Alfa Romeo celebrates history with help from Fangio's sons

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Silverstone is never short of a sweeping sense of history. After all, it was the place where the very first Formula 1 Grand Prix was held on May 13, 1950. That auspicious event was won by Giuseppe Farina for Alfa Romeo.

After a long absence the marque is back in Formula 1 in 2018 as a title sponsor to the Sauber F1 team, and so it was only fitting that they would want to commemorate that moment this weekend.

And they did so in style with special guests Oscar and Rubén Fangio, the sons of five-time F1 world champion Juan Manuel Fangio who was Farina's team mate driving a GP Tipo 158 "Alfetta" in that first Grand Prix. They're pictured above in the Sauber garage during the 2018 British Grand Prix weekend.

Alfa took a 1-2-3 in that first race courtesy of Farina along with Luigi Fagioli and Reg Parnell. Sadly Fangio himself was forced to retire with engine problems. but just a week later he won the Monaco Grand Prix, the first of 24 F1 victories over 51 races.

Farina won the inaugural world championship, and Fangio took the title in 1951 giving Alfa Romeo back-to-back successes. But the Milan-based company left the sport after that, returning as an engine supplier between 1961 and 1979 and briefly as a works team from 1979 to 1985.

As for Fangio, after a year out he went on to race for Maserati, Daimler and Ferrari and won the title four years running between 1954 and 1957. The Argentine was also victorious in his home race four times in a row, before retiring in 1958. He passed away in 1995 in Buenos Aires, aged 84.

Although there have been many legendary drivers in Formula 1 - from Jim Clark to Alain Prost, Aryton Senna and Michael Schumacher - it's invariably Fangio to whom all others are compared. The official Formula1.com website simply states: "Many consider him to be the greatest driver of all time."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.