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Prince Bira was there too: The Formula 1 premiere 70 years ago

2020-05-12T22:33:06.244Z


Nobody really feels like celebrating. The Formula 1 World Championship started on May 13, 1950. It mastered severe crises, survived fatal accidents and established itself as a global billion dollar business. And now?


Nobody really feels like celebrating. The Formula 1 World Championship started on May 13, 1950. It mastered severe crises, survived fatal accidents and established itself as a global billion dollar business. And now?

Berlin (dpa) - It is May 13, 1950. It is the day of the first race of the Formula 1 World Championship, the beginning of the motorsport premier class. Everyone had imagined the 70th anniversary this Wednesday differently.

King George VI and the later Queen Elizabeth are there, with around 120,000 spectators. 21 drivers lined up to greet them, including a Thai prince named Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh, or Prince Bira for short, or the Belgian jazz musician Johnny Claes.

In fact, after the first six races of the record 2020 season, the heirs of the PS pioneers of the past century would rest briefly after the Spanish Grand Prix. The next week it would go to Monaco, the classic par excellence.

Instead of celebrating instead of driving, there is also a standstill in Formula 1 due to the coronavirus pandemic - paired with one thing above all: uncertainty. And even if Formula 1 is tried and tested, the forced idling shakes the foundations. What the billion-dollar series could look like in 70 years, whether it still exists in the battle for claims with e-mobility and sustainability - who knows. At the moment it is unclear whether all ten teams have survived this phase to some extent.

Budget ceilings, the opening up of ever new lucrative markets, DRS (overtaking aid Drag Reduction System) or MGU-K (motor generator) - none of that mattered at all for the race debut on May 13, 1950. The drivers were on average around 39 years old, model athletes with their own trainers were not the norm.

And yet, or maybe even more so, it was the time when the heroes were born on the routes, whose names the pilots of today's generation can still be bowed to. Giuseppe "Nino" Farina won the first Formula 1 race - he was already 43 years old. The Italian also crowned himself the first champion. In his Alfa Romeo, he raced over the course at Silverstone with an average speed of over 145 kilometers per hour. Not even an approach from security measures like these days.

"You shouldn't even think about the consequences of an accident," said the four-time German world champion Sebastian Vettel (32) once about the old days of Formula 1. "When you were at the start, you practically always had to expect that one or two would be on again, "once recalled the now 92-year-old former racing driver Hans Herrmann. Technical aids - no. "You used to drive a car normally. You had a clutch, an accelerator pedal, a brake and a steering wheel that you used to drive left, right or straight ahead," emphasized Herrmann.

He wasn't there at Silverstone at the time, but he was one who should go down in history as one of the best. Juan Manuel Fangio does not make it to the finish at the premiere. In the World Cup duel with Farina, the Argentine missed three points at the end. A year later, Fangio won the title, four more followed. Michael Schumacher was the first to set the record for the Argentine, who died in 1995 at the age of 84, at the beginning of this millennium and then beat it with a total of seven World Cup triumphs.

Those who have been racing through Formula One history since May 13, 1950, remembering the fire accident of Niki Lauda, ​​who passed away in May last year, remember big poison duels like Ayrton Senna's against Alain Prost, the four Decades-long era of Bernie Ecclestone, including the bribery process, thinks of Imola's black weekend with the death of Roland Ratzenberger and icon Ayrton Senna, of the bizarre, incomprehensible espionage affair that McLaren awarded at the time the record fine of $ 100 million, which quickly realizes that Formula 1 has always somehow maneuvered through all crises and scandals.

In order to be able to drive around an hour and a half away from London on the traditional route at least this year, the Formula 1 bosses are even supposed to talk to government authorities about possible exceptions, according to media reports. Because the announced soon two-week quarantine for all air travelers to the island would make the races on July 19 and 26 in Silverstone impossible after the planned restart races in front of empty ranks in Austria on July 5 and 12.

Results from the 1st Formula 1 race

Interesting facts about the 1st Formula 1 race

Source: merkur

All sports articles on 2020-05-12

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