Next Sunday sees the seventieth running of the British Grand
Prix. This and the race in Italy are the only two events to have featured in
every year of the World Championship. In fact, one could say that, if Formula 1
has a home, it’s probably Silverstone. It was here, on 13 May 1950, on the
perimeter roads of the former Royal Air Force airfield, that the world
championship was born. That first historic race saw a dominant Alfa Romeo fill
the first three places, with the “three Fs”, Giuseppe Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio
and Luigi Fagioli, watched by King George VI.
Milestone. Ferrari
did not take part in that race, making its debut at the next round in Monaco,
but the British track still played a key role in the history of the Prancing
Horse, as the following year, it was here that it took its first F1 win on 14
July, courtesy of José Froilàn Gonzàlez driving a 375 F1.
Three tracks. Over the
years, this race has been held at three circuits. This year, Silverstone hosts
the race for the 53rd time, while it has also been held at Aintree five times
and on the climbs and drops of Brands Hatch on twelve occasions. Ferrari has
won the British GP 17 times, a hit rate of almost one in four, as well as
taking 15 pole positions and a total of 55 podium finishes.
The 50s and 60s. The
1951 win led to a string of Ferrari victories at Silverstone: Alberto Ascari
won in 1952 and 1953 in the 500, Gonzalez did it again in 1954 with a 625 F1,
in 56, Fangio was first home in the D50 and in 1958 came a home win for Peter
Collins in the 246, with team-mate and fellow Englishman Mike Hawthorn second.
The 1955 and ’57 races had been held at Aintree and in 1961, Ferrari finally
won there, with a clean sweep of the podium for the 156 F1, as the German
Wolfgang Von Trips led home the Americans Phil Hill and Richie Ginther.
Lauda, Reutemann and Prost. The
Italian national anthem was heard once again on British soil in 1976, when Niki
Lauda won in the 312 T2 at Brands Hatch, when the Austrian also took pole and
set the race fastest lap. Two years later, it was the turn of the Argentine
Carlos Reutemann and the 312 T3. 1990 was the final year for the super-fast
Silverstone layout. Nigel Mansell took pole at an average speed of 255 km/h in
the F1-90, while the win went to his team-mate Alain Prost, with the track
undergoing drastic modifications to slow the cars down as from the following
year.
New Silverstone. The
first Ferrari driver to win at the new Silverstone was Michael Schumacher,
despite pitting on the very last lap for a 10 second stop-go penalty. The
following year, the German had a serious accident, the worst of his racing
career, when he went off at Stowe corner and broke his right leg, which meant
he missed most of the rest of the season. Schumacher won again here in 2002 and
2004, with his team-mate Rubens Barrichello victorious in 2003. In 2007, Kimi
Raikkonen won for the Scuderia. The next win for the Maranello marque came in
2011, when the track had undergone another major layout change, now measuring
5.891 kilometres. Fernando Alonso made the best of the damp conditions in the
early stages, before pulling away from the field in the F150° Italia. Last
year, Scuderia Ferrari took its 17th win in this race, courtesy of Sebastian
Vettel, with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen joining him on the podium in third spot.
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