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Formula 1 1952

With the withdrawal of Alfa Romeo, the 1952 World Championship would be competed to F2 rules but the prospect of competitive Formula 1 remained if BRM could sort out their problems and challenge Ferrari.

Ferraris were 1-2-3-4 at the opening race and 1-2 at Albi, with the Thinwall Ferrari having won at Goodwood in between. The BRM eventually came good, winning two libre races in the autumn but both against minimal opposition. F1, like F2, belonged to Ferrari.

The ten most significant F1 races of the 1952 season are shown below. Note that half of these were actually held to 'Formule Libre' races.

The races

06 Apr 1952 > Gran Premio del Valentino at Parco del Valentino

14 Apr 1952 > Richmond Trophy at Goodwood

01 Jun 1952 > Grand Prix d'Albi

02 Jun 1952 > Sussex International Trophy at Goodwood (libre)

07 Jun 1952 > Ulster Trophy at Dundrod

19 Jul 1952 > Daily Express Formule Libre Trophy at Silverstone (libre)

02 Aug 1952 > Daily Mail International Trophy Race at Boreham

23 Aug 1952 > Scottish Daily Express National Trophy at Turnberry (libre)

27 Sep 1952 > Daily Graphic Goodwood Trophy at Goodwood (libre)

11 Oct 1952 > Daily Record International Trophy at Charterhall (libre)

Previous: the 1951 F1 season

Next: the 1953 F1 season

1949-1953 F1 seasons

David McKinney

This area of ORC is dedicated to the memory of David McKinney (8 April 1945 - 25 February 2014) who was a great friend to OldRacingCars.com and one of its key contributors. Together with Adam Ferrington, David researched this area with his usual rigour and compiled the definitive race history of these seasons. David is best known for his expertise on the Maserati 250F and for his peerless knowledge of motor racing in his native New Zealand but the range of his knowledge was vast, matched only by the generosity with which he shared his knowledge. He is greatly missed.

The research

Researching F1 in this early period is very different to researching the 1960s and 1970s. Before the late 1960s, there were no neat tables of chassis numbers available as a start point in contemporary publications and it was quite common for even the model of the car to go unmentioned in a report. Although Ferrari, Gordini, Maserati and Talbot-Lago numbered their cars in a reasonably consistent fashion, HWM, Alta and others did not and Alfa Romeo numbered frames and engines separately, assembling a car as required for each race and only labelling it with the entry number for that race.

However, we have the advantage that no two cars were ever identical - no two Ferraris are quite the same and Maserati 4CLTs and HWMs each have features that are unique to them. A trained eye can spot these differences in contemporary pictures and construct a race history for each car. The other major resource we have for this period is Denis Jenkinson's Racing Car Review, in which he covered each team in considerable detail, often giving important clues to individual car identities.

The results used here were compiled by David McKinney and Adam Ferrington from a range of sources including Autocourse, Motor Sport and Autosport. Individual car identities were also compiled by Adam and David.

Other sources include Talbot-Lago de Course by Pierre Abeillon, Les Gordini by Robert Jarraud, Gordini – Un Sorcier, Une Equipe by Christian Huet, The History of English Racing Automobiles by David Weguelin and Michael Müller's immaculately researched histories of all the 1948-1950 Ferrari 125s.

Since David's sad death, Adam and Allen have agreed that these pages will remain unaltered from now on, as a lasting testimony to David's expertise.