Juan Manuel Fangio

Early life

Fangio's grandfather, Giuseppe Fangio, emigrated to Buenos Aires from Italy in 1887. Giuseppe was able to buy his own farm near Balcarce, a small town near Mar del Plata in southern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, within three years by making charcoal from tree branches. Giuseppe brought his family, with his 7-year son Loreto, later the racing driver's father, to Argentina from the small central Italian town of Castiglione Messer Marino in the Chieti province of the Abruzzo region. His mother, Herminia Déramo, was from Tornareccio, slightly to the north. Fangio's parents married on 24 October 1903 and lived on farms, where Herminia was a housekeeper and Loreto worked in the building trade, becoming an apprentice stonemason.

Fangio was born in Balcarce on 24 June 1911, San Juan's Day, at 12:10 am. His birth certificate was mistakenly dated 23 June in the Register of Balcarce. He was the fourth of six children. In his childhood he became known as El Chueco, the bandy-legged one, for his skill in bending his left leg around the ball to shoot on goal in football games.

Fangio started his education at School No. 4 of Balcarce, before transferring to School No. 1 and 18 Uriburu Av. When Fangio was 13, he dropped out of school and worked in Miguel Angel Casas auto mechanics' workshop as an assistant mechanic. When he was 16, he started riding as a mechanic for his employer's customers. He developed pneumonia that almost proved fatal, after a football game where hard running had caused a sharp pain in his chest. He was bed-ridden for two months, cared for by his mother.

After recovering, Fangio served compulsory military service at the age of 21. In 1932 he was enlisted at the Campo de Mayo cadet school near Buenos Aires. His driving skills caught the attention of his commanding officer, who appointed Fangio as his official driver. Fangio was discharged before his 22nd birthday, after taking his final physical examination. He returned to Balcarce where he aimed to further his football career. Along with his friend José Duffard he received offers to play at a club based in Mar del Plata. Their teammates at Balcarce suggested the two work on Fangio's hobby of building his own car, and his parents gave him space to do so in a rudimentary shed at the family home.

Early racing career

After finishing his military service, Fangio opened his own garage and raced in local events. He began his racing career in Argentina in 1936, driving a 1929 Ford Model A that he had rebuilt. In the Tourismo Carretera category, Fangio participated in his first race between 18 and 30 October 1938 as the co-driver of Luis Finocchietti. Despite not winning the Argentine Road Grand Prix, Fangio drove most of the way and finished fifth. In November of that year, he entered the "400 km of Tres Arroyos", but it was suspended due to a fatal accident.

During his time racing in Argentina, Fangio drove Chevrolet cars and was Argentine National Champion in 1940 and 1941. One particular race, the 1940 Gran Premio del Norte, was almost 10,000 km (6,250 mi) long, one that Fangio described as a "terrible ordeal". This rally-style race started in Buenos Aires on 27 September, and ran up through the Andes and Bolivia to Lima, Peru, and then back to Buenos Aires, taking 15 days, ending on 12 October with stages held each day. This gruelling race was held in the most difficult and varied conditions imaginable—drivers had to traverse through hot and dry deserts, insect-ridden jungles with crushing humidity, freezing cold and sometimes snowy mountain passes with 1,000 feet (300 m) cliff drops at extremely high altitude, sometimes in total darkness, and cold, highly elevated deserts such as the Atacama- all on a mixture of dirt and paved roads- none of which were closed off to the public. Early in the race Fangio hit a large rock and damaged the car's driveshaft, which was replaced in the next town. Later on at an overnight stop in Bolivia one of the townspeople crashed into Fangio's car and bent an axle—he and his co-driver spent all night fixing it. Following this repair the fan blade got loose and punctured the radiator, which meant another repair before it was later replaced. They drove 150 miles (240 km) through scorching desert with no water, and during a night stint one of the headlights fell off and they had to be secured with his co-driver's necktie. The weather in the Andes mountains and the Atacama was so cold that Fangio drove with his co-driver's arms around him for hours. These mountainous routes in Bolivia and Peru sometimes involved going up to altitudes of 14,000 feet (4,300 m) above sea level—a 40 percent reduction of air thickness, making breathing incredibly difficult and the engine being severely down on power. When Fangio finally got out of the mountains and back to Buenos Aires, after traversing all these external challenges, he had won the race, which was his first big victory.

In 1941, Fangio beat Oscar Gálvez in the Grand Prix Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, which was a six-day, 3,731-kilometre (2,318 mi) public road race starting from and ending at Rio de Janeiro, going through various cities and towns all over Brazil such as São Paulo and Belo Horizonte. For the second time, Fangio was crowned champion of Argentine TC. In 1942, he took tenth place in the South Grand Prix. In April he won the race "Mar y Sierras", and then had to suspend activity due to World War II. In 1946, Fangio returned to racing with two races in Morón and Tandil driving a Ford T. In February 1947, Fangio competed at National Mechanics (MN) at the Retiro circuit, and on 1 March, he started the race for Rosario City Award. Subsequently, Fangio triumphed in the Double Back Window Race.

Formula One and sports car racing

Overview

Fangio was the oldest driver in many of his Formula One races, having started his Grand Prix career in his late 30s. During his career, drivers raced with almost no protective equipment on circuits with no safety features. Formula One cars in the 1950s were for the time not only fast, but very physically and mentally demanding to drive; races were much longer than today and demanded incredible stamina. Tyres were very narrow and cross-ply, and far less forgiving; treads often stripped in a race, and spark plugs fouled. The drivers wore goggles with cloth helmets up to 1952, where from that year on helmets were made mandatory, so they wore pie-shaped crash hats made of paper-mache. The cars had no seatbelts, no roll-over protection, no bodywork to contain the driver (up until 1954) and the front-engined layout of these cars meant that the heated air from the engine and the gearbox would often blast the bodies of the drivers for the hours of the race, with the driveshaft spinning between their legs, and there were, of course, no electronic aids or computer intervention. At the end of a GP, drivers often suffered blistered hands caused by heavy steering and gear changing, and their faces were sometimes covered in soot from the inboard brakes. Despite Fangio's short career, he was one of the top GP drivers in history, rivalling Tazio Nuvolari.

Fangio had no compunction about leaving a team, even after a successful year or even during a season, if he thought he would have a better chance with a better car. As was then common, several of his race results were shared with teammates after he took over their car during races when his own had technical problems. His main rivals included Alberto Ascari and Stirling Moss, and on occasion Giuseppe “Nino” Farina and Mike Hawthorn (Farina particularly in the early part of Fangio’s career). Throughout his career, Fangio was backed by funding from the Argentine government of Juan Perón.

World championship successes

Fangio's first Grand Prix race was the 1948 French Grand Prix at Reims, where he started his Simca Gordini from 11th on the grid but retired. Fangio briefly returned to South America to compete in the aforementioned Buenos Aires to Caracas race, he then returned to Europe the following year, and raced in Sanremo; having upgraded to a Maserati 4CLT/48 sponsored by the Automobile Club of Argentina he dominated the event, winning both heats to take the aggregate win by almost a minute over Prince Bira. Fangio entered a further six Grand Prix races in 1949, winning four of them against top-level opposition.

For the first World Championship of Drivers in 1950, Fangio was taken on by the Alfa Romeo team alongside Farina and Luigi Fagioli. With competitive racing cars following the Second World War still in short supply, the pre-war Alfettas proved dominant. Fangio won each of the three races he finished at Monaco, Spa and Reims-Gueux but Farina's three wins at races Fangio retired from and a fourth-place allowed Farina to take the title, even though Fangio was quicker than Farina, who was able to take advantage of Fangio's mechanical woes. Fangio's most notable victory that year was at Monaco, where he dodged a multi-car pile-up and easily won the race. In 1950s non-championship races Fangio took a further four wins at San Remo, Pau and the fearsome Coppa Acerbo at the 16-mile Pescara public road circuit, and two seconds from eight starts. At Pescara in 1950, going down a long straight called the Flying Kilometer, he was clocked doing 194 mph (310 km/h) in his Alfa. He also won a handful of races in South America for the Argentine Automobile Club driving a Maserati 4CLT and a Ferrari 166 during the European off-season.

Fangio won three more championship races for Alfa in 1951 in the Swiss, French and Spanish Grands Prix, and with the new 4.5-litre Ferraris taking points off his teammates Farina and various others, Fangio took the title at the final race in Spain, finishing six points ahead of Ascari at the Pedralbes street circuit. Fangio also finished second at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone after his horrendously fuel-inefficient Alfa had to make two lengthy pit stops to refill the car. He then finished second at the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring after he lost first and second gear during an intense battle with Alberto Ascari.

With the 1952 World Championship being run to Formula Two specifications, Alfa Romeo did not have a car for the new formula and were unable to use their supercharged Alfettas, so they withdrew. As a result, the defending champion found himself without a car for the first race of the championship and remained absent from F1 until June, when he drove the British BRM V16 in non-championship F1 races at the public road circuits at Albi in France and Dundrod in Northern Ireland. Fangio had agreed to drive for Maserati in a non-championship race at Monza the day after the Dundrod race, but having missed a connecting flight he decided to drive through the night on pre-motorway mountain roads through the Alps from Lyon, arriving half an hour before the start. Arriving at Monza at 2 p.m., he was badly fatigued and with the race starting at 2:30 p.m., Fangio started the race from the back of the grid but lost control on the second lap, crashed into a grass bank, and was thrown out of the car as it flipped end over end, smashing through trees. He was taken to a hospital in Milan with multiple injuries, the most serious being a broken neck, and spent the rest of 1952 recovering in Argentina. Nino Farina, who had won the race, visited Fangio in hospital and gifted him with the winner's laurel wreath.

Kidnapping

President Fulgencio Batista of Cuba established the non-Formula One Cuban Grand Prix in Havana in 1957. Fangio won the 1957 event, and had set fastest times during practice for the 1958 race. On 23 February 1958, two gunmen of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement entered the Hotel Lincoln in Havana and kidnapped Fangio. Batista ordered the race to continue as usual while a crack team of police hunted down the kidnappers. They set up roadblocks at intersections, and guards were assigned to private and commercial airports and to all competing drivers.

Fangio was taken to three separate houses. His captors allowed him to listen to the race via radio, bringing a television for him to witness reports of a disastrous crash after the race concluded. In the third house, Fangio was allowed his own bedroom but became convinced that a guard was standing outside the bedroom door at all hours. The captors talked about their revolutionary programme, which Fangio had not wished to speak about, as he did not have an interest in politics. He later said: "Well, this is one more adventure. If what the rebels did was in a good cause, then I, as an Argentine, accept it." He was released after 29 hours, after being "treated very well".

The captors' motives were to force the cancellation of the race in an attempt to embarrass the Batista regime. When Fangio was handed over to the Argentine embassy soon after the race, many Cubans became convinced that Batista was losing his grip on power because he failed to track the captors down. The Cuban Revolution took over the government in January 1959, and the 1959 Cuban Grand Prix was cancelled. The Fangio kidnapping was dramatized in a 1999 Argentine film directed by Alberto Lecchi, Operación Fangio.

Later life and death

Post-retirement activities

In September 1957, Fangio was involved in a road accident in Bologna when he was forced to swerve to avoid an oncoming truck. The car, a Lancia Aurelia GT, clipped a pole, spinning twice and threw Fangio out, which led him to sustain grazed elbows. Cesare Perdisa stated the incident was the first time Fangio had been so terrified.

When Fangio attended the 1958 Indianapolis 500, he was offered $20,000 to qualify the No. 77 Kurtis-Offenhauser by the car's owner, George Walther, Jr , owner of Dayton Steel Foundry and father of future Indy 500 driver Salt Walther). Fangio had previously attended the 1948 Indy 500 at which time he expressed his interest in competing the race. Fangio also tried the #54 car which was not powered by the common 4.2 liter 4-cylinder "Offy", but by the supercharged V8 Novi engine that was very powerful but never succeeded at Indy. Both cars also wore the red Pegasus logo of Mobil Oil. However, Fangio was not interested in participating with cars that did not give him a chance to win. Walther allowed Fangio to stand aside (before a contract with BP came to light). Both cars were barely qualified by other drivers, for the last row of the grid only.

After his retirement, Fangio was distinguished as honorary President of the Automobile Sports Commission of the Argentine Republic. He also participated in many world exhibition races, tributes to motorsport figures and in the organization of events related to his profession. In 1960 he carried out an exhibition at the Sarmiento Park in Córdoba city, with a Maserati 2500 of Ettore Chimeri, with which he suffered a run off the track, brushed a curb and accidentally lifted into the air without consequences. He became honorary president of the Club International des Anciens Pilotes de Grand Prix F1 in 1962.

In 1968, Fangio collaborated with Automóvil Club Argentino in the organization of the Formula 2 International Championship held in Argentina, a task that would become constant during the following years. Shortly thereafter, he headed the "84 Hours of Nürburgring" project for Argentine-made IKA-Renault Torino cars and traveled to Germany as a driver advisor with the Argentine team.

Fangio took part in the so-called "Carrera del Recuerdo", held on 17 October 1973 at the Autódromo de Buenos Aires with a Fiat Berlina 125. Legendary motorsport figures such as Oscar Alfredo Gálvez also took part in the race.

Health decline and death

Fangio's health deteriorated in the last decades of his life. In December 1970, he suffered a serious heart attack and in 1981, after exhibiting a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR in Dubai, he had another heart attack. The following year he was subjected to a surgical intervention in which the renowned Cardiologist Doctor René Favaloro implanted five bypass.

In the late 1980s, Fangio was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure and in 1992, he underwent surgery to remove a benign tumor from his kidneys. He suffered an intestinal infection in 1993 in Stuttgart, for which he had to be hospitalized. At the end of that year he had to be admitted again for fifteen days to the Mater Dei Clinic due to blood hypercalcemia. In his last years he had to undergo three weekly sessions of dialysis by Doctor Roque Sala at the same time that he began with a progressive loss of consciousness and motor problems derived from his previous pathologies. After an emergency hospitalization in January 1995, he confined himself to his home in Palermo Viejo, where he continued with treatment and abandoned practically all his public appearances.

On 14 July 1995, Fangio suffered from respiratory failure with excess phlegm that led to his admission to the Mater Dei Clinic, where he was diagnosed with bronchopneumonia. One day later he had a respiratory crisis and his diagnosis worsened on 16 July when he suffered a deterioration in his state of health that until then had remained stable. Fangio died on 17 July 1995 at 84 years old at 4:10 AM UTC-3 in Buenos Aires.

After learning of the death of Fangio, President of the Nation Argentina Carlos Saúl Menem arranged the White Room of the Casa Rosada for his funeral. His pallbearers were his younger brother Ruben Renato ("Toto"), fellow racing icons Stirling Moss and Jackie Stewart, compatriot champions José Froilán González and Carlos Reutemann, and the president of Mercedes-Benz Argentina at the time.

The president of FIFA, João Havelange, expressed his condolences and Jackie Stewart, three-time Formula 1 world champion and personal friend of Fangio, decided to travel for the funeral. The president of the FIA, Max Mosley, immediately traveled to Argentina upon learning of Fangio's death.

After the first funeral at the Casa Rosada, the remains of the former racer were transferred for a new funeral at the headquarters of the Automóvil Club Argentino and then a last funeral was held at the Fangio Museum before finally being placed in the family pantheon of the Balcarce Cemetery.

Personal life

Fangio never married, but was romantically involved for more than twenty years with Andrea “Beba” Berruet, with whom he had a son on 6 April 1938: Oscar “Cacho” Espinoza. He was registered with the surname of Berruet's husband, Luis Alcides Espinoza, because they were not legally separated, since at that time civil divorce did not yet exist in Argentina.

The relationship between Berruet and Fangio did not last beyond the racer's sporting retirement in the early 1960s, but shortly before, in 1955, Fangio began legal proceedings for the adoption of his own eldest son, something he abandoned shortly thereafter.

Espinoza, who as a child and teenager lived alternating between Mar del Plata (where his parents visited him every time Fangio returned to Argentina) and Balcarce, where he usually spent most of his time with his paternal grandparents, Loreto and Herminia, would soon begin to develop an interest in motor racing, which caused the first frictions with his father, since Juan Manuel was against his son starting to compete.

As an adult, and against his father's wishes (Fangio wanted his son to study Medicine at the University), "Cacho" began to participate in zonal karting competitions, later jumping to Turismo Carretera, where he stood out competing at the wheel of a Renault Gordini that was nicknamed Trueno Dorado.

Espinoza's first opportunity to try to obtain his real last name was in 1966. Due to his outstanding performance in Turismo Carretera, "Cacho" had the opportunity to compete in the European Formula Two Championship. Because he had to renew his passport to travel to Europe, and the renewal process was delayed, Juan Manuel told his son that the only chance to get his passport renewed as quickly as possible was to add the surname Fangio to his Identity Card, and that was how it was given. Thus began his professional career in motorsport as "Cacho" Fangio, although it was known that this was only a patch and not a concrete reality.

"Cacho" even participated in the Argentine Mission, organized by his father, of the 84 Hours of Nürburgring in August 1969, where national cars IKA Torino, prepared by the renowned mechanic Oreste Berta, competed.

Legacy

Fangio's record of five World Championship titles stood for 46 years until German driver Michael Schumacher surpassed it in 2003. Schumacher said, "Fangio is on a level much higher than I see myself. What he did stands alone and what we have achieved is also unique. I have such respect for what he achieved. You can't take a personality like Fangio and compare him with what has happened today. There is not even the slightest comparison." When Lewis Hamilton equaled Fangio's five titles in 2018 he praised Fangio calling him the "Godfather of our sport".

In October 2020, The Economist ranked champion drivers by the relative importance of car quality to driver skill. According to this ranking, Fangio is Formula 1's best driver of all time.

In November 2020, Carteret Analytics used quantitative analysis methods to rank Formula One drivers. According to this ranking, Fangio is Formula 1's best driver of all time. Similar mathematical analysis has also placed Fangio as the greatest of all time, once the era of racing was considered.

In his home country of Argentina, Fangio is revered as one of the greatest sportsmen the nation has ever produced. He is nicknamed El Maestro (the master).

Six statues of Fangio, sculpted by Catalan artist Joaquim Ros Sabaté, stand at race venues around the world: Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires; Monte Carlo, Monaco; Montmeló, Spain; Nürburgring, Germany; Stuttgart-Untertürkheim, Germany; and Monza, Italy.

The Museo Juan Manuel Fangio was established in Balcarce (Fangio's birthplace) in 1986.

Argentina's largest oil company, Repsol YPF, launched the "Fangio XXI" gas brand. The Zonda 2005 C12 F, also known as the Zonda Fangio, was designed in honour of Fangio and was released 10 years after his death. Maserati created a special website in 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his fifth and final world championship triumph. A Mercedes-Benz W196R Formula 1 race car, driven by Fangio in his World Championship-qualifying Grand Prix races in 1954 and 1955 was sold for a record $30 million at an auction in England on 12 July 2013.

Racing record

Post-World War II Grandes Épreuves results

(key)

Complete Formula One World Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

* Shared drive.

† Car ran with streamlined, full-width bodywork.

Complete non-championship Formula One results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Formula One records

Fangio holds the following Formula One records: