81 Facts About Juan Manuel Fangio

Juan Manuel Fangio, nicknamed El Chueco or El Maestro, was an Argentine racing car driver.

Juan Manuel Fangio dominated the first decade of Formula One racing, winning the World Drivers' Championship five times.

Juan Manuel Fangio is the only Argentine driver to have won the Argentine Grand Prix, which he won four times in his career, more than any other driver.

In 2011, on the centenary of his birth, Juan Manuel Fangio was remembered around the world and various activities were held in his honor.

Juan Manuel 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.

Juan Manuel Fangio started his education at School No 4 of Balcarce, before transferring to School No 1 and 18 Uriburu Av.

When Juan Manuel Fangio was 13, he dropped out of school and worked in Miguel Angel Casas auto mechanics' workshop as an assistant mechanic.

Juan Manuel Fangio developed pneumonia that almost proved fatal, after a football game where hard running had caused a sharp pain in his chest.

Juan Manuel Fangio was bed-ridden for two months, cared for by his mother.

Juan Manuel Fangio's driving skills caught the attention of his commanding officer, who appointed Fangio as his official driver.

Juan Manuel Fangio was discharged before his 22nd birthday, after taking his final physical examination.

Juan Manuel Fangio returned to Balcarce where he aimed to further his football career.

Juan Manuel Fangio began his racing career in Argentina in 1936, driving a 1929 that he had rebuilt.

Early in the race Juan Manuel Fangio hit a large rock and damaged the car's driveshaft, which was replaced in the next town.

The weather in the mountains was so cold that Juan Manuel Fangio drove with his co-driver's arms around him for hours.

When Juan Manuel Fangio finally got out of the mountains and back to Buenos Aires, after traversing all these external challenges, Juan Manuel Fangio had won this race, which was his first big victory.

In February 1947, Juan Manuel Fangio competed at National Mechanics at the Retiro circuit, and on 1 March, he started the race for Rosario City Award.

In October 1948, Juan Manuel Fangio however suffered a personal tragedy in another gruelling race, this time a point-to-point race from Buenos Aires to Caracas, Venezuela- a 20-day event covering a distance of 9,580 kilometres through Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and finally Venezuela.

Oscar Galvez stopped to help Juan Manuel Fangio, who had neck injuries, soon found the badly injured Urrutia.

Juan Manuel Fangio survived but 35-year-old Urrutia did not, suffering multiple fatal cervical and basal skull fractures.

Fangio believed he would never race again and entered a depressed state after the death of his friend, but he soon got out of his saddened state, and his successes in Argentina caught the attention of the Argentine Automobile Club and the Juan Peron-led Argentine government, so they bought a Maserati and sent him to Europe in December 1948 to continue his career.

Juan Manuel Fangio was the oldest driver in many of his Formula One races, having started his Grand Prix career in his late 30s.

Juan Manuel 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.

Juan Manuel Fangio's rivals included Alberto Ascari, Giuseppe Farina and Stirling Moss.

Juan Manuel Fangio entered a further six Grand Prix races in 1949, winning four of them against top-level opposition.

In 1950s non-championship races Juan Manuel 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.

Juan Manuel Fangio won a handful of races for the Argentine Automobile Club driving a Maserati 4CLT and a Ferrari 166.

Juan Manuel 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, Juan Manuel Fangio took the title at the final race in Spain, finishing six points ahead of Ascari at the Pedralbes street circuit.

Juan Manuel Fangio finished 2nd at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone after his horrendously fuel-inefficient Alfa had to make 2 lengthy pit stops for fuel, and he finished 2nd at the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring after he lost 1st and 2nd gears in his Alfa during an intense battle with Alberto Ascari.

Juan Manuel 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.

Juan Manuel Fangio 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.

In Europe, and back to full racing fitness in 1953, Juan Manuel Fangio rejoined Maserati for the championship season, and against the dominant Ferraris led by Ascari he took a lucky win at Monza.

Juan Manuel Fangio competed in one of the most dangerous and prestigious races in Europe: the Mille Miglia, a 1,000 miles race on open public roads covering nearly all of northern Italy driving an Alfa Romeo 6C 3000 CM entered by the factory.

At the Mille Miglia, the Alfa team was expected to win, and after Farina, Karl Kling and Consalvo Sanesi all crashed, Juan Manuel Fangio was leading when he reached Rome, pushing very hard from when he started in Brescia.

Juan Manuel Fangio then suffered left front steering arm failure near Bologna and only had consistent steering on the right front; this allowed Mille Miglia expert Giannino Marzotto to catch and beat Juan Manuel Fangio by 12 minutes, even though the Argentine driver drove hard to keep up with Marzotto.

The race was marred by multiple spectator fatalities, and the death of 50-year-old Felice Bonetto, like Juan Manuel Fangio driving a works Lancia, on the third day of the competition in the town of Silao.

In 1954 Juan Manuel Fangio raced for Maserati until Mercedes-Benz entered competition in mid-season.

Juan Manuel Fangio won his home Grand Prix in Buenos Aires and at Spa with the iconic 250F.

Juan Manuel Fangio spent the race battling with teammate Karl Kling down Reims's long straights.

Juan Manuel Fangio failed to win at Silverstone, with the closed-wheel car designed for straight-line speed struggling at the high speed corner-dominated circuit.

Juan Manuel Fangio got the more nimble open-wheeled W196 for the Nurburgring, and won the race, as he did at Bremgarten and then at Monza, the latter with the streamlined car.

For 1955, Juan Manuel Fangio subjected himself to a training programme which was strenuous in an effort to keep up his fitness levels high which was comparable to his younger rivals.

Juan Manuel Fangio won a particularly brutal race at the Gran Premio de la Republica Argentina.

Juan Manuel Fangio was losing time to Moss and Hans Herrmann, and when he got to Rome the engine was still not running smoothly.

Juan Manuel Fangio later surmised that Mercedes felt he could not win the race without a navigator so they did not put as much effort behind preparing his car as they did with the car of Moss, who had a navigator.

Juan Manuel Fangio, driving with Kling finished 2nd to Moss and Peter Collins, allowing Mercedes to win the title by two points over Ferrari.

In 1956 Juan Manuel Fangio moved to Ferrari to win his fourth title.

Juan Manuel Fangio took over his teammate's cars after he suffered mechanical problems in three races, the Argentine, Monaco and Italian Grands Prix.

In 1957 Juan Manuel Fangio returned to Maserati, who were still using the same iconic 250F which Juan Manuel Fangio had driven at the start of 1954.

Juan Manuel Fangio started the season with a hat-trick of wins in Argentina, Monaco and France, before retiring with engine problems in Britain.

Juan Manuel Fangio won the 12 Hours of Sebring sportscar race in America driving a Maserati 450S with Jean Behra for the second year running.

From pole position Juan Manuel Fangio dropped to third behind the Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Collins but managed to get past both by the end of the third lap.

Juan Manuel Fangio had started with half-full tanks since he expected that he would need new tyres halfway through the race.

Juan Manuel Fangio came into his own, setting one fastest lap after another, culminating in a record-breaking time on lap 20 a full eleven seconds faster than the best the Ferraris could do.

Juan Manuel Fangio won the 1957 event, and had set fastest times during practice for the 1958 race.

Juan Manuel Fangio's 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.

The captors talked about their revolutionary programme, which Juan Manuel Fangio had not wished to speak about, as he did not have an interest in politics.

The Juan Manuel Fangio kidnapping was dramatized in a 1999 Argentine film directed by Alberto Lecchi, Operacion Juan Manuel Fangio.

When Juan Manuel Fangio attended the 1958 Indianapolis 500, he was offered $20,000 to qualify in a Kurtis-Offenhauser by the car's owner, George Walther, Jr.

Juan Manuel Fangio had previously attended the 500 in 1948 at which time he expressed his interest in competing the race.

Walther allowed Juan Manuel Fangio to stand aside, still he did not want another driver to take over Juan Manuel Fangio's position.

Juan Manuel Fangio was appointed President of Mercedes-Benz Argentina in 1974, and its Honorary President for Life in 1987.

Juan Manuel Fangio served as the flagman for the Argentine Grand Prix from 1972 to 1981, and for NASCAR's Winston 500 in 1975.

Juan Manuel Fangio was the special guest of the 50th anniversary 1978 Australian Grand Prix at the Sandown Raceway in Melbourne.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Juan Manuel Fangio underwent successful bypass surgery to correct a heart condition.

Juan Manuel Fangio had been suffering from kidney failure for some time before his death.

In 1981 Juan Manuel Fangio travelled to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix, where he was reunited with his Tipo 159 Alfa Romeo from 1951 and the 1954 Lancia D50 for a couple of demonstrative laps.

Juan Manuel Fangio was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1990.

Juan Manuel Fangio returned to the spotlight in 1994, when he publicly opposed a new Province of Buenos Aires law denying driving licences to those over 80.

In 1990, Juan Manuel Fangio met the three-time world champion, Ayrton Senna, who had genuinely felt the encounter had reflected the mutual affection for both drivers.

Juan Manuel Fangio died in Buenos Aires in 1995, at the age of 84 from kidney failure and pneumonia; he was buried in his home town of Balcarce.

Juan Manuel Fangio's pallbearers were his younger brother Ruben Renato, Stirling Moss, compatriot racers Jose Froilan Gonzalez and Carlos Reutemann, Jackie Stewart and the president of Mercedes-Benz Argentina at the time.

One passenger stated the incident was the first time Juan Manuel Fangio had been so terrified.

Juan Manuel Fangio was never married, but was involved in a romantic relationship with Andrea Berruet with whom he broke up in 1960.

Juan Manuel Fangio was born from another brief relationship with Susana Rodriguez, who was 16 years old at the time.

Juan Manuel Fangio's nephew, Juan Manuel Fangio II, is a successful racing driver.

You can't take a personality like Juan Manuel Fangio and compare him with what has happened today.

The first Michel Vaillant story was partly based on an imaginary conflict stirred up by fictional newspaper The New Indian on Juan Manuel Fangio winning the World Championship at the Indy 500.

Six statues of Juan Manuel Fangio, sculpted by Catalan artist Joaquim Ros Sabate, stand at race venues around the world: Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires; Monte Carlo, Monaco; Montmelo, Spain; Nurburgring, Germany; Stuttgart-Unterturkheim, Germany; and Monza, Italy.

The Museo Juan Manuel Fangio was established in Balcarce in 1986.

The Zonda 2005 C12 F, known as the Zonda Juan Manuel Fangio, was designed in honour of Juan Manuel Fangio and was released 10 years after his death.