With the Australian Grand Prix due to take place in Melbourne in March 2025, the F.I.A. Formula One World Championship enters its 75th year. Unsurprisingly, the sport has come a long way from its first race, on an unused airfield near Silverstone in England. The whole affair back then had the air of a provincial horse race. There were tweed jackets aplenty and a refreshment tent of the sort you might find at a village fête. The race was conducted in the presence of King George VI, the future Queen Mother Elizabeth, and the Earl and Countess of Mountbatten, who sat on a hastily assembled framework of scaffolding poles with a tarpaulin stretched across the top.
All in all, very different from the spectacle of the Bahrain Grand Prix that I attended in February this year. As the winter sun dipped beneath the horizon, the infernal roar of thousands upon thousands of horsepower filled the air as the race got underway. As dusk faded into the ink-black darkness of the Arabian night, I watched the dramatically floodlit race, and the protracted post-race fireworks, from the top story of the BIC Tower, as well known in Bahrain as the Eiffel Tower is in France, and with a better light show.
