Juan Manuel Fangio during the Uruguayan Tourist Commission's International Grand Prize Race.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1953
Reims, France
Juan Manuel Fangio drives Maserati A6GCM at the Grand Prix of France, Reims. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1953
Reims, France
Juan Manuel Fangio sits aboard Maserati A6GCM at the Grand Prix of France, Reims. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1953
Monza, Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio during the Italian Grand Prix. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1953
Reims, France
Juan Manuel Fangio at the wheel of Maserati A6GCM during the French Grand Prix. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1954
Reims, France
Juan Manuel Fangio drives Mercedes W196 at the Grand Prix of France, Reims. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1954
Towcester NN12 8TN, United Kingdom
Juan Manuel Fangio drives Mercedes W196 at the Grand Prix of Great Britain, Silverstone Circuit. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1954
Towcester NN12 8TN, United Kingdom
Juan Manuel Fangio sits aboard Mercedes W196 during the Grand Prix of Great Britain, Silverstone Circuit. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1955
Juan Manuel Fangio talking with Alfred Neubauer (right), racing manager of the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix team, during official trials for the Monaco Grand Prix. Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1955
Aintree, Sefton, Merseyside, United Kingdom
Juan Manuel Fangio (right) and Stirling Moss at the Grand Prix of Great Britain, Aintree. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1955
Zandvoort, Netherlands
Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss finish at the Grand Prix of Netherlands (Dutch Grand Prix). Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1955
Route du Circuit 55, 4970 Stavelot, Belgium
Juan Manuel Fangio shares the victory podium of the Grand Prix of Belgium at Spa Francorchamps with Paul Frère of Belgium (center) who finished fourth. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1955
Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio with Vincenzo Florio, the father of the mythical Targa Florio race. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1955
Sicily, Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio at the wheel of Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR in the Targa Florio race, Sicily. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1956
Towcester NN12 8TN, United Kingdom
Juan Manuel Fangio finishing at the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1956
Monza, Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio sits aboard Ferrari D50 during the Italian Grand Prix. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1956
113 Midway Dr, Sebring, FL 33870, United States
Juan Manuel Fangio after his victory in the Sebring 12 Hours, with teammate Eugenio Castellotti. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1956
Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio (right) and Enzo Ferrari at the Italian Grand Prix. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1957
76500 Orival, France
Juan Manuel Fangio sits aboard the Maserati 250F at the Grand Prix of France, Rouen-Les-Essarts. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1957
76500 Orival, France
Juan Manuel Fangio racing aboard the Maserati 250F at the Grand Prix of France, Rouen-Les-Essarts. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1957
53520 Nürburg, Germany
Juan Manuel Fangio sits aboard Maserati 250F at the Grand Prix of Germany. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1957
Monza, Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio and Harry Schell at the Italian Grand Prix. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1957
Pescara, Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio at the wheel of Maserati 250F at the Pescara Grand Prix. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1958
Havana, Cuba
Juan Manuel Fangio and Fulgencio Batista, the United States-backed dictator of Cuba, at the Cuban Grand Prix, Havana. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1958
Reims, France
Juan Manuel Fangio sits aboard Maserati 250F at the Grand Prix of France. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1958
Reims, France
Juan Manuel Fangio competes in his last race, at the French Grand Prix. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1976
Long Beach, California, United States
Juan Manuel Fangio at the demonstration race of the Grand Prix of the United States West. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
1976
Long Beach, California, United States
Three Ferrari World Champions, Juan Manuel Fangio, Niki Lauda and Phil Hill, during the United States Grand Prix West. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Niki Lauda, Juan Manuel Fangio, Phil Hill, Grand Prix of the United States West, Long Beach, 10 October 1976.
Gallery of Juan Fangio
Towcester NN12 8TN, United Kingdom
Juan Manuel Fangio stands between Alberto Ascari and Guiseppe Farina who hold their trophies and bouquets after the auto race at the Silverstone Circuit. Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis.
Achievements
1956
Towcester NN12 8TN, United Kingdom
Juan Manuel Fangio with his cup after winning the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Photo by Express/Express.
Juan Manuel Fangio in the pits during practice for the Grand Prix of Belgium at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, with his girlfriend Beba Berruet. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Juan Manuel Fangio during the Italian Grand Prix as he reads a copy of the French magazine "Moteurs" given by Bernard Cahier, who was a regular writer and photographer for the publication. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Juan Manuel Fangio talking with Alfred Neubauer (right), racing manager of the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix team, during official trials for the Monaco Grand Prix. Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive.
Juan Manuel Fangio shares the victory podium of the Grand Prix of Belgium at Spa Francorchamps with Paul Frère of Belgium (center) who finished fourth. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Three Ferrari World Champions, Juan Manuel Fangio, Niki Lauda and Phil Hill, during the United States Grand Prix West. Photo by Bernard Cahier.
Niki Lauda, Juan Manuel Fangio, Phil Hill, Grand Prix of the United States West, Long Beach, 10 October 1976.
Juan Manuel Fangio stands between Alberto Ascari and Guiseppe Farina who hold their trophies and bouquets after the auto race at the Silverstone Circuit. Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis.
Juan Manuel Fangio was an Argentinian racing car driver. A star of the automobile-racing competition in the 1950s, he held the record for wins (5) in the Formula One Championship until the feat was beaten in 2002 by another legendary racer, Michael Schumacher of Germany.
Background
Ethnicity:
Fangio's grandparents emigrated to Argentina from Italy at the end of the 1880s. The racer's parents were of Italian descent.
Juan Manuel Fangio was born on June 24, 1911 in Balcarce, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was the fourth child of six kids in a family of Loreto Fangio and Herminia Déramo.
Education
Juan Manuel Fangio was good at boxing and soccer as a child. He was dubbed "el chueco," literally "the bow-legged," for his ability to score by flexing his left leg around the ball.
Fangio studied at School No. 4 of Balcarce from 1916 till the fourth grade and then moved to School No. 1 in Av. Uriburu and 18th street. He had developed an interest in cars by the age of ten and began to spend almost all free time at a local Capettini mechanical workshop, fetching tools for the mechanics. He took the wheel for the first time in 1922 when he was in sixth grade.
Two years later, Fangio forsook school in favor of his passion and joined the staff of Miguel Viggiano's Studebaker shop as an assistant mechanic. While there, he learned the internal combustion engine and what made it tick. Responsible for delivering customers' cars from Buenos Aires to Balcarce, Fangio often had to drive Argentina's dirt roads, which were particularly dangerous in the rain. Thus, he honed his driving skills and learned the specificity of driving in slippery conditions, a skill he would later become famous for.
Juan Manuel Fangio debuted in the first race in 1927 when he rode as a mechanic in a Plymouth driven by one of Viggiano's customers. The following year, Fangio contracted persistent pneumonia which made him stay in bed for a long time, looked after by his mother.
Career
Juan Manuel Fangio was called up for military service in 1931. He was sent to the VI Cavalry Regiment of Campo de Mayo where his driving skills contributed to his assignment as a driver for the commanding officer. Fangio was discharged in 1933, before his birthday.
Fangio came back to his native Balcarce and, paired with his brother, set up a garage where he repaired other people's cars during the day and worked on his own at night. He debuted in race in 1936 at the wheel of a modified taxi, basically, a six-cylinder Ford engine fastened to a rusty chassis. Argentina's dirt-road tracks where Fangio competed at the beginning of his athletic career were known as the killing fields. They took away many lives, mostly because of the dust which restricted visibility for the drivers.
South America's infamous long-distance races, some of the wildest and most dangerous of all time, were the favorite ones for Fangio. He first came to prominence at one of such events, finishing seventh at the 1938 Gran Premio Argentino de Carretera, a tiring 4,590-mile race. Pleased with the result, the citizens of Balcarce donated money to a new car for Fangio, a six-cylinder Chevy coupe. It was behind the wheel of this auto that Fangio won the 6,000-mile road race at the Gran Premio Internacional del Norte in 1940.
The two-week race was tough more for the drivers rather than for their vehicles as passing through the Andes Mountains made many suffer from altitude sickness. The Argentine National Championship was the next goal for Fangio, but when he finally regained form after such a hard event, the racing was suspended in 1942 because World War II led to the fuel shortage.
When racing was resumed in 1947, Fangio was ready. In 1948, he made his first trip to Europe to compete, then returned home for the 6,000-mile Gran Premio de la America del Sur, basically a one-lap of South America. Fatigued and plowing through considerable fog, Fangio crashed, killing his faithful friend and co-driver Daniel Urrutia. It was the first of many times Fangio barely escaped death, but the incident didn't make him left the sport.
El Maestro competed in Europe again in 1949. Two years later, the racing driver gained his first world champion title. Soon after the triumph, his career almost ended again. In June 1952, Fangio pulled an all-nighter driving from Paris to Monza, Italy, for a race. He arrived not long before the start and had no time for a practice run. As a result, he broke a neck bone during the race that made him miss the remainder of the season. He came back in two years, won six grand prix races and became the world champion for the second time, repeating through 1957.
The 1950s turned out to be the pinnacle of Fangio's athletic career as he was sought after by many teams because of his greatest innate driving ability to easily sustain a four-wheel, controlled slide around a curve. He drove for Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, and Maserati throughout the decade. In the middle of the 1958 season, Juan Manuel Fangio retired from the sport as too many things were going wrong, particularly his kidnapping by Fidel Castro's rebels and troubles with his car.
Upon retiring, Fangio returned home to Balcarce and set up a Mercedes dealership. He also served as an ambassador for the sport at the end of his life and tried his hand at coaching the new generation of drivers.
He was once kidnapped by two gunmen of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement with the aim to force the cancellation of the non-Formula One Cuban Grand Prix in an attempt to embarrass the Batista regime.
Views
Quotations:
"You must always strive to be the best, but you must never believe that you are."
"You need great passion, because everything you do with great pleasure, you do well."
"Never think of your car as a cold machine, but as a hot-blooded horse."
"I learned to approach racing like a game of billiards. If you bash the ball too hard, you get nowhere. As you handle the cue properly, you drive with more finesse."
"Driving fast on the track does not scare me. What scares me is when I drive on the highway I get passed by some idiot who thinks he is Fangio."
"A crazy man finishes in the cemetery."
"There are those who keep out of mischief, and there are the adventurers. We racing drivers are adventurers; the more difficult something is, the greater the attraction that comes from it."
"I will not demonstrate it, I will race it."
"Women rule our lives, don't they?"
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
Juan Manuel Fangio was 1.75 meters tall.
Quotes from others about the person
Michael Schumacher, former racing driver: "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."
Ayrton Senna, racing driver: "What he did in his time is something that was an example of professionalism, of courage, of style and as a man, a human being. Every year there is a winner of the championship, but not necessarily a world champion. I think Fangio is the example of a true world champion."
Lewis Hamilton, racing driver: "Godfather of our sport."
Connections
Juan Manuel Fangio started a relationship with Andrea "Bebe" Berruet in 1940. She was his companion for twenty years throughout his race life. The couple had a son Oscar Cacho Espinosa who wasn't first recognized as Fangio's child. The kinship was proven in 2015 after the exhumation of the racing driver's body. A year later, Rubén Vázquez was also confirmed to be Fangio's son.
Father:
Loreto Fangio
Mother:
Herminia Fangio
Partner:
Andrea Berruet
Sister:
Herminia Fangio
Brother:
José Fangio
Sister:
Celia Fangio
Brother:
Rubén Renato Aniceto Fangio
Sister:
Carmen Fangio
Son:
Oscar Cacho Espinosa
Son:
Rubén Vázquez Fangio
nephew:
Juan Manuel Fangio II
References
Juan Manuel Fangio
The book describes Juan-Manuel Fangio's youth in Buenos Aires, his first steps in motor racing in Argentina, and then his move to Europe where he scooped all Formula One honors.