by Kevin Guthrie

Created on: January 16, 2008   Last Updated: November 24, 2008

The Formula 1 World Championship began in 1950 but can trace its ancestry back to the first ever Grand Prix in 1906 and, before that, to the great European city-to-city marathons. Following the end of the Second World War competitive single-seater's were in short supply. This is why for the first two seasons of the new World Championship Formula 1 was dominated by Alfa Romeos which dated from the 1930s. To protect them during the war they had been walled up in a cheese factory. That first title was won by Dr Giuseppe Farina, an Italian who was tough and uncompromising on the track. He was involved in two controversial fatal racing accidents before the war and many were intimidated by his reputation. 1950 would provide Farina with his only title. He would die in a road accident in 1966.

Juan-Manuel Fangio was also an Alfa driver and had ran Farina close in 1950. His time came the following year when he clinched what would be the first of five titles. The likeable Argentinean had an effortless driving style and was the benchmark by which other drivers of the time judged themselves. A curious intervention to Fangio's dominance came during the 1952-53 seasons when the championship was run to Formula 2 regulations. Alberto Ascari completely dominated both season's in the Ferrari 500. No other team had a competitive car.

There was a glimpse of the professionalism which was to take over the sport some years later when Mercedes entered the championship during the 1954-55 seasons with superbly engineered cars and a formidable driver line-up. Fangio won the title in both years. In 1955, he had Stirling Moss as a team-mate. They would often circulate so close together that they earned the nickname 'The Train'. Sadly Mercedes withdrew from racing at the end of 1955 following the Le Mans disaster.

The late fifties saw a significant change in Formula 1 car design with the introduction of the Cooper team and their strange little machines with the engine behind the driver. The other teams did not take them seriously but within a few years all Formula 1 cars would be rear-engined. Cooper won the title in 1959 and 1960 with the tough Australian Jack Brabham driving. Brabham would go on to become the first, and so far only, driver to win a world title in a car of his own construction in 1966.

The Lotus name had been seen on Formula 1 grids in the late fifties but it was during the early sixties that the genius of their designer Colin Chapman really began to come to the fore. An ex-driver

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