November he broke with Nagy over the latter's decision to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact; secretly defecting to the Soviets. When the Soviets crushed the Revolution on 4 November, they selected Kádár as the next leader of Hungary. After the Revolution was crushed, Kádár initially presided over a reign of terror, ordering the execution of many participants in the Revolution (including Imre Nagy and his close associates) and the imprisonment of many others. However, he gradually softened his approach as the years passed, often granting individual amnesties, and moderating his regime's overall governing style. By 1963, the last prisoners from the Hungarian Revolution had been released.

As leader of Hungary, Kádár was a team player and took care to consult his colleagues before acting or making decisions and his tenure saw an attempt at liberalising the economic system to put greater effort to build up industries aimed at consumers. His rule was marked by what later became known as Goulash Communism. A significant increase in consumer expenditures because of the New Economic Mechanism (NEM), a major economic reform, reintroduced certain market mechanisms into Hungary. As a result of the relatively high standard of living, a favorable human rights policy and more relaxed travel restrictions than those present in other Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary was generally considered the best country to live in Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, also expressed in the informal term "the happiest barrack". On 6 July 1989, an ill Kádár died after having been forced to retire. Kádár was succeeded by Károly Grósz as General Secretary on 22 May 1988. Grósz would only serve a year in this post due to the fall of communism in Europe in 1989.

While at the helm of the People's Republic of Hungary, Kádár pushed for an improvement in the standard of living. Kádár engaged in increased international trade with non-communist countries, in particular those of Western Europe. Kádár's policies differed significantly from those of other communist leaders such as Nicolae Ceaușescu, Enver Hoxha and Wojciech Jaruzelski, all of whom favored authoritarian governments that suppressed and punished opposition severely. However, Kádár's policies could not overcome the inherent limitations of the communist system and were viewed with distrust by the conservative leadership of Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union. Kádár's legacy remains disputed, but he was voted in a survey carried out by Median in Hungary in 2007 as the third most competent politician behind István Széchenyi and Lajos Kossuth who could solve the problems of Hungary.

Kádár was born out of wedlock as János József Czermanik as the son of the soldier János Krezinger and the servant maid Borbála Czermanik. Krezinger came from a smallholder family of Pusztaszemes, Somogy County. Kadar's father had possibly Bavarian German origins. Krezinger met with Borbála during his military service, who was born in Ógyalla (today Hurbanovo, Slovakia) to a landless Slovak father and Hungarian mother. The story however on how they met is unknown. Abandoned, Borbála gave birth to János in Fiume's Santo Spirito Hospital on 26 May 1912. Having given birth in the middle of the holiday season, no one wanted to employ a single mother with a child. His mother, Borbála went to look for Krezinger, but his family wanted nothing to do with them. She walked ten kilometres to the city of Kapoly, she was able to persuade a family by the name of Bálint to care for her child. For this however, they wanted pay. In the meantime Borbála looked for work in the nation's capital, Budapest.

His mother was able to visit during the holidays, meaning only a few times a year. His foster father, Imre Bálint took care of him. But it was Bálint's brother, Sándor Bálint, Kádár would remember as his "true" foster father. While Imre had joined the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I, Sándor was left to take care of Kádár. Sándor clearly showed much interest in the boy, and seems to be the only man Kádár had a good relationship with throughout his early childhood. Due to the great strain put on the family because of World War I, Kádár started working at an early age and helped Sándor take care of his sick wife. Kádár, as an old man, noted how early experiences in his childhood moved him towards Marxist-Leninism, the most notable one being when he was accused of setting a building on fire instead of catching the true culprit, the inspector's son. Suddenly in 1918, at the age of six, Borbála reclaimed him, moved him to Budapest and enrolled him in school. In school he got bullied by classmates and his teacher for his bumpkin manners and his peasant terms. At the same time as his troubles at school, it took time before he and Borbála became "friends". His mother being a devoted Catholic, was surprised to find out that Kádár was not brought up as one.

In addition to being an assistant caretaker, Borbála delivered newspapers in the morning. She did all this to ensure that Kádár would be getting a better education than she did. Piroska Döme, who met Borbála much later to life, notes that her hands were disfigured because of manual work. In the summer time, Kádár would find work in the countryside. As Kádár later said, he was seen as "alien" by his contemporaries, in the countryside they would call him a "city boy" while in the city they would call him a "country boy". Living in Városház street gave him a good start at life, but the family's poverty and his illegitimacy made him stand out, this made normal social development for a boy of his age difficult. Then in 1920, Borbála got pregnant again, with the man impregnating her leaving soon. Kádár had to help Borbála take care of her new son, and his half-brother, Jenő. Because of the pregnancy Borbála lost her job, and they moved to 13th District of the Angyalföld area. Borbála refused to talk about Kádár's father, something which left Kádár bewildered.

Kádár attended and passed the admission exam to the Cukor Street Elementary School. It offered what Borbála always wanted for him, and Kádár proved to be a bright student. However his discontent regarding his current situation manifested in him skipping school on various occasions. Endangering Borbála's future hopes of him, she usually hit him many times when it became known to her that he skipped class. He proved to be an able student in most subjects on only moderate efforts. Yet he saw no reason to study too hard, and usually skipped school to play football or other sports. He did read often however, but his mother was unimpressed by this and ironically asked him if he was a "gentleman of leisure". Kádár left school at the age of fourteen in 1926. His education gave him a promising opportunity in light industry, it did however, take a year for him to find a job after being turned down as a car mechanic. In 1927, he became a typewriter mechanic, a profession which had a high standing among the Hungarian working class, there were only 160 of them in the country.

His first meeting with Marxist literature came in 1928 after he won a junior chess competition organised by the Barbers Trade Union. His prize was Friedrich Engels's "Anti-Dühring". The tournament organiser explained to Kádár that if he didn't understand it after his first reading, he should re-read it until he understood it. Kádár followed his advice, even if his friends were "unimpressed" by his reading. As he later noted later in his life, he did not understand the reading but it got him thinking: "Immutable laws and connections in the world which I had not suspected." While it may be true that as Kádár comments that the book had great influence over him, it was in 1929 when he was fired after he flared up at his employer after he talked condescendingly towards Kádár. When the Great Depression hit Hungary, Kádár was the first to be fired. What ensued was low paid jobs and poverty. He later became unemployed, and it was this experience which brought him into contact with the Communist Party of Hungary. According to Kádár he became a member of the party in 1931.

In September 1930, Kádár took part in an organised trade union strike. The strike was crushed by the authorities, and many of his fellow communists were arrested. In the aftermath of the failed strike, he supported the party by gathering signatures for candidates of the Socialist Workers' Bloc, an attempt by the Communist Party to create a front which would win over new supporters. This attempt was thwarted by the authorities, and new arrests ensued. In June 1931, he joined the communist youth organization, the Communist Young Workers' Association (KIMSZ). He joined the Sverdlov party cell, named after Soviet Yakov Sverdlov. His alias within the party became János Barna. During his early membership, the party was illegal, following the crushing of the 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic. In December 1931, the authorities had been able to track him down, and Kádár was arrested on charges of spreading communism, and being a communist. He denied the charges, and because of lack of evidence, was released. He was however under constant police surveillance, and after some days, he was back in contact with KIMSZ. He was given new responsibilities, and by May 1933 he became a member of the KIMSZ Budapest committee. Because of his promotion in the communist hierarchy, he was given a new alias, Róna. The party suggested, but Kádár rejected, the offer of studying at the Lenin Institute in Moscow, claiming that he could not leave his family alone. His advance up the hierarchy came to an end when he was arrested on 21 June 1931 with other communist activists. Kádár cracked because of police brutality, when he later confronted his fellow arrested communists, he realised he had made a mistake and denied and retracted all his confessions. He was sentenced to two years in prison. Because of his confessions to the police, he was suspended from KIMSZ.

After being released for parole, he was politically in limbo. The hope of rejoining the Communist Party was shattered by the Comintern's decision to dissolve the national communist party in Hungary. The few remaining members of the party were told to infiltrate and work co-operatively with the Social Democratic Party of Hungary and trade unions. Kádár had in the meantime been able to persuade himself that it was because of changes within the party, and not his confessions, which had led to none of his associates making contact with him. He did, at the same time, have four more months of his prison sentence to serve before being released. In prison Kádár met with Mátyás Rákosi, a commissar of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and a renowned political prisoner. While Kádár later claimed that there grew a father-son like bond between them, the more plausible truth is that there grew a "somewhat adolescent cheekiness" between the two. In prison, Rákosi interrogated Kádár, and came to the conclusion that his confessions were due to his "shortcomings". After being released from prison for good, some former party activists made contact with him and instructed Kádár to infiltrate the Social Democratic Party with them. Within the party, Kádár and his associates made no secret of their Marxist views, frequently talking about the struggles of the working class and their gaze, which was directed towards the Soviet Union.

Kádár still lived in poverty, and found it hard to blend in with the upper working class and the intelligentsia. Paradoxically, his main Communist contact in the Social Democratic Party was a sculptor named György Goldmann. Kádár evolved into an effective speaker on "bread and butter issues", but failed at having any success on more serious and complex topics. In 1940 he was recalled to the party's ranks. At the beginning of its refounding, the party liked to use members without any police records, therefore Kádár was given more responsibilities within the infiltration of the Social Democratic Party. During May and June the police arrested and rounded up several party activists, including Goldman, but Kádár had managed to go into hiding. As early as May 1942, Kádár became a member of the newly formed Central Committee of the Communist Party, mostly due to the lack of personnel, seeing that the majority of them had been sent to prison. István Kovács, the acting party leader from December 1942, said; "he [Kádár] was extremely modest, a clever man but not then theoretically trained". Kovács brought Kádár into the party leadership and gave him a seat in the Secretariat of the Central Committee. By January 1943, had been able to get in touch with some seventy to eighty members, but this effort was torn apart by a new round of mass arrests, with Kovács being among them.

The new leadership after the last mass arrest consisted of Kádár as First Secretary, Gábor Péter, István Szirmai and Pál Tonhauser. During Kádár's first tenure as leader of the party, he faced many problems, the most important being that the communists were becoming increasingly irrelevant in a fast-changing situation, mostly because of the Hungarian government's continuing interference. In a meeting with Árpád Szakasits, a left-leaning Social Democrat, Kádár was asked to stop the party's illegal infiltration of his party. This meeting led to criticism being mounted against him during a Central Committee plenum meeting. In February 1936, Peter came up with an idea; his idea was to dissolve the party so that party members independently could spread communism, while a small secret leadership structure could keep itself together for some years. This, he said, would stop the continuing mass arrest of the communist party personnel and in turn strengthen the party for the future. While at the beginning Kádár was against such an idea, the idea grew on him and came to the conclusion that instead of dissolving the party, he would pretend to dissolve it and rename the party which would effectively throw the Hungarian authorities off their trail. The so-called "new party" was formed in August under the name, Peace Party. This decision was not supported by all, and the Moscow-based Hungarian Communists led by Mátyás Rákosi condemned the decision and domestic militants. Kádár disagreed with the criticism laid against him, claiming it was a "tactical retreat" which led to the renaming of the party, but with no changes to either the party's principles or structures. His attempted plan to fool the police failed, and the police continued arresting Hungarian Communists. Later in his life, this would be one of the few topics of his life Kádár would refuse to discuss.

After the German invasion of Hungary, the Peace Party, with other parties, established the Hungarian Front, the party's potential allies were still very wary of them. Therefore, the Popular Front was never able to win much support amongst the populace. In the aftermath of the invasion, the party under Kádár's leadership started partistan operations and created their own Military Committee. Kádár tried to cross the border into Yugoslavia in hope of making contact with the Yugoslav partisans and their leader, Josip Broz Tito. At the same time, Kádár probably hoped to establish better, and stronger, relations with the USSR; something they had been trying to do since 1942. Kádár was given a new identity as an army corporal trying to cross the Hungarian-Yugoslav border. This attempt failed, and he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The authorities never figured out his real identity therefore members such as Rákosi thought he was a secret agent for the police. There is however no hard proof for these accusations, and incompetence remains the sole plausible reason. It was later proven, when SS officer Otto Winckelmann reported to Berlin that Kádár had been arrested, they had mistakenly confused Kádár for another communist.

Kádár, while in prison, was able to send out messages to Péter, and other high-ranking party members, they were able to orchestrate a scheme to free him. In the meantime, the leader of Hungary Miklós Horthy was conspiring against the German occupiers. There were rumours that claim that Horthy tried to get in contact with Kádár, but did not know that he was in prison. Horthy was deposed by the German government and replaced by Arrow Cross Party leader Ferenc Szálasi. Szálasi's policies had an immediate effect on Kádár; he had emptied the prison Kádár lived in and sent them to Nazi concentration camps. Kádár was able to escape and made his way back to Budapest. Immediately after his return to Budapest, Kádár headed the communist party's military committee. The committee tried to persuade workers to help the Soviet forces, but was not able to muster much support from the populace, therefore its effect was marginal at best. After the Soviet victory in Budapest, he changed his name from Csermanek to Kádár, literally meaning "cobber" or "barrel-maker".

After the Soviet liberation of Hungary, the Soviet-Hungarian Communist leadership sent Zoltán Vas and the new Soviet approved Central Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary; Kádár became a member of this so-called "new" committee. At first, Kádár would rise up the ranks, not because of ideology, or knowledge of economy and agriculture, but instead for his organisational skills. Kádár helped form the Communist Party's headquarters in Hungary, and later, designed the party's membership card. The Soviet troops stationed in Hungary committed mass rapes and pillaged Budapest and the countryside, Kádár, when writing a letter to the Ministry of the Interior, he wrote; "the Soviet command caused really big difficulties in our work, especially in the beginning, and they still do". Under these circumstances Kádár was appointed deputy chief of police. Nonetheless his rise in the communist hierarchy was not an easy one, Rákosi's party deputy Ernő Gerő felt his decision to dissolve the party during the war was a rash decision, and others, who worked alongside Kádár during the war felt he had been over-promoted and were keen to put an end to it. His political eclipse did not last long, and when Rákosi returned he became a member of the newly formed Politburo of the Communist Party of Hungary. Later on, in February 1945, Rákosi was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Hungary.

Rákosi's leadership consisted of Mihály Farkas the Minister of Defence. Kádár and Béla Kovács noted with puzzlement the leadership's total lack of interest in the domestic Communist's experience and outlook. As head of cadres, Kádár supervised membership appointments to the party. This position gave him contacts, some of whom would become very important to him in his later life. After failing to secure a majority in Parliament after the 1945 election, the Communist leadership started the divide and conquer strategy known as salami tactics. Kádár became a prominent figure during the period between the 1945 and the 1947 Hungarian parliamentary elections. Kádár had evolved a sense of rivalry with the Social Democratic Party of Hungary, claiming the party was "thrashing" them in government, and that they made it impossible for the Communists to negotiate policy with the Hungarian trade unions.

In 1946, Kádár campaigned for the communist party in workers districts and factories. These areas were heavily contested between the Communists and the Social Democrats. The Communists were able to persuade the Social Democrats to hold elections in factories where the communists held the majority. The clear majority results gained by the Communists during this election prompted the Social Democrats to postpone the rest of the election. At the 3rd Congress of the Communist Party of Hungary, Kádár was appointed one of Rákosi's two deputies. He was appointed deputy because of social and ethnic background, the majority of the leadership were of Jewish origins and were intellectuals, Kádár was however a Hungarian worker. In the aftermath of his appointment, he enrolled himself in Russian lessons and grew fond of reading, his favorite being "The Good Soldier Švejk".

Kádár, as in 1946, was a Communist Party campaigner, and was described by historian Robert Gough as "a great success". The Communist Party won a majority in parliament in 1947, and because of the escalation of the Cold War, the Soviet leadership ordered them to create a one-party state. Kádár played an active role in the creation of the Hungarian Working People's Party; created by a merger of the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party. At the unification congress Kádár made a speech which made little impact on the Communist movement in Hungary. In May 1948 Kádár visited the Soviet Union, and for the first and last time in his life he saw Joseph Stalin with his own eyes. During his visit to the USSR, Kádár's brother, Jenő died. On 5 August 1948 László Rajk was appointed to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Kádár took his place as Minister of the Interior. As Interior Minister, he did not have real power as the most important organizations of internal state security operated under the direct control of Rákosi and his closest associates. In 1949, Borbála died, and Kádár married Mária Tamáska.
Just as Stalin had launched a Great Purge against those with knowledge of the pre-Stalin party, Rákosi launched a purge against those who had worked in Hungary, and not in the Soviet Union, during World War II and before. In retrospect, it is clear that Kádár was appointed Minister of the Interior with the deliberate aim to involve him in the "show trial" of Laszlo Rajk, although the investigations and proceedings were handled by the State Security Agency with the active participation of the Soviet Secret Police. Rákosi later boasted of "spending many a sleepless night" in unraveling the threads of the "anti-party conspiracy" led by Rajk and his "gang." During the public trial, Rákosi personally gave instructions to the judge over the phone. Rákosi would later attempt to blame Kádár for Rajk's death. Later in his life Rákosi said that Rajk died screaming "Long live Stalin! Long live Rákosi!" while Tibor Szönyi died without saying a word and András Szalai crying. Farkas and Gábor Péter, upon the death of Rajk and the others, said "provocateurs to their last breaths". This event didn't assure Kádár; making him doubt if any of the accusation leveled against his co-workers were true. It is believed that after Rajk's death Kádár was seen vomiting; these rumours have not been confirmed by any sources from that time. Rákosi contacted him the following the day, asking him why he was in such a bad mood, and continued, saying; "Did the executions affect you that much?". According to certain rumours, which are probably not reliable, Kádár visited Rákosi to tell him about his reaction to the execution. Later, during a party presentation to a college, Kádár emphasised party austerity. This presentation might reflect on Kádár's reaction to Rajk's execution and his revelation that he might become the next victim of government repression. When holding his presentation, he was described by his audience as a "haggard", "distressed" and as a man under a lot of "strain".

Rákosi told Kádár, in late August 1950, that former Social Democratic party leader Árpád Szakasits had confessed to being a spy for the capitalistic countries. Szakasits' imprisonment would be the start of a long purge against former social democrats, trade union officials, and high-standing communist party members. The purge would last until 1953, the extent of the purge went so far that the ÁVH held files on around one million, literally one-tenth of Hungary's population at that time. The purges were enacted when Rákosi and his associates were in the middle of the country's collectivising agriculture and the rapid industrialisation efforts. Ernő Gerő's ambition to make Hungary a land made out of "steel and iron" led to a decline in the national standards of living. At this point Rákosi had started distrusting Kádár, leading Kádár to resign as Ministry of the Interior citing health and stress reasons for his choice. Kádár believed the longer down the ladder he climbed there was a bigger chance of not being purged. In this he was wrong, and he along with new Minister of the Interior Sándor Zöld, were criticised for not doing a proper enough job to remove the anti-socialist movement within the country. Kádár would later refute most of the allegations the Rákosi leadership put against, but to no avail, and for every letter he wrote to refute an allegation another allegation was put against him. He eventually gave up and in one letter Kádár even admitted to his faults; claiming that he was still "politically backward" and "ideologically untrained" when he headed the pre-war Communist Party as First Secretary. Kádár concluded that he had been fooled by the capitalists and therefore offered his resignation from active politics. Instead of resigning, and losing his seats in the Central Committee and the Politburo, his memberships in these organisations were renewed at the party congress. Believing that his position was secure and that Rákosi had given him another chance, thought nothing more of it. This proved to be wrong, and by the end of March 1951, Rákosi informed the Soviets that Kádár along with Zöld and Gyula Kállai were to be imprisoned.

On 18 April 1951, Zöld had killed his whole family and committed suicide after finding out that Rákosi and his associates had decided to purge him from the party. When the authorities found their bodies, they decided to quickly gather the remaining two before they did something rash too. Kádár, who did not know what had just taken place, was at home taking care of his wife Maria, who had been in and out of the hospital. The Hungarian leadership decided to call him, asking Kádár to meet them at the party headquarters, when leaving his home he was stopped by ÁVH officers and the ÁVH head Gábor Péter.

Only a year later, Kádár found himself the defendant in a show trial of his own—on false charges of having been a spy of Horthy's police. This time it was Kádár who was beaten by the security police and urged to "confess". During Kádár's interrogation, the ÁVH reportedly beat him, smeared him with mercury to prevent his skin pores from breathing, and had his questioner urinate into his pried-open mouth. However, at the 1954 rehearing of his trial, when asked if he had been maltreated, he answered "Physically no", a denial he repeated in later interviews towards the end of his life. It is thought by some that the stories of brutality were intended to portray him as a victim of Stalinist torture in order to counter his image at home and abroad as a Soviet stooge.

Kádár was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. His incarceration included three years of solitary confinement, conditions far worse than he suffered while imprisoned under the Horthy regime. He was released from prison in July 1954, after the death of Stalin and the appointment of Imre Nagy as Prime Minister in 1953.

Kádár accepted the offer to act as party secretary in the heavily industrialised 13th district of Budapest. He rose to prominence quickly, building up a large following amongst workers who demanded increased freedom for trade unions.

Rákosi was forced to resign in 1956, replaced by Gerő. On 23 October 1956, students marched through Budapest intending to present a petition to the government. The procession swelled as several people poured onto the streets. Gerő replied with a harsh speech that angered the people, and police opened fire. It proved to be the start of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. As the revolution spread throughout the country, Nagy was called back as Prime Minister.

The Hungarian Working People's Party decided to dissolve itself and to reorganize itself as the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. On 25 October 1956, Kádár was elected General Secretary. He was also a member of the Nagy Government as Minister of State.

Nagy began a process of liberalisation, removing state controls over the press, releasing many political prisoners, and expressing wishes to withdraw Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. He formed a coalition government. Although the Soviet leaders issued a statement that they strove to establish a new relationship with Hungary on the basis of mutual respect and equality, in the first days of November, the Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party took a decision to crush the revolution by force.

On 1 November 1956, Kádár, together with Ferenc Münnich, left Hungary for Moscow with the support of the Soviet Embassy in Budapest. There the Soviet leaders tried to convince him that a "counter-revolution" was unfolding in Hungary that must be put to an end at any cost. He only agreed to change sides when the Soviet leaders informed him that the decision had already been taken to crush the revolution with the help of the Soviet troops stationed in Hungary. He was also told that unless he agreed to become prime minister in the new government, the Rákosi-Gerő leadership would be reinstalled. Although he was under duress, he did not, by his own admission, resist as much as he could have. In a speech given on 12 April 1989, he confessed to having played a role in Nagy's execution, calling it his "own personal tragedy." Writing in 1961, American journalist John Gunther said that "Kadar today looks like a man pursued by shadows, a walking corpse."

The Soviet tank divisions moved into Budapest with the purpose of crushing the revolution at dawn on 4 November 1956. The proclamation of the so-called Revolutionary Workers'-Peasants' Government of Hungary, headed by Kádár, was broadcast from Szolnok the same day.

He announced a "Fifteen Point Programme" for this new government:

The 15th point was withdrawn after pressure from the USSR that a 200,000 strong Soviet detachment be garrisoned in Hungary. This development allowed Kádár to divert huge defence funds to welfare.

Nagy, along with Georg Lukács, Géza Losonczy and László Rajk's widow, Júlia, fled to the Yugoslav Embassy. Kádár promised them safe return home at their request but failed to keep this promise as the Soviet party leaders decided that Imre Nagy and the other members of the government who had sought asylum at the Yugoslav Embassy should be deported to Romania. Later on, a trial was instituted to establish the responsibility of the Imre Nagy Government in the 1956 events. Although it was adjourned several times, the defendants were eventually convicted of treason and conspiracy to overthrow the "democratic state order". Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and Miklós Gimes were sentenced to death and executed on 16 June 1958. Géza Losonczy and both died in prison under suspicious circumstances during the court proceedings.

Kádár assumed power in a critical situation. The country was under Soviet military administration for several months. The fallen leaders of the Communist Party took refuge in the Soviet Union and were planning to regain power in Hungary. The Chinese, East German, and Czechoslovak leaders demanded severe reprisals against the perpetrators of the "counter-revolution". Despite the distrust surrounding the new leadership and the economic difficulties, Kádár was able to normalize the situation in a remarkably short time. This was due to the realization that, under the circumstances, it was impossible to break away from the Communist bloc. The Hungarian people realized that the promises of the West to help the Hungarian revolution were unfounded and that the logic of the Cold War determined the outcome. Hungary remained part of the Soviet sphere of influence with the tacit agreement of the West. Though influenced strongly by the Soviet Union, Kádár enacted a policy slightly contrary to that of Moscow, for example, allowing considerably large private plots for farmers of collective farms.
In notable contrast to Rákosi, who repeatedly declared "he who is not with us is against us" in his rally speeches, Kádár declared that "he who is not against us is with us." He gradually lifted Rákosi's more draconian measures against free speech and movement, and also eased some restrictions on cultural activities. He even tolerated samizdat publications to a far greater extent than his counterparts. Hungarians had much more freedom than their Eastern Bloc counterparts to go about their daily lives. His regime was far more humane than other Communist regimes, especially so when compared to the first seven years of undisguised Communist rule in Hungary. Nonetheless, the Communists maintained absolute control over the government and also encouraged citizens to join party organizations. The National Assembly, like its counterparts in other Communist countries, was elected on the basis of a single Communist-dominated list and did little more than approve decisions already made by the MSZMP and its Politburo. The secret police, while operating with somewhat more restraint than their counterparts in other Eastern Bloc countries, were nonetheless a feared tool of government control. The Hungarian media remained under censorship that was considered fairly onerous by Western standards, but far less stringent than was the case in other Communist countries.

As a result of the relatively high standard of living, and more relaxed travel restrictions than that of other Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary was generally considered one of the better countries in which to live in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The dramatic fall in living standards after the fall of Communism led to some nostalgia about the Kádár era. However, the relatively high living standards had their price in the form of a considerable amount of state debt left behind by the Kádár régime. As mentioned above, the regime's cultural and social policies were still somewhat authoritarian; their impact on contemporary Hungarian culture is still a matter of considerable debate.

During Kádár's rule, international tourism increased dramatically, with many tourists from Canada, the US, and Western Europe bringing much needed money into Hungary. Hungary built strong relations with developing countries and many foreign students arrived. The "Holy Crown" (referred to in the media as the "Hungarian Crown", so as to prevent it carrying a political symbolism of the Horthy régime or an allusion to Christianity) and regalia of Hungarian kings was returned to Budapest by the United States in 1978.

Kádár was known for his simple and modest lifestyle and avoided the self-indulgence persona of other Communist leaders. He also had a strong aversion to and zero tolerance of corruption or ill-doing in his government. Playing chess was his only pastime.
Kádár was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (1975–76). He was also awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 3 April 1964.

János Kádár held power in Hungary until the "apparat coup" in the spring of 1988, when he resigned under pressure as General Secretary in the face of mounting economic difficulties and his own ill health. At a party conference in Budapest on 22 May 1988, at which half a dozen of his Politburo associates were also removed, Kádár announced his resignation and was officially replaced as General Secretary by Prime Minister Károly Grósz, who strove to continue Kádár's policies in a modified form adapted to the new circumstances. Kádár was named instead to the ceremonial position of Party President. He did not wish to be re-elected to the Political Committee, the most important decision-making body of the party. In May 1989, as Grósz and his associates in turn were being sidelined by a faction of young "radical reformers" who set out to dismantle Communism altogether, Kádár, his health visibly failing, was officially removed from office completely.

A few months before his death Kádár asked a Roman Catholic priest to hear his confession, which proves his conversion from atheist communism to Roman Catholicism, according to Miklós Németh's testimony.

He died of cancer on 6 July 1989 at age 77, three months before the formal end of the regime he had largely created.

In Hungary and elsewhere, Kádár was generally known as one of the more moderate East European Communist leaders. While he remained loyal to the Soviet Union in foreign policy, based on the hard lessons of the 1956 uprising, his intent was to establish a national consensus around his policies at home. He was the first East European leader to develop closer links with the Social Democratic parties of Western Europe. He tried to mediate between the leaders of the Czechoslovak reform movement of 1968 and the Soviet leadership to avert the danger of a military intervention. When, however, the decision was taken by the Soviet leaders to intervene in order to suppress the Prague Spring, Kádár decided to participate in the Warsaw Pact operation.

Kádár's grave at the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest was vandalized on 2 May 2007 as a number of his bones, including his skull, were dug up and stolen, along with his wife Mária Tamáska's urn. A message reading "murderers and traitors may not rest in holy ground 1956–2006" (taken from a song written by the rock band "Kárpátia") was written nearby. The two dates refer to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 2006 protests in Hungary, respectively. This act was received with widespread revulsion across the political and societal spectrum in Hungary, with even the centre-right Fidesz condemning the vandalism. Police investigations focused on extremist right-wing groups which had been aspiring to "carry out an act that would create a big bang."An interpretation of events in Kádár's political and personal life, beginning circa 1945, including an association with the trial, execution, reburial, atonement of László Rajk, and ending with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, are portrayed in Robert Ardrey's 1958 play, "Shadow of Heroes".