Juan Manuel Fangio: The only man to have tamed the ‘Ring
By Straight-Six, published on 17 June 2011
It’s Friday, folks, and we can already hear the clink of ice-cubes being dropped into a tumbler, ready to be filled with a little Chivas Regal Royal Salute. But before we embark on two days and three nights we will slaughter without mercy, we’d like you to join us in honouring a man we consider without peer in the world of motorsports: Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio.
No, we won’t bore you with a load of facts and figures, like his having won no less than five F1 World Driver’s Championships, or that he still has the highest winning percentage in F1 (46.15% vs. M. Schumacher’s 33.1% – thanks Wikipedia!).
These are truly impressive stats, but what El Chueco (“knock-kneed”) really did that knocked our socks off was his victory at the 1957 German Grand Prix at the infamous Nurburgring.
Driving his Maserati 250F, Fangio needed to extend his lead by six points to claim the title with two races to spare. On his 13th lap, Fangio pitted with a 30-second lead on the Ferraris of Hawthorn and Collins. But a stuck wheel and fouled up refueling meant that he exited his pit stop almost two minutes behind the British boys, now in the lead. And this on the world’s most dangerous and challenging of tracks.
And guess what happened next? Fangio adjusted his goggles as he exited the pits and proceeded to set one lap record after the next until he was running a full 11 seconds faster than the limey’s Ferraris! Fangio won by 3 seconds nad was treated to a Messiah-like reception from the ecstatic crowd.
In an interview Road & Track in 1983 (Fangio passed away in 1995), Fangio said that: “And somewhere deep inside me, I told myself that never, never again was I going to drive like I did that day.“ He never did, retiring the following year, certain he would never better what he’d done in 1957 at the age of 46.
So, on this particular Friday, we salute the artist simply referred to as El Maestro.
Juan Manuel Fangio: The only man to have tamed the ‘Ring
Eager to tuck into his well-deserevd Chivas Regal, our car-mad editor, Straight-Six, is deliriously excited about celebrating one of the greatest drivers of all time: Argentina’s JUan Manual Fangio. Welcome to the weekend, folks.
2 Responses to “Juan Manuel Fangio: The only man to have tamed the ‘Ring”
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David,
Thanks for reminding us of Jackie’s unbelievable run in arguably the worst conditions yet seen at the Ring. But I’d argue this was more a matter of Jackie conquering the weather and the track, rather than the track and himself, as Fangio did in ’57.
It’s the fact that Fangio broke lap record after lap record to beat the Ferraris that really impresses me. This said, Jackie did something truly special too…
Worthy of another post, I’d say!
Thanks for stopping by.
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David T
22 June 2011
Indeed… but the only man? Jackie Stewart, 1968?