May 13, 1950: Drivers including Juan Manuel Fangio, Reg Parnell and Nino Farina gather at the start of Farm Straight at Silverstone before the Grand Prix of Europe.

May 13, 2025: A group of journalists gather in a refurbished WWII aircraft hangar at the same racing circuit to remember the 75th anniversary of a moment that heralded a new era for motor racing.

We all know by now that the 1950 GP of Europe was also the first race of the new World Championship of Drivers – an innovation that marked a step change in the development of top-tier racing.

The location of last month’s gathering was the Silverstone Museum, which was launching a new exhibition timed to open exactly 75 years since that inaugural race and aimed at bringing F1 history to life with a collection of rarely seen documents, some sensational cars and even a recreation of the (somewhat prosaic) scaffold on which the royal family waved off the start of the race.

Among the highlights, which will run until September 30, are the BRM P578 driven by Graham Hill which will be displayed for the first time alongside son Damon’s championship-winning Williams FW18; a Lotus 72; Niki Lauda’s first point-scoring F1 car the BRM P160; the Williams FW14B that took Nigel Mansell to world championship glory and George Russell’s 2023 Mercedes W14.

The exhibition tells the story of F1 from that first race in 1950 up to the present day. But despite the plethora of cars some of the most intriguing items are documents from the BRDC archive, of which the museum staff are custodians. These include a 1950 race programme, the lunch menu for King George VI and signing-on sheets featuring the likes of Alain Prost, Stefan Bellof, Mansell and Ayrton Senna. There’s an eyebrow-raising letter exchange from the vaults of the BRDC between Enzo Ferrari and club secretary John Eason Gibson, in which the former complains bitterly about having to foot the cost of transporting his cars to the 1956 British GP.

“There is no better place to be celebrating the history of F1 than right here,” says Rob Jaina, head of learning and engagement at the museum. “That first race took place just the other side of these walls. And from there we had Moss and Hawthorn and then Hunt, Lauda and Schumacher – they all raced right here. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this unique collection of F1 cars and exhibits, some of which have never been on display before.”