Juan Manuel Fangio – great legend of Grand Prix history

Some of his rivals called him "Maestro". Five decades his name meant nothing less than "the best driver of all time". Some still think that he is the best. His name was Juan Manuel Fangio. He was the idol of many drivers who later became champions, but for decades none of them became that great as he was. 

He spent seven seasonsin Formula One, during which he has won five world championship titles. He started at 51 Formula One race and won 23 of them. He has also scored 27 poles.  

He was born on June 24, 1911, in Balarce in Argentina, in family of Italian descent. When he was eleven years old he started working as a mechanic. He worked that job for next forty years. Occasionally, he drove races in South America. Those were long distance races and he drove them in primitive self-prepared cars. He he went racing in Europe when he was 38.

In the first Formula One championship, he was second. The best was the Italian driver Giuseppe Nino Farina, Fangio's teammate in Alfa Romeo team. In 1951, Fangio has won his first world championship driving the Alfa Romeo. Next year during race in Monza he had a serious accident in the second lap. The result of the accident was broken neck.  

He able to return to Formula One, and in 1954 he has won his second title as a Ferrari driver. The following two seasons he spent in a Mercedes team, and he became champion two more times. In 1958 he has won his final championshim driving the Maserati. That year he was kidnapped in Cuba by members of Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement. They wanted to draw attention on their cause, but soon they released him because of his charm.

Enzo Ferrari criticized him in late fifties. He said that Fangio was wining because he was driving the best cars. Fangio's fellow driver Stirling Moss responded to that: "Because he was the best bloody driver! The cheapest method of becoming a successful Grand Prix team was to sign up Fangio." Argentinian was also known for having good relations with his mechanics.

After the 1958 season he retired. He died in 1995 in Buenos Aires, and he was buried in his hometown Balarce. In 2003 Michael Schumacher has won his sixth title. Although Fangio's record was broken, many fans of Formula One still considered Juan Manuel Fangio for the best driver of all time, what he maybe is. Certainly, he marked the first decade of Formula One.