Formula 1 has released colorized footage of its very first world championship race, which took place 75 years ago at Silverstone.
On 13 May 1950, 21 cars were on the grid for the British Grand Prix – also named European Grand Prix – including the dominant Alfa Romeos as well as Maseratis, Talbot Lago cars from France, with Alta and ERA representing the United Kingdom.
Ferrari did not attend, with some reports claiming that Enzo Ferrari was unhappy with the money on offer from race organizers while another theory is that the Italian didn’t reckon his cars were going to be competitive enough compared to the almighty Alfas. The prancing horse focused on the Monaco race the following weekend.
Alfa achieved a 1-2-3-4 in qualifying, locking out the four-car front row with Giuseppe Farina, Luigi Fagioli, Juan Manuel Fangio (called Juan Fangio in the broadcast) and Reg Parnell – with their average age a whopping 43 years old.
The Italian manufacturer dominated the race too, with Farina, Fagioli and Parnell taking all three steps on the podium while the Talbot-Lagos of Yves Giraud-Cantabous and Louis Rosier were two laps down in fourth and fifth but still scored points. Fangio retired due to a broken oil pipe.
The new footage has been restored and colorized using “advanced AI software, reference imagery, and manual painting techniques”, with “specific elements such as the sky, grass, cars, and faces are electronically painted manually to truly bring the scene to life”, as per F1’s press release regarding the video.
