75 years of F1? Not quite: How the magic of 1950 gave way to an identity crisis

New York Times

5 hours ago

This article is part of our 75 Years of Speed series, an inside look at the backstories of the clubs, drivers, and people fueling Formula One.
'The demise of Formula One.'
So declared the then British weekly Autosport in 1952 — just two years after the birth of the world championship.
Before things disintegrated, though, it'd roared into life. The 1950 season was chaotic, glamorous, and fiercely competitive, launching a new era of global motorsport. But just as quickly as it rose, F1 faltered: For two full seasons, the world championship wasn't actually contested with F1 cars — a statistical asterisk that still raises eyebrows generations later.
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In 2025, as F1 marks its 75th anniversary, it celebrates a history that in a bizarre sense almost ended before it'd truly began — a story marred by a glaring anomaly that exposed the fragility of one country's early racing ambitions.
We start, fittingly, at Silverstone for the 1950 season opener, which took in that year's British Grand Prix (officially the Grand Prix d'Europe). This event is forever remembered as F1's first world championship race. Under sunny skies, where a 'party atmosphere prevailed', according to Motorsport Magazine's contemporary report, the Alfa Romeo team was resplendent.
The Italian team dominated with a car that was actually 12 years old and pre-dated the Second World War.
Severe traffic issues meant many spectators were late arriving at Silverstone on race day, but the grandstands were at least bedecked in bunting and Union Jack flags to cover their steel skeletons. A royal presence had ensured much pomp.
Having met King George VI ahead of the start — the only time a reigning British monarch has attended a British Grand Prix — along with the rest of the 21 starting drivers, Giuseppe 'Nino' Farina led away from the four-car, all-Alfa, front row.
Differently colored engine cowls helped the crowd of 150,000 differentiate the Alfa drivers as they swapped positions through the race's early stages. Motorsport declared: 'It was obvious that the Alfa Romeo team had been instructed how to finish. Farina first, Luigi Fagioli second, (Juan Manuel) Fangio third and (British home hero, Reg) Parnell fourth. But to appear to be racing to please the crowd.'
While their distant opponents hit trouble, the Alfas roared around Silverstone. Their only down note was Fangio spinning off and hitting a straw bale in the closing stages. His 158 sounded sick after being fired back up at Stowe corner, and he soon retired with a broken engine connecting rod. But this meant the British fans who then spent four hours getting out of the track's car parks could at least reflect on Parnell's celebratory wreath-winning result, as he finished third behind Farina and Fagioli.
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Just a week later, round two was staged in glamorous Monaco, where the Ferrari team took part this time. Enzo Ferrari had refused to come to Silverstone in a dispute over small appearance fees for the teams and with only £1,000 (then around $2,800) in prize money on offer for winning.
This time, Fangio won for Alfa after a bizarre incident on the first lap. A huge wave had sloshed over the harbor wall at the Tabac corner and soaked the track just as the race was getting underway, one street over. Fangio skillfully navigated his way through, but Farina spun and crashed out, along with Fagioli.
The next time by, with the track up ahead strewn with wreckage, Fangio 'was aware of something different with the crowd' — as he told motor racing journalist Nigel Roebuck in 1978.
Fangio had realized that 'instead of seeing their faces, I was seeing the backs of their heads.' It was a subtle but chilling signal that something was wrong up ahead — the crowd had turned to watch the unfolding disaster, not the approaching cars. In this rarity for a race leader, the legendary Argentine understood there was danger up ahead and hit the brakes. Just in time. He went on to score his first F1 world championship win.
The Indianapolis 500 featured next on the newly formed schedule, as it did for the world championship's first 11 years, but this event was not run to F1 car regulations. Johnnie Parsons won in 1950, while most of the European grand prix stars stayed away. Farina was down on the entry list, but didn't turn up.
Round four, the Swiss GP at the fearsomely fast, tree-lined Bremgarten track, 'frankly, as a race it was not interesting,' declared Motorsport. This was because Ferrari — particularly its national Italian star, Alberto Ascari — had looked threatening in practice and during the early race laps. However, the race then simmered down to another Alfa domination. Farina won, but Fangio retired late on again, with another mechanical issue.
Such misfortune swung Farina's way at the next two rounds — in Belgium and France — allowing Fangio to win both events.
Fangio capitalized on Farina's fuel and reliability woes in Belgium and France to bring the title fight to a dramatic showdown at Monza. At Spa, Farina dropped to fourth with oil pressure issues. At Reims, a faulty fuel pump cost him dearly despite a spirited charge back through the field.
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This set the stage for a three-way fight for the first F1 world title at the Monza season finale.
Farina's recent mechanical maladies meant Fangio led the standings by two points — but from Fagioli, whose post-Monaco consistency had brought him into contention. Farina stared down a four-point deficit, having been nine clear of Fangio amongst the nightmare Silverstone traffic.
But reliability decided Fangio's fate that year, as he retired with a seized gearbox after 23 of the Italian GP's 80 laps, having dropped back quickly from pole.
Farina — in a new Alfa (the 159 derived from the 158 'Alfetta') that had 'increased power,' according to F1 historian Roger Smith, dominated from Ascari and in doing so claimed the first F1 world title. He'd taken over another Ferrari (this was allowed and possible back then), with Fagioli third and ultimately there overall in the inaugural world championship's points standings, behind his illustrious teammates.
The 1951 season was another Alfa triumph for its powerful, ageing cars. But there were big differences in the world championship's sophomore campaign.
While the racing on track reached new heights, trouble was brewing off it. Behind the scenes, engine rules were shifting, manufacturers were retreating, and political maneuvering began to unravel the very concept of F1.
Fangio, this time, took the title — the first of his five. This would stand as a record for 46 years, until it was first overhauled by Michael Schumacher in 2003 and then by Lewis Hamilton in 2020. And Ferrari, boosted by its 4.5-liter unsupercharged V12 engine, which delivered much better fuel efficiency than the 1.5-liter straight-eight supercharged Alfa, finally provided fierce competition.
Fuel issues plagued Alfa's year, with its engine's weaknesses either forcing it to run its cars heavily or just make more stops than Ferrari.
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The Scuderia finally exploited this to take its first world championship F1 win in the 1951 British GP, with Jose Froilan Gonzalez, another Argentine. Eponymous team owner Enzo Ferrari — a former Alfa driver and team manager — wrote to his rival and declared: 'Today, I killed my mother.'
In the Spanish GP finale, Ferrari's miscalculation on wheel and tire size led to ruinous early pit stops. Fangio romped home at Pedralbes to seal the title from Ascari by six points.
Alfa and Ferrari locked in battle, while Mercedes worked on its post-war return to motorsport in the background, having dominated as a Nazi propaganda machine in the 1930s. British hopes were also high for a powerful V16 car from British Racing Motors (BRM), which had stunned crowds with its shocking engine note wherever it appeared to this point.
An F1 glory age was surely unfurling. Until it was stopped in its tracks — the BRM to blame.
'The harm that has been done to British national prestige by this unhappy venture is incalculable,' Autosport would state in 1952, typically hyperbolically for the editorials of the era.
The 1950 and 1951 seasons had been run according to the original set of F1 rules laid down by motorsport's governing body in 1947. These regulations, from the Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI), had decreed that cars with engines like Alfa Romeo's or Ferrari's would compete against each other. Aerodynamics were at this stage not the defining feature of car performance and weight was unlimited.
But those car design rules needed updating, and the FIA signed off a new set of F1 regulations in October 1951. The existing formula was extended to cover only 1952 and 1953, with smaller engines mandated from 1954 onwards. Motorsport magazine described this as 'against the desires of Germany and Great Britain.'
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This meant two things. For Mercedes, it delayed a long-planned comeback. For BRM, it rendered its ambitious car soon-to-be-obsolete before it had even proven itself.
Mercedes had been quietly working on a new car using the first engine rules, dubbed the W195. The German marque had finally returned to racing action in Argentina in 1951 with some of its pre-war models, but had been humbled by newer Ferraris.
Legendary Mercedes team boss Alfred Neubauer had hoped the new F1 project would be ready to compete in 1951 and then challenge for the championship in 1952. But only if the existing rules were going to stay in place for longer.
With major change now coming in 1954, Mercedes didn't deem extra investment worthwhile. It ultimately opted to make its grand return to top-line grand prix racing that year instead, with what would become the famous W196, following a campaign in the 1952 sports car season.
Mercedes' management had also been spooked by rumors that Alfa was about to quit the world championship after Fangio's 1951 title. This was with the knowledge that the 158, like the BRM V16, would also soon be barred from entering F1 world championship races.
But the new rules dealt a harsher blow to BRM. The ambitious British project had built the powerful but troublesome V16 engine, backed by widespread support from the country's motor industry.
Despite high expectations, including interest from King George VI, the BRM was notoriously unreliable. Engine changes took up to 24 hours compared to three for a Ferrari, making the car practically unusable. After embarrassingly trailing five laps down at its only world championship outing — the 1951 British GP — the V16 BRM was withdrawn from key races, further damaging Britain's motorsport prestige. This included non-world championship races that were common in this era.
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The withdrawal of BRM from the Valentino GP in Turin in 1952 proved decisive for the F1 world championship that year. Race organizers elsewhere, disappointed by BRM's absence from what should've been a fight with Ferrari's F1 car in Turin, opted not to have races for F1 cars atop their bills — including many that were slated to host world championship races.
Alfa Romeo had by this stage officially withdrawn from the 1952 season as the coming new rules would make its car obsolete, too. Ferrari was now so strong, Mercedes was not yet ready, and the BRM consistently disappointed. As motorsport historian Giovanni Lurani noted in History of the Racing Car, F1 had, 'to all intents and purposes, collapsed.'
Left with little choice, the FIA decreed Formula Two cars would instead contest the 1952 and 1953 world championships — marking two seasons that remain statistically anomalous to this day. It was a decision made out of necessity, as F2 cars were cheaper and more plentiful. The smaller engines on these machines anticipated the coming 1954 F1 regulations and the hope was that races could proceed without Ferrari's F1 car strength completely eroding competitive interest.
Nevertheless, Ferrari thrived in this temporary anomaly, with Ascari claiming both the 1952 and 1953 titles in its brilliant F2 machinery, winning 11 of the 17 races across those years.
British motorsport wasn't entirely humiliated, however. Smaller teams such as HWM and Cooper seized opportunities under F2 rules, and Mike Hawthorn's promising fourth-place finish in the 1952 world championship led directly to his landmark deal with Ferrari in 1953, where he won that year's French Grand Prix.
British Racing Motors would eventually find redemption. But in the words of Smith, its V16 entry was initially, 'an over-ambitious endeavour with cumbersome organization.'
'The project was doomed to failure,' Smith wrote in his book Formula 1: All the Races, 'the car featuring an enormously powerful 1.5-litre V16 engine using two-stage Rolls-Royce centrifugal superchargers. But its narrow power band, delivering some 430 bhp through narrow tires, made it very difficult to drive, let alone drive swiftly.'
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For the BRM, the 1954 rules effectively made its grand project obsolete at a stroke. But it still could've gathered glory in the meantime — and make all its earlier effort worthwhile. This was seen as critical for both Britain and the burgeoning world championship.
After the Second World War, Britain was broke. Its $3.75billion Anglo-American loan from the United States in 1946 (worth over $30billion today) meant its economy was on life support. Export sales were prized and the fame of motor racing success could help.
Against this backdrop, Autosport declared in a June 1954 editorial that 'what makes Grand Prix racing so invaluable from a prestige point of view; it is a most important method of advertising the excellence of a national automobile industry's products.'
But the BRM project just wasn't coming together, despite such patriotic backing and even the King's attention at Silverstone in 1950. He'd shown a special interest in the V16 machine after the first demonstration run for the car, which wasn't race-ready at that stage, at that event.
The V16 BRM's 1951 British Grand Prix embarrassment had been in an otherwise engaging race that had shown most strikingly how vulnerable the pre-war Alfas had become against the surging Ferraris. Alfa then initially being only vaguely prepared to enter shorter races led to the nervousness of race organizers across Europe regarding the 1952 world championship being run to F1 rules.
In contrast to today's centrally-powered F1/FIA arrangement, in the world championship's infancy, race organizers could essentially invite who and what they liked. France went first, with its series of races — including the 1952 GP at Rouen — confirmed for smaller Formula Two cars only in January 1952, as a result of the expected Ferrari F1 domination. An Autosport reader, SG Miron of Banbury, decried this as the first step in grand prix racing being 'completely destroyed!'
In 1952, the Dutch GP at Zandvoort was to be the first world championship race in the Netherlands. But it then declared it would invite F2 cars and not F1 machines. Yet the Belgian and British races held out for the top category. And then came the hammer blow to such hopes.
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BRM had been expected to put on a strong showing at the Valentino GP in Turin. This alone was enough to motivate Ferrari to enter the event. Instead, BRM pulled out.
Its official statement claimed 'the (V16) cars were not ready' after a bespoke test at Monza that had featured a young Stirling Moss. But Autosport explained it differently. Hoping to convince Fangio to join the struggling project — as he'd been left without a world championship drive for 1952 with Alfa's withdrawal — 'priority' was given to this endeavour instead.
'The prospect of a BRM-Ferrari duel excited continental racing circles and organizers of Europe's main races looked to the Turin race to give them some sort of lead as to whether or not it would be worthwhile staging pukka F1 events during 1952,' read Autosport's report of the saga.
But the prospect of F1 competition completely capitulating to Ferrari cars before the 1952 world champion season had even begun pervaded as a result of the Turin affair. In that April race, Ferrari's cars had, after all, subsequently finished two laps clear of the BRM-less field.
Just as the 1952 world title contest was about to commence, with the Swiss GP again at Bremgarten on May 18, the FIA made its choice. With the British GP also finally 'falling into line with the rest of the 1952 GPs,' according to Autosport, it was decreed that F2 cars would contest the entire world championship. And then 1953 as well.
British motorsport ultimately wasn't totally shamed, thanks to the F2 rules era efforts of its teams that produced such cars, plus those of drivers including Hawthorn and Moss. He would go on to race for Mercedes once it replaced Ferrari as the dominant power in 1954. BRM later scored a first F1 world championship win at the 1959 Dutch GP and even claimed a world title double with Graham Hill in 1962.
Formula One didn't die. But in 1952 and 1953, it wasn't really Formula One either — and the debate over those two seasons still lingers, buried under 75 years of stats.
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