THE REST IS HISTORY

Martin Brundle, Ollie Bearman and cars from the first F1 World Championship race. James Elson is trackside for a 75th anniversary showdown

- James Elson

“Gosh!” comes the ever-so-polite exclamation from Britain’s newest Formula 1 star. “I was scared I wouldn’t fit, but then again there’s no height limit...”

Ollie Bearman isn’t peering over the high-tech controls of his Haas VF-25, but the oversized steering wheel of ERA R4A - a car involved in the very first Formula 1 World Championship grand prix. And he’s got company: F1 veteran, Le Mans winner and broadcaster Martin Brundle is shaping up alongside to take out an Alfa Romeo 158, whose sister car won the aforementioned race - and first title - in the hands of Giuseppe Farina.

All are here at Silverstone to film a Sky Sports feature commemorating 75 years since that epoch-defining 1950 British Grand Prix (or Grand Prix d’Europe for sticklers). The Alfa will form part of a gargantuan grid at this year’s Silverstone Festival in August, with a car to represent each F1 world champion in history - the 158 on behalf of ‘Nino’ Farina.

The two machines look magnificent as they’re prepared, gleaming in the National Paddock, but their respective histories couldn’t be any more different.

R4A was built 90 years ago, and hasn't stopped racing since. One of the voiturettes built by prewar racer Raymond Mays' English Racing Automobiles project (ERA), R4A has history and then some. It was the company's first customer car, ordered by racer Pat Fairfield for £1500 in 1935. The man known as 'Skidder' Fairfield would use it to win that year's Nuffield Trophy at Donington and the 1937 South African GP, as well as races in France and at Brooklands.