By the end of the 1940s, the world was keen to try and rediscover the lives that had been left behind a decade earlier. Things like racing cars, which had either been tucked away in sheds, or plundered for their metals, were brought back out to play, and memories of the old Championships of the 1920s and 1930s stirred the appetite for the return of organised motorsport.
Following the formulation of a new set of regulations, it was only a matter of time until the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) would pull the trigger on a fully sanctioned Championship. The World Championship for Drivers, as it was known, was introduced in 1950, beginning a story that continues today, and one that we will celebrate at the 2025 Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard.
Goodwood’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Formula 1 World Championship is set to be the grandest in the history of the Festival of Speed. It’ll sit at the centre of all four days of activity both on and around the famous Goodwood Hill. As part of that showcase, we want to tell the story of the heroes that started it all, the Pioneers.
The FIA was actually reacting to the FIM’s Motorcycle World Championship, which was held for the first time in 1949, and set about tying together the six largest Grands Prix currently running in Europe to form a cohesive championship, with the addition of the Indianapolis 500 fulfilling the criteria to make it a World Championship.
The first ever F1 World Championship race took place at Silverstone on 13th May 1950. Entries were posted by the Italian giants of Alfa Romeo and Maserati, the French were represented by Talbot-Lago, and the British by ERA and Alta. One notable absentee from that Grand Prix was Scuderia Ferrari, Enzo decided his team would make its Championship debut at the Monaco Grand Prix in protest at what he considered to be an unsatisfactory appearance fee.
The Alfa Romeo 158 ‘Alfettas’ were considered to be the class of the field, with an all-star line-up of Juan Manuel Fangio, Giuseppe Farina, Luigi Fagioli and Reg Parnell. They locked out the top for places on the grid, and dominated proceedings, the only blight coming when Fangio retired with eight laps to go with an oil leak.
Farina led home Fagioli by two seconds, with Parnell rounding out the podium, two laps ahead of the Talbot-Lagos of Yves Giraud-Cabantous and Louis Rosier. In front of 200,000 spectators, and the British Royal Family, F1 was immediately thrust onto the world stage, where it has remained ever since. Farina would go on to become the inaugural World Drivers’ Champion in 1950, the first member of an exclusive club that 75 years later contains only 34 members.
Throughout the remainder of its first decade, F1 underwent quite the transformation. The Italian teams continued to dominate, with Fangio, Ascari and Hawthorn all winning Championships with Alfa, Ferrari and Maserati.
Ascari was the first to upset the Alfa apple cart, as Ferrari made the most of a switch to Formula 2 regulations for the 1952 World Championship, and entered its tried and tested Ferrari 500. Ascari won all six of the races he entered that season, and five the following year to claim what remains to this day two of the most dominant Championship triumphs in the sport’s history.
The Maserati 250F is often recognised as one of the greatest cars of F1’s early era. When permitted engine capacities were increased to 2.5 litres in 1954, it became an instant success as Fangio drove it to victory at its first two Championship Grands Prix.
Overall, it won eight times at the hands of Fangio and Moss between ‘54 and ‘57, and carried Fangio to his final World Championship. Moss once said it was the best front-engined car he drove, and its longevity meant it competed in 46 World Championship Grands Prix, making it one of the most prolific machines in early F1 history.
It seemed as though the Italians, with their superior engine designs, would be impossible to overthrow, but that all changed in 1958, when Cooper turned up in 1958 with the T43.
Before then, every World Championship Grand Prix had been won in front-engined machinery, until Stirling Moss took victory at the ‘58 Argentine Grand Prix with the engine positioned behind him. It was the first time a rear-mid-engined car had won an F1 race, and it signalled a changing of the guard.
To rub further salt in Italian wounds, the 1958 season introduced the inaugural International Cup for F1 Manufacturers’, and it was won by a small British Constructor called Vanwall. Working out of what was ostensibly a shed, the likes of Ferrari took exception to their supposed unworthy success, referring to them as ‘Garagistes’.
Vanwall had made several previous attempts in F1, but with the trio of Moss, Tony Brooks and Stewart Lewis-Evans, the VW5 won six Grands Prix on the way to a comfortable title triumph to signal the beginning of a new era of British dominance that would continue for much of the next decade.
One year later, an Australian by the name of Jack Brabham, driving the Cooper T51, went a step further as he became the first driver to win the World Championship in a rear-engined car. It was a pivotal moment in the history of F1, as the stubborn Italians refused at first to believe that Cooper’s was the right idea.
“The horse pulls the carriage” was the famous quote, and yet by 1961, the rear-engined Coopers and Lotuses were making up the majority of F1 starting grids, and the Italian contingent had all but vanished. Only Ferrari had sought to develop its own rear-engined 156, which duly won the Championship with Phil Hill at its first attempt.
The remarkable machines that launched the F1 World Championship in 1950 set the foundation for the sport’s evolution, a lineage that continues some 75 years later, when at the heart of it all the winner is still claimed by the best combination of car and driver. Those early cars were masterpieces of engineering for their time and their legacy will be honoured when the F1 75 celebrations get underway at the Festival of Speed.
The Festival of Speed takes place from Thursday 10th-Sunday 13th July 2025. Tickets are on sale now, and you can save by completing your order before the early bird window closes.
Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.
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