
Juan Manuel Fangio

You must always strive to be the best, but you must never believe that you are…
Juan Manuel Fangio
The name Juan Manuel Fangio is undoubtedly known to every motorsport fan. Being one of the greatest drivers of Formula-1, the Argentine in the 1950s was a consummate master of racing circuits, the idol of millions and the holder of many records, some of which lasted for decades. His name became a true legend, he was admired by both his friends and his rivals, and all subsequent generations of Formula-1 champions worshiped him, for the most part recognizing the Argentine as the best racer of all time. Having spent only seven full seasons and 51 Grands Prix in Formula-1, Fangio managed to achieve 24 wins, 29 pole positions and five world titles, percentages far ahead of any other Formula-1 driver, including Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton. How did he manage to achieve such incredible success?
Certainly, Fangio's first and most important asset was his racing talent. His ability to drive the car, his complete and absolute control over it was truly amazing and made his driving almost infallible. Perhaps only two of the Argentine's main rivals, Alberto Ascari and Stirling Moss, possessed the same skill in those years, however, unlike them, Fangio possessed another truly unique skill. The Argentine, like no one else, knew the limits of his car, knew how to take care of it, he could drive at the same time as fast as possible and incredibly reliable, and it was this skill that ultimately gave him an advantage over all his rivals and tilted the scales of Fortune in his favor.
“To finish first, first you must finish,” says the old racing proverb, and Fangio became, perhaps, the first Formula-1 driver who fully realized its justice and built each of his races based on this wisdom. Having acquired the necessary skills in car repair as a teenager, Juan Manuel made full use of the experience gained in racing and before each start, together with his mechanic, he thoroughly checked every component to eliminate any technical malfunction. However, the matter was not limited to just the pre-launch preparation of the car. Realizing that a racing bolid experiences particular stress precisely at the moment of start, the Argentinean always started off very smoothly, and that is why he very rarely managed to win the start, despite the fact that almost all the Grand Prix in which he took part, Juan Manuel invariably started from the first row. Further, having started the race, Fangio, as a rule, spent the first laps quite carefully, leaving the hotheads to sort things out among themselves, while he himself lapped the tires and gave his car the opportunity to get into working mode. In this, his approach to racing was very different from the same Ascari, who in every Grand Prix preferred to rush forward from the very start and usually either quit or brought a whole abyss to his pursuers at the finish line. For Fangio, the real race began only a few laps after the start, after which he began his Great Hunt, which usually became the main decoration of the race and ended, as a rule, with the complete capitulation of his rivals.
Another irreplaceable advantage of Fangio was his racing instinct, which allowed him to accurately assess the situation on the track and instantly react to danger, which more than once saved his life, as was the case, for example, in the Monaco Grand Prix in 1950 or in the "24 Hours of Le Mans" in 1955. It is also impossible not to mention the Argentinean’s amazing endurance, his ability to calculate strength and incredible will to win, a striking example of which was the Argentine Grand Prix in 1955. In addition, speaking about the successes of the Argentinean, one cannot help but recall that four of his five titles were won in different cars, which was another truly unique achievement. Many experts, mentioning this fact, attribute to the Argentine another unique ability to choose the best team from all possible, presenting him as a kind of “walker” who, in pursuit of championship titles, was ready to break off any relations with previous teams. However, in fact, this was not entirely true. Of course, every driver strives to get the best car, and Fangio was no exception, however, the Argentine has always had excellent and trusting relationships with all teams, with the exception, perhaps, of Ferrari, and the concept of “loyalty” was not at all an empty sound for him. Most likely, if Alfa Romeo and then Mercedes had not left Formula-1, Juan Manuel could have spent his entire career driving cars in only these teams, without even thinking about moving to others. As for the so-called “choice”, you need to remember that in those years only four or five factory teams competed in Formula-1 annually, of which only one or two could actually fight for victories, therefore, leaving one winner team, the Argentine inevitably ended up in another.
Listing the numerous advantages of the Argentine champion, one would think that he had no flaws at all, however, even he had his own Achilles heel, which was called the British Grand Prix. For many years, for some unknown reason, this Grand Prix, either at Silverstone or at Aintree, was not given to Fangio, and there was always a driver who was stronger than him on British soil. However, a great champion would never have become great if he had not been able to turn his weakness into his strength, and that is exactly what happened in 1956, when the Argentine won his only British Grand Prix. I’ll tell you about this race a little later, but for now I’ll start from the very beginnings of the biography of the Maestro.
Juan Manuel Fangio was born on June 24, 1911 in the small Argentine town of Balcarce, located in the southern province of Buenos Aires near the city of Mar del Plata, in a family with Italian roots in the second generation. Juan Manuel's grandfather, Giuseppe, emigrated from Italy with his entire family in 1887 and, arriving in Argentina, settled on a farm purchased in Balcarce, engaged in the production of charcoal. Juan Manuel's father, who left Italy at the age of seven, grew up on the farm and subsequently also settled there, becoming a builder-mason. Although not very wealthy, the Fangio family was quite large, and Juan Manuel became the fourth of six children of Loreto and Hermina Fangio.

Juan Manuel's father wanted him to follow in his footsteps, however, the future five-time world champion showed his leadership qualities from the very childhood, and spending his entire life on the family farm was not the limit of his dreams. As a child, Juan Manuel, like other Argentine boys, was very fond of football, and, demonstrating very good results, it was with this sport that he initially associated all his future successes. From these same times, the Argentinean also brought down his world-famous nickname “El Chueco” (bow-legged), for his amazing ability to bend his left leg so that it seemed to wrap around the ball.
Having decided to connect his life with sports, the Argentine did not study well, and at the age of 13 he dropped out of school, thereby receiving his ticket to adulthood. Having, in addition to a passion for football, a certain interest in various mechanisms, Juan Manuel got a job as an assistant in a car repair shop, and it was there that he received not only practical knowledge of the internal structure of cars, but also his first driving experience. Meanwhile, his passion for football in his youth almost led to fatal consequences when, during one of the games, he contracted serious pneumonia, however, even after being bedridden for two whole months, his love for this sport did not weakened.
Soon, at the age of 21, Juan Manuel enlisted in the army, and, having demonstrated excellent driving skills at the cadet school, he immediately received the position of personal driver from his command officer. However, due to his state of health, Fangio did not have to serve for long, and already in 1933 the Argentine returned to Balcarce, where he took up his football career in earnest, becoming a member of the Mar del Plata club team.

However, while playing football, Juan Manuel did not forget about his second hobby, therefore, having converted the barn on the family farm into a garage, he spent almost all his free time from his main job assembling his own racing car, created on the basis of the Ford Model A.
In 1936, when this car was finally completed, Fangio began his racing career, but at first, in order not to irritate his family, he went to the start under the pseudonym Rivadavia, which was the name of the first President of Argentina. At the same time, despite the fact that even then Juan Manuel clearly demonstrated his remarkable talent, he failed to achieve any great success behind the wheel of this car.

In 1939, Fangio, with the help of his friends, purchased a new Chevrolet, and with it his racing career immediately took off, while football was completely forgotten. In 1940-41, Juan Manuel had already made a name for himself by winning both Tourismo Carretera endurance championships, considered at the time the most prestigious motor racing in Argentina. His first major victory Fangio won in 1940 in the Gran Premio del Norte, which the Argentine himself described as a “terrible test.” The route of this race started in Buenos Aires, passed through the Andes mountains and Bolivia to the capital of Peru, Lima, and then followed the same route back to Buenos Aires, thus covering almost 10,000 km.

During this race, the drivers and their teammates had to drive in the most extreme conditions: through hot deserts, tropical jungles, icy mountain peaks with steep cliffs and thin frosty air, from which both people and their cars suffered... It is not surprising that, given such harsh conditions, only a third of all participants managed to get back to Buenos-Aires, and this despite the fact that each car was filled to capacity with spare parts. During this race, Fangio’s car also stopped more than once with various breakdowns: first, the Argentine ran into a huge stone and damaged the driveshaft, then in Bolivia, a local car crashed into him, bending the axle, and a little later, a fan that came loose made a hole in the radiator... Fangio had to fix all these breakdowns himself, together with his co-driver, sometimes even at the cost of a night's rest, but the result of this 15-day marathon was his convincing victory, and his name was remembered by many that day so as never to be forgotten.

In 1941, Juan Manuel won his second Turismo Carretera title as well as another prestigious Grand Prix Getúlio Vargas, which took place on the public roads of central and south-eastern Brazil, but soon the echoes of World War II reached Argentina, and Fangio had to forget about racing for a while. During the period of forced downtime, Juan Manuel started his own business, earning his living by transporting goods and trading in scarce tires.

The Argentine managed to return to racing only in 1947, however, as soon as he got behind the wheel of a racing car, he immediately proved that he was in excellent shape, winning the Premio de Mecánica Argentina, and also becoming 3rd in the Buenos Aires Grand Prix as well as in the Turismo Carretera Championship. In 1948, his success continued, however, it was then that Fangio had his first serious accident, which almost put an end to his entire future racing career. This happened at the penultimate stage of the Turismo Carretera Championship, which was called the South American Grand Prix and the route of which ran almost across the entire continent, from Buenos Aires to Caracas. That race did not go well for Fangio from the very beginning, and due to a broken crown gear, the Argentine finished the first stage one of the last, so he had to push hard in the following stages. Using all his skills, Juan Manuel managed to catch up with the leaders by Peru, however, upon reaching Lima, an unpleasant surprise awaited the drivers there. As soon as they all settled in for the night, local organizers immediately woke them up and forced them to continue the race, explaining this by some kind of popular unrest. Returning to the wheel, Fangio drove on, but about halfway through the next section, driving along the coastal road past the village of Huanchaco, in conditions of thick fog and almost zero visibility, Juan Manuel took a turn too quickly and flew off the road, after which his car rolled head over heels along a high slope. During these somersaults, Fangio's co-driver Daniel Urrutia was thrown out of the car, while Juan Manuel himself was luckier and remained inside.

Arriving at the scene of the accident, one of Fangio's main rivals, Oscar Galvez, immediately rushed to the rescue of his compatriot and helped him out of the car, while another driver, Luciano Marcilla, took Juan Manuel and Daniel to the nearest hospital. Fangio himself got off quite easily then, with just injuries to his neck, but his teammate was much less lucky, and due to serious head injuries, he soon died without regaining consciousness.
This tragedy shook Juan Manuel to the core, and, feeling guilty for what happened, the Argentine even fell into depression and seriously considered quitting racing. Fortunately for millions of motorsport fans, this did not happen, while Fangio himself opened a new page in his racing biography the following year, 1949.
A year earlier, Argentine President Juan Peron, who was a passionate motorsport fan, decided to create a national racing team that would represent his country in Europe, and, being one of the strongest Argentine drivers, Juan Manuel led the first line-up of this team, having at his disposal of one of the most common cars of that time, Maserati 4CLT/48.

As soon as he arrived in the Old World, Fangio immediately showed his class, winning the Grand Prix of San Remo, Pau, Roussillon, Marseille, Monza, San Martin and Albi and thus becoming the most successful driver of the European season.

At the same time, perhaps the only one who could boast of no less achievements this year was the Italian Alberto Ascari, who won five Grand Prix, so we can say that it was from then on that the confrontation between these two greatest racers of the 50s began.
