Sixty years ago, Formula 1 was very different to what you see on your television, mobile and tablet today; as was the world that it existed in. The term 'F1' itself was relatively new. Coined in 1946 when Grand Prix racing resumed after World War II, the F1 world championship started in 1950, a year after motorcycle grand prix racing's own championship got underway. The Monaco Grand Prix, was of course on the calendar for the 1950 F1 season as its importance to grand prix racing had been established since the first edition in 1929.
JOINED THROUGH THE PASSAGE OF TIME
By the 1955 season the pecking order in F1 sort of resembled what it is today. Mercedes was emphatically the class of the field with Ferrari a long way behind but able to capitalize on a slip-up by the 'silver arrows' that had returned to grand prix racing in 1954 after - like every sports team in Allied occupied Germany - being banned from competition.
Just like how the Mercedes AMG F1 team of today mastered the 1.6-litre, turbocharged, V-6 engine formula the W196 used in 1954 and 1955 stood out due to perfecting and mastering a technology that was relevant to car manufacturers. The use of a desmodromic valve system - one that did away with the use of a spring and used a camshaft was one of the factors that made the extremely professional and well prepared Mercedes team a clear edge over the competition.
Unpredictability has been a factor in motorsport since the beginning, however, including in dominant seasons like 1954 and 1955 when Mercedes were the team to beat. And not just because of their technical mastery, but because just like today, they had the services of two of the best drivers in the business.
HEAVY HITTERS; PAST AND PRESENT
While Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg both have a long way to go in their career, in some sense the two can be compared to Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss; the two superstars behind the wheel for Mercedes.
Like Fangio, Hamilton is considered to be the best in the business in terms of talent, won a title for Mercedes and is statistically one of the most prolific drivers in F1. Rosberg is also considered to be a talented driver but has fallen short of winning the title, although the German would probably not want to be considered one of the 'best drivers to have never won an F1 title' by the time his career is done.
Comparisons like this, while very much superficial, do serve as a means to link the F1 of today to the way it existed before after you cut through the froth like the much publicized glamour, groupies and money that surrounds it. Grand Prix racing will always come down to a contest between the drivers and the machines they drive.
A RACE OF ATTRITION
And that was pretty much the story of the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix, 60 years in the past from F1's current avatar. It is a story that Ferrari may want repeated on Sunday as it ended with both Fangio and Moss failing to finish and Maurice Trintignant of Ferrari taking the chequered flag!
Of course that is just the headline. The text of that 100-lap, 318 km race (as compared to 78 and 260 km today) was much different to what you would find in a race today, much to the relief of the current field of drivers who respect the heroics of past generations but have little envy of a time when there was at least one fatal crash in F1 a year.
Fangio's Mercedes suffered a transmission failure halfway into the race, which gave Moss the lead that he had to relinquish 19 laps from the finish however, as his engine went up in smoke.
Former two-time world champion Alberto Ascari's Lancia D50 - which would be acquired by Ferrari and driven to the world championship by Fangio the following year - had a most unusual and terrifying crash as he flew off into the harbor at the exit of the chicane following the tunnel section. While the red Italian car sank into the waters of the Mediterranean, Ascari swam out safe and sound.
That left Trintignant to take the win in his Ferrari 625, which was certainly not the result most people would have betted on at the time.
At the time, it was the last opportunity that Mercedes got to win at Monaco in the F1 era of grand prix racing. Following a horrific crash involving one of their cars at the 24 Hour of Le Mans that year - 80 people killed - the German team left F1 as a full works outfit and didn't even begin supplying engines until the 1990s.
Their initially rocky return as a team in 2010 has now led to utter dominance in 2014 and so far in 2015. And also to the chance for us to compare and contrast F1 through the ages, while noticing a famous Italian squad snapping at the heels of Mercedes should they falter.
In case you want to see more than images and go beyond reading words of that 1955 race, check out this video. And then contrast with where we are today after the unstoppable march of time.
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