HEADLINER
F1: THE BEGINNING
BECAUSETHEYDON ’TMAKE ’EMLIKETHEYUSEDTO
What were Formula One’s formative years really like? There’s only one way to find out...
WORDS TOM FORD
PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD
Good forward vision, plenty of power... a good choice for the school run perhaps?
ARCHIVE
IMAGES: GETTY
“EARLY GRAND PRIX DRIVERS WERE EITHER BRAVE OR DAFT AS LAMP POSTS”
Nobody mentioned the core strength and the bruises. That’s all I can think as I barrel hell for leather through a long left-hander in a single-seater Fifties Grand Prix car without the comfort or security of seatbelts. Of course, belts are actually fitted, I just want to try and ape the sensations of GP drivers from way back when. The kind of men – and yes, it was pretty much exclusively men back then – for whom getting ‘thrown clear’ in the event of an accident was preferable, and sipping on a glass of champagne and lighting a cigarette on a hot exhaust in the pits wasn’t regarded as the absolute insanity it seems like today. The idea they were a different breed is totally understandable. Even by the standards of the day I have to conclude early GP drivers were either excruciatingly brave, or daft as lamp posts. Probably a bit of both.