The 1951 British GP was one of the most significant – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

For those who like a good story it would have been better by far for the 1951 race to have been the first, for it was a belter, one of the most significant in the history of the sport and somehow poignant given the Scuderia Ferrari’s current bizarre lack of pace. For it was here 69 years ago that the same team changed racing history.

Ferrari had been trying to beat Alfa Romeo at the top level almost since its foundation in 1947, but to no avail. It had already chalked up victory at Le Mans, thanks to Lord Selsdon’s private entry in 1949 (not to mention Luigi Chinetti’s heroic 22-hour share of the driving), but it was soon abundantly clear that Giacchino Colombo’s 1.5-litre supercharged V12 motor was no match for Alfa’s straight-eight. So, thought Ferrari, if you can’t beat ‘em, do something else.

In this he was inadvertently helped by Raymond Sommer who came closest of all to upsetting the Alfa apple cart during the 1950 Grand Prix season, and he did it driving an entirely obsolete, woefully underpowered 4.5-litre normally aspirated Talbot. At Spa he managed to take and hold the lead because however much faster were the Alfas, it was not sufficient to overcome the extra time required in the pits taking on fuel. Sadly the Talbot broke and infinitely sadder still Sommer would be dead before the year was out (he was killed when he overturned his Cooper during a hillclimb), so he never got to see what his drive that day would mean.

But Ferrari saw. ‘It was Raymond Sommer, the Parisian industrialist, who was also a daring and skilful driver, who encouraged me to design the new engines’ wrote Ferrari in his autobiography. If an arthritic private Talbot could so scare Alfa Romeo by cancelling out so much of its performance deficit by needing fewer stops, how might a brand new factory Ferrari with a frugal 4.5-litre engine fare? Actually his chief engineer Aurelio Lampredi also claimed credit for the idea but today it scarcely matters.

The new car, the 375, made its debut at the Italian Grand Prix in 1950 where Alberto Ascari briefly led the race before coming home second to Farina’s Alfa. Promising.

But for 1951 Alfa responded with a heavily revised car which, like the Ferrari, now had De Dion rear suspension and still a power advantage of perhaps 50PS. And for a while it looked like it had done enough. Fangio won easily in Switzerland for Alfa, Farina did the same at Spa. But at Reims there was promise: Ascari led until his gearbox broke, then took over the car of newcomer Froilán González and briefly led again, coming home second less than a minute behind Fangio’s car.

And so to Silverstone. It is worth mentioning now that before the aforementioned French Grand Prix, González had taken part in a grand total of two F1 races, lasting a grand total of four laps combined across both. Yet in qualifying he not only took Ferrari’s first pole, he shattered Farina’s lap record and became the first person to circulate Silverstone at over 100mph.

Waiting in the car for the race to start nerves got the better of him, so much so that as the five minute horn sounded, the call of nature overwhelmed him, forcing him to depart the cockpit and sprint for the nearest facilities.

But the moment the flag fell, his nerves evaporated. Felice Bonetto, making the start of his lifetime from seventh on the grid in his Alfa briefly took the lead, but was dispatched almost at once by González. He held the lead for 10 laps until Fangio slipped past, tucking in behind the maestro. He knew all he had to do was keep up, and the pitstops would take care of the rest.

Fangio came in for fuel on lap 38 of the 90 lap race and while he would lead again briefly when González had his fuel stop on lap 48, he would have to stop again and the Ferrari would not. At the flag, despite easing off in the closing laps, the Ferrari was a comfortable 51 seconds ahead. To the crowds and journalists alike the fact González had won the British Grand Prix was almost a side issue. ‘Ferrari beats Alfa Romeo’ screamed MotorSport’s headline – it was the only story in town.

Ascari then won two of the three remaining races of the year. Since the end of that season Alfa Romeo has yet to win another Grand Prix while Ferrari became the most successful constructor by far in the history of the sport. And it all happened at Silverstone.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.