Motor racing had been staged on a different road circuit near Tripoli since 1925, organised partly as a tool for the Italian colonial administration to raise capital and promote tourism in what was then Italian Tripolitania. After early financial disappointments, the president of the Tripoli automobile club, Egidio Sforzini, resolved to build a permanent European-standard circuit. Capital was raised through Italian government funding tied to a colonial exhibition, and the new track at Mellaha Lake was completed in time for the 1933 race season.
The circuit was 13.140 km (8.165 miles) in length, running around the Mellaha Air Base. Its most recognisable feature was a brilliant white concrete tower positioned opposite a large frontstretch grandstand capable of holding up to ten thousand spectators. Mellaha was equipped with starting lights, an innovation for the era, and its overall standard of amenities rivalled the best circuits in continental Europe.
The Tripoli Grand Prix operated in conjunction with the Libyan state lottery. From October 1932 to 16 April 1933, the Italian colonial government sold lottery tickets at 12 lire each. Thirty lottery tickets were drawn at random eight days before the race and assigned to corresponding race entries. The holder of the winning car's ticket would receive three million lire, second place two million, and third place one million.
The inaugural Mellaha race in 1933 has been surrounded by long-standing accusations of result fixing: the allegation, first published by Mercedes racing manager Alfred Neubauer in his 1958 memoir, was that Tazio Nuvolari, Achille Varzi, and Baconin Borzacchini conspired with their corresponding ticket holders to determine the finishing order and share the lottery prize among themselves. Subsequent research has suggested the story is likely a myth invented by Neubauer, who was not present at the race.
From 1933 to 1938 the Tripoli Grand Prix was run to Formula Libre regulations, with no weight or engine restrictions, making it one of the fastest races in the world. From 1935 onward the German Silver Arrows cars of Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union dominated proceedings, as they did across European racing. By 1937, with Grand Prix engines producing well over 500 horsepower, engine displacement was limited to 3,000 cc from 1938 onward. Hermann Lang won with the new V12 Mercedes-Benz W154, which produced over 450 hp despite its smaller capacity compared to the unrestricted machines of the year before.
The hospitality surrounding the event matched the circuit's ambition. Drivers stayed at the Hotel Uaddan in Tripoli, which offered a casino and dinner theater, and were entertained at the palace of Marshal Italo Balbo, the Governor-General of Libya. This combination of spectacular facilities, generous prize money, and lavish treatment made the Tripoli Grand Prix one of the most eagerly anticipated dates on the pre-war calendar.
In 1939, tired of continued German dominance, the Italian organisers restructured the race as a Voiturette event for 1,500 cc supercharged cars. This category featured the factory Alfa Romeo 158 Alfetta and Maserati 4CL, as well as a streamlined Maserati. Mercedes-Benz, anticipating that the smaller Voiturette formula might be adopted for full Grand Prix racing, developed a new V8-powered model, the Mercedes-Benz W165, specifically for this race. Entering only two cars, Mercedes nonetheless won with Hermann Lang for the third consecutive year — each time in a different car built to different regulations.
The final Tripoli Grand Prix was held on 12 May 1940. Italy remained officially neutral as the Phoney War gave way to the Battle of France. Only Alfa Romeo 158 and Maserati factory entries attended alongside some independent Maserati 6CM cars, 23 in total. Giuseppe Farina was fastest in practice and took victory — his only major pre-war win. It proved a pyrrhic result: the Tripoli Grand Prix was never held again as fighting engulfed the Mediterranean theatre.
The Mellaha Circuit represented one of the most ambitious motorsport projects of the pre-war era, proof that high-quality road racing infrastructure could be established outside the traditional Western European heartland of the sport. Its lottery-linked race format was unique in the Grand Prix calendar and generated levels of prize money that made Tripoli financially attractive to the top teams and drivers. The circuit's location inside the perimeter of what became Mellaha Air Base eventually saw the site absorbed into military use. The Tripoli Grand Prix's eight-year run on the Mellaha Lake layout left it as the defining motorsport legacy of Italian Libya, and the 1939 race that drew out the Mercedes-Benz W165 is remembered as one of the more striking examples of how regulatory changes could reshape the Silver Arrows' Grand Prix strategy in the final pre-war seasons.