Belgian GP 1950

Belgian GP, 1950

The fifth World Championship event within five weeks, the Belgian GP followed on the heels of theBritish,Monaco,Indianapolis andSwiss races and the toll was beginning to tell with only 14 cars arriving atSpa.

These included the dominantAlfa Romeos ofGiuseppe Farina,Juan-Manuel Fangio andLuigi Fagioli.Ferrari was down to two 125s forLuigi Villoresi andAlberto Ascari - although Ascari had a new V12 engine to try out.

The factoryTalbot Lago team had three cars forLouis Rosier,Yves Giraud-Cabantous andPhilippe Etancelin (standing in forEugene Martin, who had been injured at theSwiss GP).

The rest of the field was made up ofTalbot Lagos, notably one forRaymond Sommer, a singleAlta forGeoffrey Crossley and oneMaserati forAntonio Branca.

Farina andFangio were fastest as usual in practice withFagioli unable to match them.Sommer split theFerraris in his oldTalbot Lago. The race would be a similar story: theAlfas went off on their own and Sommer battled with the two Ferraris. When the Alfas stopped for fuel Sommer found himself in the unlikely position of being race leader. Unfortunately his engine blew up.

Ascari took the lead but he had to stop for fuel and that meant that theAlfas went ahead again withFangio leadingFarina andFagioli. Farina suffered transmission trouble in the closing laps and dropped to fourth behind the best of the survivingTalbot Lagos being driven byRosier. Ascari finished fifth.