F1 Blog

Many consider Juan Manual Fangio to be the greatest driver of all time and his achievements were impressive in any era. What seems most astonishing is that he achieved such greatness late in life having won his first World Driver’s Championship at the age 40 in 1951 and his last at the age 46 in 1957.

After having become a motorsport legend in South America where he competed in marathon cross-country and continental endurance races he moved to Europe and landed a drive with Alfa Romeo in 1950. He finished second that year but in 1951 he won the first of his 5 driver’s championships having driven for Maserati and Mercedes-Benz over the years.

The final championship and his final victory came in 1957 at the age of 46. He was back with Maserati and that year did battle with the formidable Ferrari’s driven by the much younger British lions Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorne. Fangio won the first 3 races of the year before retiring at the British Grand Prix. The next race was at the daunting Nurburgring where Fangio suffered a disastrous pit stop which put him almost a minute behind the Ferrari’s. He came out of the pits in third place then went on to set a record lap after lap until he caught and past the Ferrari’s on the last lap. Afterward he said he had never driven so hard for so long in his entire career. He had put on a display of masterful driving to win his final race and fifth World Championship; which would be a record to stand for 46 years.

Fangio was known to take car of his cars and took pride in winning a race at the slowest possible speed. Perhaps this was borne out of his experience in the hundreds of thousands of kilometers he drive on dirts roads in South America or perhaps it was the wisdom of an aging race car driver. But make no mistake, he was not getting older, he was getting better until in 1958 after finishing fourth at the French Grand Prix he got out of his car and simply said to his mechanics “It is finished.”