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The modern era of Formula One Grand Prix racing began in 1950, but the roots of F1 are far earlier, tracing to the pioneering road races in France in the 1890s, through the Edwardian years, the bleak twenties, the German domination of the 1930s and the early post-war years of Italian supremacy.

At the birth of racing, cars were upright and heavy, roads were tarred sand or wood, reliability was problematic, drivers were accompanied by mechanics, and races — usually on public roads from town to town — were impossibly long by modern standards. Regarded as the first motor race proper was a 1,200 km road race from Paris to Bordeaux and back in 1895, won by Émile Levassor with his Panhard et Levassor in 48 hours. One of the most successful drivers of the early years was Fernand Charron, who won the Paris-Bordeaux race in 1899, also in a Panhard, at the blazing average speed of 29.9 mph.

The first race using the appellation "Grand Prix" was 1901's French Grand Prix at Le Mans, won by Ferencz Szisz with a Renault, who covered the 700 miles at 63.0 mph. In 1908 the Targa Florio in Sicily saw the appearance of "pits," shallow emplacements dug by the side of the track where mechanics could labor with the detachable rims on early GP car tires — themselves a major technical improvement over the earlier technique of permanently attached wheels and spokes. But even so, racing cars of the early years were too heavy and fast for their tires; Christian Lauteschalnger's winning Mercedes shredded 10 tires in the 1908 French Grand Prix at Dieppe!

In 1914, the massive 4 1/2 litre Mercedes of Daimler-Benz dominated the French Grand Prix at Lyons — 20 laps of a 23.3 mile circuit — taking the first three places and introducing control of drivers by signal from the pits. During World War I, racing was halted in Europe, and many drivers participated in the U.S. Indianapolis 500. Enzo Ferrari — who's real fame was to follow as a team manager and manufacturer with Scuderia Ferrari, formed in 1929 to race Alfa Roméo P2s —- finished second in the 1920 Voiturette race at Le Mans, the first international road race in France in six years.

By tradition the Italian racing driver in action is an excitable character given to shouting, gesticulating, waving his fists, baring his teeth and in general giving way to his emotions. Tazio Nuvolari filled this role splendidly.

The Farmer's Son - Cyril Posthumus

The first (and, until Dan Gurney's Eagle-Weslake at Spa-Francorchamps in 1967, the only) Grand Prix victory by an American-built car was by Jimmy Murphy in the 1921 French Grand Prix at Le Mans, driving a Duesnberg. Among the best of the 1920s manufacturers were Bugatti, whose straight-eight Type 35Bs won the French and Spanish GPs in 1929 and the Monaco, French and Belgian GPs in 1930, and Fiat, which introduced the supercharger for the first time in 1923.

The Great Depression of the early 1930s led to a lack of money and interest in Grand Prix racing, but saw the emergence of the legendary Tazio Nuvolari, whose wins in the Alfa Romeo P3 "Monza" in the Mille Miglia, at Monaco and the Italian GP at Monza were stunning. His victory in the 1933 Monaco GP was the first in which staring grid positions were determined by qualifying times. But in 1934, the balance of power in racing would begin to shift from Italy to Germany, with the emergence of factory teams from Auto Union (now Audi) and Mercedes-Benz, behind massive financial support from the Third Reich government on orders from Adolph Hitler.

Polo is thought to have originated in China and Persia around 2,000 years ago. The name of the game may well come from the word “pholo” meaning 'ball' or 'ballgame' in the Balti language of Tibet.

The first recorded game took place in 600BC between the Turkomans and Persians (the Turkomans won). In the fourth century AD, King Sapoor II of Persia learned to play, aged seven. In the 16th century, a polo ground (300 yards long and with goalposts eight yards apart) was built at Ispahan, then the capital, by Shah Abbas the Great.

The Moguls were largely responsible for taking the game from Persia to the east and, by the 16th century, the Emperor Babur had established it in India. (It had already long been played in China and Japan, but had died out by the time the West came in contact with those countries). In the 1850s, British tea planters discovered the game in Manipur (Munipoor) on the Burmese border with India. They founded the world’s first polo club at Silchar, west of Manipur. Other clubs followed and today the oldest in the world is the Calcutta Club which founded in 1862.

Malta followed in 1868 because soldiers and naval officers stopped off there on their way home from India. In 1869, Edward “Chicken” Hartopp, of the 10th Hussars, read an account of the game in The Field magazine while stationed at Aldershot and, with fellow officers, organised the first game. Then known as “hockey on horseback,” it was played on a hastily-rolled Hounslow Heath where a shortlist of about 10 rules was also hastily assembled.

But, it was John Watson (1856-1908), of the 13th Hussars, who formulated the first real rules of the game in India in the 1870s. He later formed the celebrated Freebooters team who won the first Westchester Cup match in 1886. He was a key player at the All Ireland Polo Club which was founded in 1872 by Horace Rochfort of Clogrenane, County Carlow.

The first polo club in England was Monmouthshire, founded in 1872 by Captain Francis “Tip” Herbert (1845- 1922), of the 7th Lancers, at his brother's estate at Clytha Park, near Abergavenny. Others, including Hurlingham, followed quickly.

Handicaps were introduced by the USA in 1888 and by England and India in 1910.

The first official match in Argentina took place on 3rd September 1875. The game had been taken there by English and Irish engineers and ranchers.

In 1876, Lt Col Thomas St.Quintin, of the 10th Hussars, introduced the game to Australia. He is credited with being the Father of Australian Polo. Two of his brothers stayed on there as ranchers and helped the game to develop. In the same year, polo was introduced to the USA by James Gordon Bennett Junior who had seen the game at Hurlingham during a visit to England.