When racing met RAF Silverstone: 75 years since its first British GP

Racing History

Silverstone celebrates its 75th anniversary as a grand prix circuit this year. Andrew Frankel looks back to the moment where a former RAF bomber base welcomed racing heroes for its first British Grand Prix

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It wasn’t the first race held on British soil after the war, for that had taken place over a year earlier on Jersey. It wasn’t the first to take place on what is today recognised as a proper motor racing circuit, for that had occurred just a fortnight earlier at RAF Westhampnett, soon to be more popularly known as Goodwood. It wasn’t even the first race at Silverstone for that had happened just minutes earlier when a couple of dozen 500s had fizzed, buzzed and banged their way around the track led by a precious young lad called Stirling Moss, at least until the sprocket on his Cooper broke. Nor was it the first race to be officially known as the British Grand Prix because that happened either in 1949 at what was technically the RAC British Grand Prix, or 1950 in the inaugural round of the World Drivers’ Championship.

But, while acknowledging the claim of Brooklands, I think it is fair to say that the 1948 Royal Automobile Club International Grand Prix is today considered to be the first British Grand Prix, and as its 75th anniversary falls this year it seems timely to recall it now.

It came about when a one year licence to hold motor sport events was granted to RAF Silverstone, home to Number 17 Operational Training Unit which had spent its war years teaching young men how to operate the Vickers Wellington twin engine heavy bomber at night.

So a track was laid out using two of its three runways and certain sections of the perimeter track. It was used in this configuration just once, adopting in 1949 the wholly perimeter-based layout that would be retained in whole or substantial part for the next 60 years. At 3.67 miles, the 1948 layout remains Silverstone’s longest circuit configuration to this day.

The layout was interesting to say the least, though the following description does assume an at least working knowledge of the track in its more recent iterations.

The pits were on the old Abbey Straight as it ran down to Woodcote between 1949 and until it was seriously abbreviated by the creation of Bridge corner and a new infield section in 1991. It flung itself through the super-fast right at Woodcote and down what remains the pit straight when circuit is used in its ‘National’ configuration. But Copse was a hairpin right as the circuit joined the airfield’s longest runway. Cars hurtled along until they turned sharp left as the straight was bisected by the smaller, second runway, continuing to rejoin the perimeter road just short of the old Becketts. From there they’d head through Chapel Curve down what remains the Hangar Straight to Stowe.

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Mechanics work around Philippe Etancelin of France at the 1948 Royal Automobile Club International Grand Prix

Here was another hairpin onto the other end of the same runway they’d joined at Copse, but now running in the opposite direction. Cars would hare along its length, drivers enjoying the presumably quite interesting experience of seeing competitors hurtling towards them on the same stretch of tarmac (well, concrete), disaster being averted by a sharp left turn onto the hitherto unused half of the smaller runway before another hairpin brought them back onto the perimeter at what is today the exit of Club, back up the track towards Abbey and onto another lap.

The entry was a smorgasbord of old and new, not just the cars, but their drivers too.

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No fewer than eight ERAs, almost half of all pre-war production, were entered dating from the very earliest A-types of 1934 to a brace of 1939 E-Types. More modern machines included a quarter of Talbot-Lago T26Cs and a pair of brand new Maserati 4CLTs to go with assorted pre-war 6CMs and 4CLs. Disappointingly for the vast crowds, two cars fielded by the new company created a former Alfa race team manager called Enzo Ferrari failed to turn up. But there was an actual Alfa in the race, and one of the strangest too, for Tony Rolt turned up in the fearsome twin-engined ‘Bimotore’ pre-war monster, less it’s rear engine making it more of a ‘Unicomotore’.

Pre-war heroes like Louis Chiron (Talbot) was there at the age of 49, as was Phi-Phi Etancelin (Talbot) aged 51. Raymond Mays was there for ERA to keep the English end up at 49. But the next generation were there too, though understandably old to be starting out in Grand Prix racing having been somewhat delayed by keeping the scourge of Nazism at bay. Rolt was there, of course, and recently recovered from Colditz Castle, as was his future team-mate Duncan Hamilton in a Maserati. Five years later they’d win Le Mans together for Jaguar. Other future Le Mans winners included Lord Selsdon (though the heavy lifting of his 1949 win in a Ferrari was done by Luigi Chinetti) in a Talbot, 1951 winner Peter Walker in an ERA and 1959 winner Roy Salvadori in a Maserati.

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Louis Chiron in his Talbot

But all eyes were on those two modern Masers, crewed by Luigi ‘Gigi’ Villoresi and none other than Alberto Ascari, who within five years would become Formula 1’s first double World Champion. Helpfully, for those who wanted to see a motor race, their Scuderia Ambrosiana team was delayed en route to Silverstone, were unable to take part in all practice sessions so had to start from the back of the grid.

From the archive

It made very little difference. Chiron led away, but within two (of 65) laps Ascari and Villoresi had scorched through the field and already lay fourth and fifth with only Etancelin’s Talbot and Prince Bira’s pre-war Maserati between them and the leader. By lap three Villoresi was leading and that was pretty much that. Both he and Ascari had their share of adventures and mishaps over the next three hours, but nothing to interfere with their stranglehold on the race; indeed it has been suggested they were circulating somewhere below ultimate pace, both to preserve their machines and to put on a show.

Villoresi duly won, with Ascari 14sec behind, the stand out performance of the day belonging to neither of them, but Bob Gerard who brought his 13 year old ERA home in third place, only two minutes off the lead and over two minutes ahead of Louis Rosier’s works Talbot, the only other car to finish on the same lap as the leader. There followed a crowd invasion of the circuit, rendering prize giving impossible. The scene for the next 75 years had been set.