The day the Daily Express airlifted a racing car to Silverstone... and what happened next

For Britain's McLaren, this season's Grand Prix championship looks like it's in the bag. With 12 out of 15 victories claimed, only a dramatic upset can halt the Woking-based team's cruise to glory. British-built cars have won a grand total of 537 Formula One races, almost twice as many as any other country.

But 75 years ago, that looked like an impossible dream.

August 26, 1950, should have been a glorious day for British motor sport. Ever since the end of the Second World War, racing fans had been promised a competitive British-made Grand Prix car. Finally, at the Daily Express-sponsored International Trophy race at Silverstone, a former RAF station, the wait was over - or should have been.

This was the debut race of the 400 bhp V16 BRM, the most advanced racing car Britain had built. Armed with a Rolls-Royce supercharger, like those that had given the Spitfire's Merlin engines their extra Battle of Britain-winning oomph, it produced so much power that wheelspin was possible in allfive gears.

The new machine almost didn't make it as it needed a last-minute engine change. Race sponsors the Daily Express, hearing about this 11th-hour panic, arranged for it to be airlifted from BRM's workshops in Bourne, Lincolnshire, to the track.

When the start flag dropped, the field surged forward - all except the BRM, which remained stranded on the start line. The moment its driver Raymond Sommer lifted the clutch, both drive shafts had sheared, the enormous torque of the V16 was too much for them.

Mechanics rushed to assist, but Sommer levered himself from the cockpit and walked away in disgust. A group of spectators near the start line jeered and threw halfpennies at the car.

Alfa Romeo cruised to victory, just as they had in the British Grand Prix three months before. And they made it look so effortless. Giuseppe "Nino" Farina, the victor who was crowned the first Formula One world champion, delivered a masterclass in driving style that left a deep impression on the as-yet-unknown Stirling Moss.

"I saw a man motor racing as though he was reclining comfortably in an armchair, nonchalantly. Nothing tense, just a picture of relaxation and ease. Here was a style I had never seen before," he recalled.

The spectators looked on in disbelief. Many of them, recently demobbed from military duty, had little reason to fear their former foes. British troops fighting the Italians in North Africa had joked that their tanks had only one forward gear and four in reverse. And Alfa Romeo's factory in Milan had been completely flattened in 1944 by Allied bombers, some of whose crews had been trained at RAF Silverstone.

But as the Allies fought Germany's Wehrmacht up through Italy, Alfa engineers dismantled the racing cars and hid them away in rural Lombardy, in farms, stables and a cheese factory. After VE Day, amid the rubble of their factory, Alfa was reduced to making stoves and window frames. Motor racing was surely hardly a priority for Orazio Satta Puliga, who led Alfa's post-war recovery.

A prudent and pragmatic manager, he nevertheless felt he had no choice. For him, racing was "a kind of affliction, something that has more to do with the heart than the brain". Meanwhile, just over 100 miles to the south west in Maranello, former Alfa team boss Enzo Ferrari, picking his way through the remains of his own bombed-out workshops, resolved to build the first car to bear his own name which, unlike the BRM, won its very first race, the Rome Grand Prixin 1947.

Not since 1923 had a British car won a Grand Prix. But Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn, stars of a new generation of drivers who had grown up under skies swarming with Spitfires and Hurricanes, were determined to putthat right. They started to make their mark in minor races behind the wheel of home-grown 500cc racing cars made by John Cooper in his father's garage in Surbiton, Surrey. Moss promised the press he would "never go foreign as long as there is anything on wheels produced in England". But within two years he was driving for Mercedes-Benz.

Hawthorn was having none of it. Barely out of his teens, sporting a flat cap, bow tie, tweed jacket and brogues, he looked more at home propping up the bar in a country pub than behind the wheel. Whenever he travelled to races in Germany, he made a point of displaying a copy of The Scourge of the Swastika, one of the first books about Nazi war crimes, on the parcel shelf of his car.

Hawthorn's hard-charging race style caught the attention of Enzo Ferrari, who offered him a drive. Hawthorn parked his patriotism and delivered the Italian seven wins, but life in Maranello took its toll on the young Englishman - who complained there was "no crumpet, no beer and no decent food". But the next two seasons driving British cars were a washout.

When Mercedes withdrew from F1 at the end of 1955, Moss was without a drive. At a motoring journalists' dinner at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, Moss put his choice - British or Italian - to the vote. Reason trumped patriotism; the decision went six-nine for Italy.

By 1957, Hawthorn was back with Ferrari in Maranello. But he was not on a retainer. He only received a share of the start and prize money, and after a fiery crash in Sicily left him with second-degree burns, Enzo Ferrari billed him for his hospital care.

Finally, in 1958, Britain was in sight of its first World Championship, with its two stars pitted against each other. Moss, back in a British car, this time a Vanwall and Hawthorn in his Ferrari. It went right down to the wire.

Moss arrived at the last race eight points behind Hawthorn. To win, he would have to come first and set the fastest lap. Hawthorn only had to come second to secure the championship.

But finally, the British car was the one to beat.

Moss led from the start while his teammates sought to keep Hawthorn out of second place. But neither of the other Vanwalls finished. Moss, despite his victory in a British car, missed out on the prize; he would never become world champion.

Hawthorn had realised every British driver's dream and won the World Championship. But in a bright red Italian car.

It was a watershed moment. The next year, British Cooper cars swept the board. Slim, light and rear-engined, they made the competition look antiquated. Lotus followed suit and even BRM finally became competitive. From then on, Ferrari had a fight on its hands, but never gave up.

Today "Motorsport Valley", an area stretching from Silverstone to Surrey, is the global centre of Formula One. Seven teams are based there, including Red Bull and Mercedes-Benz.

According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 41,000 people are employed in the business which delivers an estimated £7billion annually in revenue.

McLaren have just won their 201st Grand Prix. But with a grand total of 248 F1 victories over three quarters of a century, Ferrari's red cars retain the lead.

Superveloce: How Italian Cars Conquered the World, by Peter Grimsdale (Simon & Schuster, £25) is out now