5 MAGIC BRITISH GRAND PRIX MOMENTS
SILVERSTONE will face financial ruin if the circuit is not brimful with fans for next year’s British Grand Prix.
Both today’s race and next week’s 70th Anniversary GP, celebrating the first World Championship race ever staged here in 1950, are taking place without fans, leaving managing director Stuart Pringle concerned for the future. Pringle said: ‘The piggy bank’s nearly dry. The bank is standing by us, just as well.
‘It’s a big game of snakes and ladders and having shinned up various lengths of ladder for the last five years we are now rapidly descending a snake. We need to be close to full capacity next year.’
Last year 351,000 people attended the race over the three days.
1950 The birth of the World Championship, it was also the first and only race attended by a British monarch. The Royal meeting at Silverstone saw King George VI and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in attendance as the Alfa Romeo team dominated. They entered four cars and finished first — through Nino Farina — second and third. Ferrari did not win a championship race until the British Grand Prix the following year, at the hands of Jose Froilan Gonzalez.
1957 The first time a British-built car won on home turf — a feat achieved by two Brits, Stirling Moss (right) and Tony Brooks, who shared the Vanwall drive at Aintree. After Moss held his right hand aloft as he took the chequered flag, owner Tony Vandervell said: ‘We beat the bloody red cars.’ The winning Vanwall is now owned by Bernie Ecclestone.
1969 Jackie Stewart and Jochen Rindt went at it cheek-by-jowl, passing and repassing, for 63 laps. But Stewart noticed that the rear wing end-plate of the Austrian’s Lotus was working loose and may well have been about to cut his tyre and cause a massive shunt. Stewart gestured the danger to Rindt, who pulled into the pits. The Scot won with a dazzling drive, the first of his two victories in his home race.
2008 One of Lewis Hamilton’s greatest victories. Evoking memories of his hero Ayrton Senna’s heroics in the wet at Donington in 1993, the McLaren driver was brilliant in horrendously wet conditions (below). In contrast his rival for the title, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, was slipping and sliding, as were the rest. Hamilton, sure of foot, finished 67 seconds in front. The world sat up and noticed.
1987 Silverstone has never seen an outpouring like it. Nigel Mansell was the people’s champion as he won a mammoth duel with his bitter rival Nelson Piquet in the other Williams. Mansell came from half-aminute back to hunt the Brazilian down. Setting fastest lap after fastest lap, the Englishman passed Piquet at Stowe. Engulfed by a mass track invasion, Mansell kissed the ground where he had made the vital overtake.