for: Juan Manuel Fangio II

Juan Manuel Fangio (Balcarce, June 24, 1911 - Buenos Aires, July 17, 1995), nicknamed "El Chueco" ("knock-kneed") or "El Maestro" ("The Master"), was a race car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing. He won five Formula One World Driver's Championships — a record which stood for 46 years eventually beaten by Michael Schumacher — with four different teams (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Maserati), a feat that has not been repeated since. Many still consider him to be the greatest driver of all time.

He is the only Argentine driver to have won the Argentine Grand Prix, having won it four times in his career.

Early life and racing

Fangio was born on San Juan's day in 1911 in Balcarce, Argentina to Italian parents from the small central Italian village of Castiglione Messer Marino, near Chieti. He began his racing career in Argentina in 1934, driving a 1929 Ford Model A which he had rebuilt. During his time racing in Argentina, he drove Chevrolet cars and was Argentine National Champion in 1940 and 1941. He first came to Europe to race, and to marry Melissa Castro, in 1949, funded by the Argentine Automobile Club and the Argentine government.

Formula One racing

Juan Manuel Fangio, unlike most later Formula One drivers, started his racing career at a mature age and was the oldest driver in many of his races. During his career, drivers raced almost without protective equipment. 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 common at the time, several of his race results were shared with team-mates after he took over their cars during races when his own had technical problems. His rivals included Alberto Ascari, Giuseppe Farina and Stirling Moss.

Fangio's first entry into Formula One came in the 1948 French Grand Prix at Reims, where he started his Equipe Gordini Talbot from 11th on the grid but retired. He did not drive in F1 again until the following year at San Remo, but 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 F1 races in 1949, winning four of them against top-level opposition.

For the first Formula One World Drivers' Championship in f1: 1950 Fangio was taken on by the Alfa Romeo team alongside Farina and Luigi Fagioli. With competitive racing machinery following the Second World War still in short supply, the pre-war Alfettas proved dominant. Fangio won each of the three races he finished, but Farina's three wins and a fourth place allowed him to take the title. In 1950's non-championship races Fangio took a further four wins and two seconds from eight starts. Fangio won three more championship races for Alfa in f1: 1951 at the in Swiss, French and Spanish Grands Prix, and with the improved Ferraris taking points off his team mates, Fangio took the title in the final race, six points ahead of Ascari.