Why Britain’s role in Formula 1 endured a troubled start

Autosport’s 75th anniversary intertwines almost perfectly with the 75 years of the Formula 1 world championship for drivers. This magazine’s grand old title is the junior by three months, and right from the off the editorials of founding editor Gregor Grant are bursting with youthful exuberance.

“Space will be devoted to every aspect of the sport, from the Grandes Epreuves, to the most unambitious of local club events… in fact anything which justifies the title of a competition.”

And right there, on Friday 25 August 1950, an obsession begins. For the magazine and its devotees, this continues 75 years later as a new monthly physical product. For Grant and his fellows, another focus stood in one acronym: BRM. The car that ‘killed’ F1.

Autosport editorials of its first decade make clear the sense of national pride and urgency the magazine had for British teams to be successful in top-level motorsport

Autosport's editorials in its first decade make clear the sense of national pride and urgency the magazine had for British teams to be successful in top-level motorsport. The reason was simple.

Britain was broke after the Second World War and people were desperate for export sales to save a failing economy. In 2025, you’ll know those aims eventually came good. And, in F1 terms, British success records in wins and titles stand tall, while the championship’s roots run so deep on these shores that the modern Liberty Media-run organisation claims these add £12billion to the UK economy each year.

To some, that will ring the jingoism bell in either attack or defence. But nationalist obsession is intrinsic to motorsport’s history. The Nazi-propaganda machines of the 1930s say enough.

Mays’ demonstration run in the V16 BRM piqued the King’s interest

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And so to Autosport’s unabashed support for the British Racing Motors project. The V16 programme was doomed to fail and, for all the success that was to come for the team in following decades, it initially disgraced Britain’s sporting standing. Such disappointment would, however, lead to much more widespread glory.

When this magazine launched, the BRM P15 V16 had just been presented in a demonstration run at the British Grand Prix that commenced the world championship’s infancy. King George VI showed a keen interest in its stand behind the Silverstone pits.

But by late August 1950, Grant was hailing “a fateful day for British racing… the BRM goes into battle for the first time” in the British Racing Drivers’ Club International Trophy at Silverstone. The car failed to get off the line on its debut and, despite its huge potential, stunning engine note and Goodwood Trophy win a month later, its failures were soon piling up. Yet Autosport’s backing for the project initially stood firm.

Motorsport was hugely popular in this period. The generations who lived through the devastation of global conflicts respected driver bravery

To understand the hyperbolic support Autosport gave to BRM against the mighty Italian teams that dominated F1 initially, the era’s timing provides the context. Britain had been reduced to “the position of Lepidus in the triumvirate with Mark Antony and Augustus” in the post-1945 world, as historian Geoffrey Warner wrote in a 1995 essay.

The United States and the USSR bestrode geopolitics as the world’s new superpowers. And, in fighting Nazi Germany as the UK did from 1939, a huge financial cost had to be paid to match that sacrificed in blood. The Anglo-American loan of 1946 injected $3.75billion (worth over $30bn in 2025) into the UK economy.

But people still faced hardships. Austerity pervaded and even had an impact on the BRM project, with parts bought in often arriving late due to the export priorities.

Parnell could only finish five laps adrift in the BRM P15 at the 1951 British Grand Prix

Photo by: Michael Tee / LAT Images

Such sales were prized. In the early 1950s, the high prices commanded by the luxury cars for which Britain had long been famous were viewed as pivotal for turning the bleak situation around. Rolls-Royce supplied two-stage centrifugal superchargers to the BRM and it initially made many post-war models available for export only.

“Our economic position is such that the great bulk of manufactured vehicles has to go to earn foreign currency, with the accent on dollars,” Grant wrote in October 1951. “There will always be a market in any country for the true, high-performance car of proved quality, backed up by success in competitions.”

Motorsport was hugely popular in this period, as it had been in the peacetime interregnum of the 1920s and 1930s. The generations who lived through the devastation of global conflicts respected driver bravery.

Racing drivers combined the changing attitudes of a country hurriedly modernising with Britain’s traditional respect for fair-playing gentlemen

But in the 1950s, racing drivers combined the changing attitudes of a country hurriedly modernising with Britain’s traditional respect for fair-playing gentlemen. Stirling Moss helping to get title rival Mike Hawthorn reinstated to the results of the 1958 Portuguese GP perhaps encapsulates this best, given it ultimately cost Moss that year’s championship.

Juan Manuel Fangio’s brief kidnapping by Cuban rebels in early 1958 highlights the level of fame racing drivers had in the era. And the Daily Mirror calling out Hawthorn as “one of the clumsiest asses in Christendom” for refusing to return to Britain to complete national service alongside 2.3million of his compatriots in 1954 shows how they were expected to behave.

Off-puttingly to patriotic home fans, the BRM underwhelmed as Alfa Romeo dominated F1 in 1950 and then battled a surging Ferrari with its more fuel-efficient, unsupercharged 4.5-litre V12 375 against the thirsty 1.5-litre supercharged straight-eight Alfettas.

Ascari and Ferrari dominated the F2 era – this is Belgium 1952

Photo by: Michael Tee / LAT Images

When this combined with the high cost of F1 projects, the world championship was drastically altered. It would lead Autosport, in its 1952 ‘seasonal survey’, to declare the “demise of Formula 1. Gone are the glories of 1950 and 1951.”

The decision to introduce a new F1 engine formula for 1954 cut off any further short-term ambitions for Alfa Romeo and Mercedes. When the latter did return in 1954, it would prove the value of motor racing success for exports, for the number of countries where Mercedes exported its road models increased from 89 in 1953 to 126 by 1955, having previously only been rising by 11 new markets per year.

But before that, F1 faced a problem for 1952, following Alfa Romeo’s withdrawal. With Ferrari’s V12 expected to dominate, only the BRM might provide the opposition and help fill race grids. But event organisers were sceptical. Hardly surprising, given the V16 machine’s only world championship appearance – the 1951 British GP – ended with Reg Parnell five laps down and badly burned from exhaust gases in his cockpit.

Autosport reader SG Miron of Banbury feared this was the first step in grand prix racing being “completely destroyed!”

In January 1952 the organisers of France’s top events declared that races for Formula 2 machines would head their bills. This included the Grand Prix at Rouen. Autosport reader SG Miron of Banbury feared this was the first step in grand prix racing being “completely destroyed!” Next, the Dutch GP that was set to be Zandvoort’s first world championship appearance was changed to F2 only. The Belgian and British GPs were holding out for F1. 

BRM, meanwhile, was trying to entice Fangio to race the V16 after Alfa’s F1 exit. Autosport declared, in a debate about whether the marque should only field British drivers, that “victory is the very first consideration, and if Fangio and Moss do pilot the green cars, then there is every hope that this will be achieved”.

Readers had already made clear that driver nationality didn’t matter, with J Lane of Jersey writing in October 1951 that “the truth is, only the best and the very best drivers can pilot Formula 1 cars, irrespective of nationality”.

The success of Mercedes’ 1954 return worked wonders for export sales

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In April 1952, Grant proclaimed that BRM’s success in the Valentino GP in Turin would be essential to keeping F1 rules in play for the 1952 world championship. But the squad pulled out instead. Officially, it stated its “cars were not ready” after a test at Monza with Moss at the wheel before he went off rallying in France.

But, a week later, Autosport revealed: “Priority was given to the Argentinians [Jose Froilan Gonzalez had accompanied Fangio to test the BRM the day before the Turin race] and Moss was informed there would be no Turin drive for him. The disappointment of both Moss and the BRM contingent was almost heartbreaking to see.”

The report added: “The prospect of a BRM-Ferrari duel excited continental racing circles and organisers of Europe’s main races looked to the Turin race to give them some sort of lead as to whether or not it would be worthwhile staging pukka F1 events during 1952.”

Grant claimed, “the harm that has been done to British prestige by this unhappy venture is incalculable and never must such a thing be allowed to happen again”

The remaining race organisers had seen enough. Soon the FIA declared the 1952 and 1953 seasons to be for two-litre unsupercharged F2 cars only, to ensure fuller grids. Ferrari and Alberto Ascari would dominate anyway, and F1 had, “to all intents and purposes, collapsed”, in the view of Italian motorsport figure Giovanni Lurani. Britain and the BRM were shamed. 

By August 1952 – after various non-championship outings, which included Gonzalez’s BRM heroics in a British GP Formula Libre support race that was well received by the Silverstone crowd – Autosport had had enough. Grant claimed, “the harm that has been done to British prestige by this unhappy venture is incalculable and never must such a thing be allowed to happen again”.

But as Ascari and Ferrari were continuing to show that “Italy still holds the whip”, as Grant rather graphically declared in June 1952 after Piero Taruffi and Ascari had won the Swiss and Belgian GPs, BRM’s F1 failure actually helped British aims in the long run.

Vandervell, flanked by Brooks and Moss, celebrates 1957 Aintree win

Photo by: LAT Images

The move to the smaller-engined F2 cars meant teams and constructors such as HWM, Connaught, Cooper and Bristol could shine. And on the driving front, Hawthorn’s fourth-place finish in the 1952 world championship standings would lead to his Ferrari drive for the following season and Britain’s breakthrough world championship victory in the 1953 French GP. Connaught also defeated the works Maserati team at the 1955 Syracuse GP, courtesy of rising star Tony Brooks, albeit in a non-championship event.

And then there was Vanwall. By pragmatically buying in what it had to rather than persevering with the full constructor approach a la BRM, it finally achieved the distinction of a British team winning an F1 world championship race. And with a British driver at the wheel in the form of Moss to boot, after he’d taken over from the injured Brooks.

This was the 1957 British GP at Aintree. Autosport declared – in a Grant editorial headlined “V-Day at Aintree” – “determination has won through”.

Grant said that what was required was “a dictator” who would be “responsible for ensuring that nothing is allowed to stand in the way of the future of this unhappy motor-car”

Vanwall proprietor Tony Vandervell had backed BRM initially as a major sponsor. But he’d grown frustrated by the project’s complex hierarchy. Remarkably, considering recent global historical events, Grant said in September 1951 that what was required was “a dictator” who would be “responsible for ensuring that nothing is allowed to stand in the way of the future of this unhappy motor-car”.

Vandervell’s ‘Thin Wall Special’ Ferraris had in part initially been used to give BRM team members competition experience. These were “soon to become the BRM’s greatest rival”, according to BRM spearhead Raymond Mays in the BRM book. By 1954, Vandervell had launched the Vanwall squad into the rebounding F1 world championship that Mercedes would initially dominate.

Two years later, Colin Chapman, who had successfully improved BRM’s suspension in 1955, was designing the Vanwall VW2, while Cooper built the prototype, which Harry Schell would use to thrillingly threaten the Ferraris of Fangio and Peter Collins in the 1956 French GP.

A trio of Vanwalls lead at the start of the 1957 Italian Grand Prix

Photo by: Getty Images

The next year, “Chapman had a new, more aerodynamically efficient body designed by Frank Costin and the engine was boosted to 275bhp – making the Vanwall the most powerful grand prix car”, according to Ivan Rendall in The Power and the Glory: A Century of motor racing.

Vandervell wanted British F1 success in a home-built car and he achieved this spectacularly with the inaugural F1 constructors’ crown in 1958, a season in which Hawthorn pipped Moss to the drivers’ title despite winning one GP (for Ferrari) to Moss’s four (in a Rob Walker Cooper and factory Vanwalls).

“It was most satisfying to know,” Grant purred, “that before the start of the grand prix of Morocco, the issue [of world title glory] lay entirely between drivers from this country.”

BRM’s breakthrough world championship win had come in the 1959 Dutch GP and was “just about the best tonic that motor racing could have had”, reckoned Grant

Although Ferrari sporadically punctured the run, British teams were F1’s dominant force by the 1960s’ 1500cc engine era. Cooper’s success was followed by BRM’s own, as it was transformed by better discipline and investment within the organisation as the 1950s ended under Alfred Owen’s stewardship.

Its breakthrough world championship win had come in the 1959 Dutch GP and was “just about the best tonic that motor racing could have had”, reckoned Grant. A constructors’ and drivers’ (Graham Hill) double followed in 1962.

British F1 endeavours thread from there through history to this point in 2025. And, although these pages missed the first six races of the world championship, Autosport has matched them every step of the way. But, for all that British F1 success, what is perhaps too rarely remembered is that it took a very long time coming.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the Summer 2025 issue and subscribe today.

Breakthrough win for BRM at the 1959 Dutch GP. Here Bonnier chases Brabham

Photo by: Bernard Cahier / Getty Images