Podium Legends Collection # 1

'Fangio, Alfa Romeo 158, Belgium GP, Spa 1950' NFT

A beautiful multiple race winning car, at a wonderful circuit, driven by possibly the greatest of all time – what an image! “The Argentine Maestro”, Juan Manuel Fangio, remains the most respected of all the World Drivers Champions – by those champions who followed him. To have won, as he did, 5 World Drivers Championships in just 9 race seasons from 1950-1958, and to win 24 races out of a total of 51 race starts, is a magnificent achievement. Fangio only started his F1 career aged 39, winning the world title for the fifth and last time aged 46. The quietly spoken hero from Balcarce won titles driving for Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Ferrari and for Mercedes in 1954 and ‘55.

Here he leads Rosier’s Lago Talbot around La Source hairpin at Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium on the 18th of June 1950, on his way to a triumphant win from teammate Luigi Fagioli’s 158 by 14 seconds.

Most top drivers in every decade since, cite Fangio as the greatest of all time. As Sir Jackie Stewart, himself 3 times a World Champion, once wrote: “ You could walk into a room full of racing personalities, world champions and so on, and then Fangio comes in…. All eyes turn towards him; all else is forgotten”.

Juan Manuel Fangio’s racing career began in a small provincial town in Argentina, from where he started the only motor racing he could afford, long-distance open road rallies – yet from 1940 onwards, Fangio was a winner and his national champion years were 1941, 1942 and 1947. Fangio – by then ‘El Chueco’ (Mr Bandy Legs in English) - set out for fame and fortune in European racing in 1948, racing Maseratis and Gordinis. He had his first overseas win, at San Remo in April 1949. By 1950, in the first ever round of the World Championship at Silverstone, his Alfa had problems; but he then won in Monaco, here as shown at Spa and again at Reims, to place 2nd in the WDC, before winning his first world title for Alfa Romeo in the Type 159 in 1951 with 3 wins.

After an early-season serious accident at Monza in 1952, Fangio did not race again until the 1953 season – in which he immediately came second to Ascari in the Championship. In 1954, the mighty Mercedes Benz returned to F1 racing led by Juan Manuel Fangio. After winning at home in a Maserati in January, Fangio won in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy to earn his 2nd world title. 1955, his 3rd title would have been even more emphatic, but for his young protégé, Stirling Moss, who beat him in the UK race at Aintree.

1956 in a ‘political’ year the great man did not enjoy, driving for the tempestuous Ferrari team, El Chueco won again with 3 wins and many podiums. Fangio’s famous run of 5 WDC titles was completed driving the Maserati 250F in 1957 with 4 victories. He always said his greatest win was at the Nurburgring that year, beating the Ferraris. This humble champion, a wonderful gentle man out of the cockpit and a smooth unruffled fighter at the wheel – he summed himself up thus:

“I simply expressed what I had in me: respect for others, a love of machinery, and a passion for speed” – Juan Manuel Fangio

Original image source copyright ©2022 The National Motor Museum Trust, Beaulieu, England