Silverstone circuit, United Kingdom, 13th May 1950, the first World Championship Grand Prix was held, lighting the fire in the hearts of racing fans. Drivers took to the track to create history with a thrilling first championship race and it set Formula 1 on the path for the future.
It was estimated that up to 120,000 spectators lined the track on race day! The most important of which was King George VI, who attended the race with daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. 1950 remains the only time a reigning monarch has attended a British motor race.
As well as the race being attended by royalty, the entry list had a distinctly aristocratic feel. Among the 21 drivers that took part were Prince Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh (better known as Prince Bira) a notable racer and member of the Thai royal family. There was also Baron Emmanuel ‘Toulo’ de Graffenried, a Swiss driver who’d won the 1949 edition of the British Grand Prix in the pre-world championship era.
Alfa Romeo’s 158 may have been 13 years old by the time of the first world championship race, but the 1.5-litre supercharged machine was still the car to beat. The Italian manufacturer had managed to sign three of the era’s biggest names: Guiseppe ‘Nino’ Farina, Luigi Fagioli and Juan Manuel Fangio, affectionately known as the ‘Three Fs’. The trio duly qualified their scarlet cars in the top three grid slots, with British driver Reg Parnell a second down the road in fourth in the final Alfa Romeo entry.
In the race Farina, Fagioli and Fangio ran away from the rest of the field. The line-up was made up of a mixture of ageing Maserati’s, ERAs, Talbots, and Altas. After 70 laps and nearly two and a quarter hours of racing, Farina triumphed, leading fellow Italian Fagioli across the line by 2.6s. However, it was Parnell and not Fangio who completed Alfa’s clean sweep of the podium places after the Argentine had been forced into retirement with a broken oil pipe!
One of the biggest differences of the 1950 race was the average age of the drivers! For the very first World Championship race, it was a much more mature 39 that was the average age. Three of the 21 drivers at Silverstone were in their fifties (pre-war aces Luigi Fagioli, 51, Louis Chiron, 50, and Philippe Etancelin, 53), while five more were aged forty or over, including race winner Giuseppe Farina (43). The youngest of field, was British racer Geoffrey Crossley, who at 29 was still 12 years older than Max Verstappen during his World Championship debut!
Written by Cesca.
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