Formula 1 75 Years: At Speed with the World’s Greatest Motorsport
by Stuart Codling, James Roberts, and James Mann
May 13, 1950, the Grand Prix d’Europe incorporating the Royal Automobile Club British Grand Prix, being held at the Silverstone Circuit—with British royalty in attendance, including the king—heralded the inaugural event of Formula 1 and the F1 World Championship.
That’s 75 years ago, meaning it is no coincidence that this book is coming out now. There will surely be many more and we won’t review them all! Good thing that this one ticks many boxes for the causal reader.
The more persnickety reader will probably already be grumbling that 2025 may be the anniversary of many things but certainly not the 75th of Formula 1 and definitely not of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. We will dissect this further down but for now just know that this is still a solid book thanks to the expertise and knowledge of its authors. The stunning photo selection alone makes it worth considering favorably.
Codling and Roberts are longtime members of that influential community of British journalists covering motorsport, particularly Formula 1, and James Mann is a fixture among automotive photographers. All three are professionals in the best sense of the word, with years of experience around the sport. It shows clearly in the book. The text is clear and sharp, as well as being well thought out. The 300 photographs are well chosen, appropriate to what they are meant to convey to the reader, and rarely is there a need to quibble about any of the captions.
The book employs a narrative format. It begins with an introduction, followed by a section devoted to each decade beginning with the 1950s through to Abu Dubai in December 2024. Each decade gets a running commentary on the season and lots of photos along with special features such as: a “Behind the Scenes” look at an aspect pertaining to that decade; the decade’s “Defining Event;” and the decade’s “Significant Car.” Each of these discussions receives a writeup explaining the selection, given that in some instances the choices might not be as intuitive as expected. More than once, I was surprised (and pleased) by the choices, although I am sure that others may find some of them puzzling.
The End.
Or, we could switch from Book Report mode to Book Review mode, where the tire-kicking ends and we start taking things apart.
Does the world really need yet another book on Formula 1 and the F1 World Championship? Even if it commemorates 75 years of that championship? Impossible to say because there are always readers who are just discovering a subject that old hands like me have followed for eons. My bookcases are groaning under the weight of books on this topic. Maybe the question should be: Does this book deserve a place in that special bookcase reserved for the best of the best? As a general-interest book on F1, geared to a broad audience, it is certainly a worthy candidate. One clearly senses that of the various “F1 75” books that will hit the market during the 2025 season, this one represents a high bar. One of the reasons is that the entire span of seasons from 1950 to 2024 is covered, albeit at different, make that increasing levels of magnification.
“It is difficult to write history, especially about the past,” is something that the historian Gordon Wood suggested Yogi Berra might say about the writing of history. Is this book a proper history of Formula 1 and the F1 World Championship or is it perhaps something else? It is certainly about the past, not just about those nominal 75 years but also those years that lead up to the 1950 events.
As a historian by trade I recognize that the greatest challenge with the writing of history, especially about the past, is to somehow manage to corral those pesty things known as “facts” into a coherent narrative conveying one’s interpretations of the past. Codling, Roberts, and Mann definitely did not write this book with someone such as me in mind. As interesting as I might find various aspects of Formula 1 75 Years, I am certainly not approaching it with any expectation of the revelatory Deep Dive.
Credit where credit is very much due, though: what the authors have produced is enjoyable, which may sound like faint praise but is more than that. And they have done it better than many before them. Few, very few readers will have any cause to quibble or question its contents. But let’s poke around some.
The authors do mention the rather short-lived Championnat du Monde des Automobiles that first appeared in 1925. It failed for very much the reasons being suggested: the AIACR demonstrated its ability to strangle a good idea with an inane bureaucracy and arcane, often impractical rules; a trait that a rebranding to the FIA in 1946 did nothing to mitigate. There is also mention of the introduction of the Formule Internationale in 1922, the same year that the CSI came into being. But contrary to what is suggested, at the same time that the AIACR rebranding was talking place during the Summer of 1946, the CSI set down and approved the parameters of a new Formule Internationale—not at the 1947 Paris Salon by AIACR (which by then was already the FIA). In 1947, the CSI did add the equivalent of the prewar Voiturette class as an international formula, to take effect with the 1948 season. Meaning, of course, that the new Formule Internationale of 1946, officially replacing the previous 1938–1940 formula, now became International Racing Formula 1 (or A or I, take your pick . . .) and the voiturette formula (for 2-liter cars, or 500 cc if supercharged) now became Formula 2.
When the CSI approved the Championnat du Monde des Conducteurs in the Fall of 1949, with the championship beginning with the following 1950 season, there were the technical regulations for the Formule Corse Internationale Nr. 1, and there were the separate rules for the World Championship of Drivers. The latter stipulated that those countries selected to host a World Championship event would do so with the event that was their Grande Épreuve on the International Calendar. The inclusion of the United States in the new World Championship meant that its Grand Event was the annual 500 mile International Sweepstakes race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Although the basic “formula” for the Championship Cars of the AAA were still (loosely) based upon the 1938–1940 Formule Internationale, the major difference being dropping the sliding weight/displacement scale after the 1946 season, that almost each of the cars used an engine, the Offenhauser, that was within the 4.5-liter limit of the current Formula 1. Notionally, had the Royal Automobile Club’s Grand Épreuve entry on the International calendar still been the Tourist Trophy, it would have been within the realm of possibility for the RAC to have its entry as a sports car race. The creation/revival of the British Grand Prix rendered that moot, of course. When the promoters decided during the 1952/1953 seasons to use the voiturette (Formula 2) cars to contest the World Championship events, rules-wise, not a problem, given that there nothing in the rules for the World Championship mandating the use of Formula 1 cars.
Beginning with the 1961 season, there was a new set of technical regulations, along with the usual set of sporting regulations for the World Championship, the latter having one important change: events being held as part of the World Championship now had to be held using cars conforming to Formula 1. However, they were still separate, distinct sets of rules. It is the power struggle between the F1CA/FOCA and the CSI—which became FISA in 1978—during the latter 1970s and into 1980/1981 that led to today’s FIA Formula 1 World Championship, which held its first season in 1981. At the FIA Congress held at Rio in mid-April, it was announced that the Championnat du Monde des Conducteurs that began with the 1950 season, along with the Formula 1 Manufacturers Cup first awarded during the 1958 season, would be terminated at the end of the 1980 season and replaced with the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, with the FIA owning both the commercial rights to the championship and now combining the technical and sporting regulations into one, unified set of rules.
Does the casual F1 fan care about all this fine print? Nope. Applied to this book it simply means 2025 isn’t the 75th anniversary of Formula 1 or the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, no matter that this way of reckoning has become accepted shorthand.
Copyright 2025, Don Capps (speedreaders.info).
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