Prepare to meet your maker

While much has been made of F1-75 there has been little fanfare for the constructors' centenary.

- Paul Fearnley

The FIA Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship turned 75 in May. Later that month the series for constructors celebrated its centennial. For Vanwall did not win the first of these in 1958 as commonly thought. Alfa Romeo did - in 1925. Bugatti won the next (1926). Delage dominated the one after that. And that was (not quite) that. Having suffered a painful birth, this idea ahead of its time endured a protracted demise. Its remaining three editions were embarrassments unworthy of a world champion. So none was declared. Yet this was at a time of rapid growth for motor racing: the poster sport for The Speed Age. A Bugatti advertisement laid claim to 501 victories in 1926 alone. No doubt these included the most minor of events as well as the World Manufacturers' Championship - but it is no exaggeration that fans in France and Italy stood a good chance of seeing their heroes in the flesh given the proliferation of rudimentary road courses/street circuits hosting healthy fields unencumbered by proscriptive regulation.

The governing body - not for the last time - was out of touch, and blind to both the dwindling interest from manufacturers and the rise of the cult of the (mainly privateer) racing driver. Unhelpful factors were beyond its control: a worsening global economy; and the fatal accident that befell the period's most famous driver. But nor did it help itself. An unpopular formula change increased costs - reduced weight and increased rpm have never come cheaply - and consequentially shrinking grids would result in the most farcical grand prix: a lonely trio of the same make droning around a bland, desolate and windswept oval.