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How Alfa Romeo owned the first F1 championship | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

17th January 2025
andrew_frankel_headshot.jpg Andrew Frankel

Despite what you’ll likely be reading ad nauseam elsewhere, this year is not the 75th anniversary of the birth of Formula 1. As Goodwood quite correctly pointed out when it announced this week that it would be celebrating the anniversary at the Festival of Speed, it is the 75th anniversary of the first Formula 1 World Championship, which is something else again.

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The origins of the term ‘Formula 1’ actually dates back to 1946 when the CSI – the forerunner of today’s FIA – met up after the cessation of hostilities to define a category that would represent the very top level of motor sport. Then it was known as the new ‘International Formula’ or ‘Formule Internationale’, but this was soon abbreviated to Formula I or Formula 1. 

It seems surprising from this distance that it took another four years for the new category to turn itself into a World Championship, especially as the pre-war (1931-’39) European Drivers’ Championship was essentially Formula 1 in all bar name, but I expect everyone was just too busy enjoying going racing again to be concerned with such niceties.

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Another surprise is that after that first season they even bothered having another. Thrilling it was not. The only reason Alfa Romeo did not become both the first and to date only team to win every round was that, purely as a way of making the series sound more international than it was, the Indianapolis 500 counted towards the championship. No matter that not a single F1 driver started the race, nor that the rules of Indy cars bore no relation whatever to those of Formula 1, there it was in the calendar and there it would remain for the remainder of the decade. 

Without it, the championship would have been an all European affair and, in that regard, no different to the aforementioned European Drivers’ Championship. It would not be until 1954 and the addition of the Argentine Grand Prix that the first proper World Championship race held to F1 rules would take place outside Europe.

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The Champions: F1 75 at the Festival of Speed

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The first ever round of the Championship was held, of course, at Silverstone where the Alfas were so ludicrously dominant they took it in turns to lead the race, finishing in first, second and third positions, having all lapped the field twice. Things were enlivened considerably at Monaco, not just because it marked the debut of Scuderia Ferrari but also Farina’s first lap accident that took out almost half the field leaving team-mate Fangio with the only Alfa left it the race. It scarcely mattered: he’d already got pole, and now he led every lap, took fastest lap and won by over an entire lap from Ascari’s Ferrari. Alfa Romeo then went on to finish first and second in Switzerland, Belgium and France with Farina’s final victory and title-favourite Fangio’s retirement at Monza securing the first World Driver’s Championship for the former.

But if you want to understand the true nature of Alfa Romeo’s dominance that season, one statistic provides it better than any other. Not including the Indianapolis red herring, there were 1521 miles of racing that year of which one Alfa Romeo or another led for just over 1469. A bit better than 96.5 per cent. 

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But for those who cared to look very carefully indeed, it’s just possible they could see where the Alfa Romeo armour would finally be pierced. Because those few miles that Alfa did not lead were headed not by the thirsty supercharged 1.5-litre car Ferrari fielded for almost all the season, but the new frugal 4.5-litre V12 introduced in the last race and, astonishingly, the similar sized privateer straight six Lago Talbot of Raymond Sommer at that year’s Belgian Grand Prix. Indeed it was Ferrari himself who credited Sommer with giving him the idea that would finally spell the end of Alfa domination.

Because while Alfa Romeos would win the title once again in 1951 – this time with Fangio wearing the crown, of the six races (not including Indy), half were won by the new Ferraris despite the fact that Alfas set fastest lap in every single round. The Ferraris weren’t quicker even when they won, but they used less fuel so stopped less often. And that was the key.

Alfa Romeo withdrew from the still new Formula 1 World Championship at the end of that 1951 season and despite various attempts has not yet won so much as a single race since; by contrast Ferrari went on to become the most successful manufacturer in the history of the sport.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images

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