Get up to speed with Silverstone Museum’s epic F1 exhibition

“F1 is always special because it’s the first thing you remember watching, the hook that gets you into motorsport,” said Rob, 49. “I used to walk around the paddock here at Silverstone trying to get the drivers’ autographs.”

Rob still spends much of his time at Silverstone, the Northamptonshire racing circuit that is the home of the British Grand Prix. He’s a marshal – one of the volunteers who ensure the safety and smooth running of motorsport events – and the Head of Learning and Engagement at the Silverstone Museum. The museum, which opened in October 2019, is housed in an old aircraft hangar which was converted into a state-of-the-art exhibition space with the help of £9.1MMillion of National Lottery funding.

Prior to becoming one of F1’s most iconic circuits, Silverstone was an RAF airfield. Many photographs of the first Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship (held at the racetrack on 13th May 1950) show the hangar in the background.

Rob said, “The start line of the 1950 race was by the side of our building. In the old photographs you can see Giuseppe Farina [who won the race in his Alfa Romeo] getting into his car with the hangar in the background.”

The museum’s link to the historic 1950 race makes it the perfect location for a new exhibition celebrating the 75th anniversary of F1. Featuring a line-up of legendary cars, including machines driven by Lando Norris and Graham Hill, the exhibition celebrates every decade of a sport that now has an estimated 750M fans worldwide.

Exhibits include:

• The BRM P578 driven by Graham Hill which will be displayed for the first time alongside son Damon’s championship winning Williams FW18
• The legendary Lotus 72 sporting one of motorsport’s most iconic liveries
• The BRM P160 - Niki Lauda's first point-scoring F1 car
• The FW14B – the car that took Nigel Mansell to World Championship glory
• The 2023 Mercedes W14 driven by George Russell
• The 2009 Brawn driven by Jenson Button to his world title
• The 2000 McLaren MP4/15 driven by David Coulthard – a British Grand Prix winner

The exhibition is a great way to understand the F1 phenomenon, the skill of the top drivers and sophistication of their cars. Rob said, “An F1 team is made up of more than 1000 people who are devoted to racing just two cars. There’s a huge mechanism behind the scenes.”

The focus of all this attention is a dream machine that pumps out 1000 brake horsepower from a V6 engine despite weighing less than three-quarters of a tonne.

Not surprisingly, there are very few people who can race such cars at speeds capable of securing an F1 victory. Rob explained, “What the drivers do to push these cars to the limit is incredibly impressive. They’re able to process information from the car and their team and make split-second decisions.

“For example, it’s hard to imagine any of us would notice if we lost half a pound of pressure in one of our tyres, but an F1 driver would. They’re changing the aerodynamics of the car by fractions of millimeters in ways that will change their lap time. There are very, very few people in the world who can operate at this level.”

The exhibition will be open to the public until late September 2025.

22nd May 2025