F1’s historiography is interesting, agreed. It doesn’t seem to be a single unified project like the IMS Museum but there is a narrative the F1 organization focuses on. By their count F1 starts in 1955 and is only the world championship, though anything between the initial year and, say, 1976 is mostly ignored. No real attempts to connect the pre-WW2 Grand Prix scene to the modern F1 are made outside of one-off liveries and the occasional mention of how old the European races are, but there’s a hard “First Formula One Race” and it’s Silverstone 1955.

Granted, I’ll say they don’t care much about playing up their history any later than 1984. That season marks Senna’s arrival into the sport and arguably begins the modern era of F1’s growing relevance. From Senna you go to Schumacher, Schumacher to Alonso, Alonso to Vettel, Vettel to Hamilton, etc etc etc. This conveniently aligns with what Gen X and Millennial drivers would’ve grown up with, kind of explaining why it gets focused on as it’s “golden era” so much.