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"After he retired, when he was in Europe he would often take the
opportunity to visit a Grand Prix. On these occasions, years and years after
his last race, his presence was still magical and 'FANGIO!' was the word that
rippled through the crowd and along the pit lane. He would make a tour of the
pits with various officials, pausing to greet familiar faces from his old teams
and to shake hands with drivers like Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, Graham Hill,
Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost or Ayrton Senna. They all loved him. Fangio was
Fangio. There was no need to embellish his name. It was powerful enough on its
own." - Denis Jenkinson (journalist)
"More than thirty years after he last acknowledged a chequered
flag, fans who had never seen him would jostle to glimpse the unprepossessing
little Argentine who, by most available yardsticks, had been the greatest
racing driver of all time. His achievements made him a legend, but his modesty
made him loved." - Richard Williams (journalist)
"He commanded awe. When he entered a room it went quiet. His whole
bearing was almost like royalty but it was accompanied by considerable
modesty." - Tony Brooks (driver)
"I don't think I knew a more softly spoken man, yet he still had
real presence. You were always aware of him when he entered a room, even if you
couldn't see him." - Phil Hill (driver)
"You came 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." - Jackie Stewart (driver)
"He treated all those he met, from the highest to the lowest, with
equal dignity and importance. When he was talking to you, you were
the only one that mattered." – Stirling Moss (driver)
"His manners were as refined as his driving. As a competitor he was
necessarily ruthless, but he was never calous. He was revered by his
contemporaries, none of whom ever presumed to question his place on the
pedestal." - Nigel Roebuck (journalist)
"He was recognised not only as the best driver but also the
fairest. I never heard a single complaint about his behaviour, in or out of the
cockpit, and there aren't many world champions you can say that about."
Tony Brooks (driver)
"He was always so willing to share what he knew. It was a heck of a
quality. At the Nurburgring he once asked me what gear I was using through a
certain section. I told him third. He said try fourth. And I did and I picked
up three seconds." - Phil Hill (driver)
"The great thing about him is that he won five world titles in four
different cars and he never had a row with anyone." – John Cooper (team
owner)
"He was always the leading figure and centre of attraction among
the travelling entourage of drivers, mechanics, organisers and journalists. But
never did allow this to affect him in any way, never did he become a prima
donna - and always he somehow succeeded in shunning the publicity which
nowadays is so often thrust upon public figures and idols. In private life he
was the best, the most loyal and sporting friend, unanimously respected and
loved by all the drivers, who do not generally waste time in being nice about
each other." - Olivier Merlin (Fangio biographer)
"Fangio, the driver, is a man who loves cars with an almost
physical passion, who considers sport like a religion. and to whom speed is an
expression of human beauty. Fangio is a born gentleman, in every meaning of the
word. I have never heard him raise his voice or be aggressive to gain the upper
hand in a discussion. Fangio would stay calm and control himself even in
situations which made others shout with anger. He has never been a snob. He is
natural with everybody. He has no inferiority complex. For the former modest
mechanic, shaking hands with a ruling monarch is as pleasing as shaking hands
with a pump attendant, so long as the handshakes are sincere." - Marcello
Giambertone (Fangio manager and biographer)
***
"Anyone who has been fortunate enough to talk to Fangio, or to be
close enough to him to observe his eyes, cannot have helped noticing their
remarkable sharpness. There is no doubt that eyesight plays a very vital part
in Fangio's success. There are times when he appears to be taking no interest
in his surroundings and appears to be in a sleepy and lethargic mood, but watch
his eyes closely and you will see that they are observing everything going on
around him. Though he moves his head very slowly, mostly due to the neck injury
he received in the crash at Monza in 1952, and in normal everyday life his
whole body moves slowly, his eyes will flash from one thing to another with
great rapidity, which is made all the more noticeable by these slow body
movements." - Denis Jenkinson (journalist)
"It is his eyes, more than any other single feature, that
distinguish him from his fellows. He possesses steely blue, penetrating, rapid
eyes shielded by heavy eyebrows, which can also occasionally, merely by winking
an eye, give some remarkably youthful glances." - Olivier Merlin (Fangio
biographer)
"He was of average height, stocky of build, slope-shouldered,
thinning hair. He walked with a sort of rolling, bandy-legged gate. His voice
was traditionally described as thin and reedy. Like any description of Fangio
it falls short of Truth because what must be immediately understood about
Fangio is that his ordinariness is an extraordinary disguise. And all the more
extraordinary because it is totally seamless. Never can you catch Fangio out of
character. He is completely what he seems to be, wholly centred within his own
being. No quirks for the camera. He is modest, direct and without artifice. He
is humble in the exalted sense of the word." - Denise McCluggage
(journalist)
"I admire him so much because he has been a great champion. He was
so calm I used to say he had distilled water instead of blood in his veins. A
fantastic boy, not only for his great class but his simplicity. Few of them
know how to remain themselves, once having attained fame and success. Their
heads seem to expand and they can't wear their crash hats naturally. But
Fangio, who could give all the young ones lessons even today, has stayed
simple, sincere and loyal. He is a great gentleman, in spite of his modest
origins, and I am very fond of him." - Louis Chiron (driver and race official)
***
"I got his autograph as a wee lad and when I started racing
he was there one year when I won at Monaco and came up to me after and
spoke to me in his quiet, squeaky voice. Through an interpreter he said he had
watched me and I had driven a good race, not made any mistakes, all the things
you want to hear. Another year when I won at Monaco we went to dinner with him
and some friends in Menton. And he drove, a Mercedes it was, and Helen and I
were sitting in the back and I couldn't believe I was in a car being driven by
Juan Manuel Fangio." - Jackie Stewart (driver)
"I had the opportunity to meet Fangio in Vienna in the 1960's as he
opened the Racing Car Show. Later, I had the honour of driving with him in a
Mercedes 6.3, it was a 350hp touring car, a heavy touring car, around the old
Nurburgring. This was about 1967 I think, and he told me about his greatest
race there ten years earlier, when he drove the Maserati and beat
loads of young guys. He showed me where he had cut the grass and
where he was drifting nearly to the trees, and it was a fantastic lap - quite mad,
really. As he was talking to me he was driving very quickly, and the tyres on
the Mercedes were smoking. But I was not afraid and felt very comfortable
because he was so relaxed behind the wheel. I drove with him again in 1984,
when Mercedes was introducing a new model of car and he was demonstrating them
on country roads in Austria. By this time he was 73 years old and he was
wearing glasses and looking his age. But Fangio seemed as fast as ever, and he
was still really quick in the way he drove, braked, shifted gears, accelerated,
turned the steering wheel. It was for me significant for this man to be able to
still have such sensitivity, such feeling for the car in every move he made.
You could see his outstanding class. And then we arrived near this village and
rain started and the road was really slippery, and we drove at 120 kph around a
corner and suddenly one of these farmer's trucks was crossing the road right in
front of us. Fangio never panicked and hardly slowed down. He braked a bit,
slid the Mercedes right and left, corrected the slide and went easily around
the farmer, whose eyes we could see were bulging. Fangio had a smile on his
face and he was murmuring something in Spanish. For me, this was
fantastic to see such brilliant reaction time, really marvellous. This was the
Maestro at work." - Helmut Zwikl (journalist)
"He was the most natural driver around at the time. He was so good
that he could produce outstanding performances without exceeding his personal
safety margins. Some of his qualities were: anticipation, judgement,
sensitivity in his hands and the seat of his pants, and of course great mental
strength. He read a race very carefully and drove very intelligently. He was
always one step ahead. But when you try to analyse exactly what gave him his
edge you come up against a stone wall." - Tony Brooks (driver)
"The greatness of the Maestro lay in a combination of many things: flawless
timing, great speed, near-perfect judgement, phenomenal sensory and
extra-sensory perception, self-discipline, patience and wisdom in the heat of
battle, and an amazing conservation of equipment. These are the abilities one
can put into words, but the degree to which he possessed them is indescribable,
as are a collection of other abilities which can't even be identified." -
Marie Heglar (journalist)
"You could see that he was a very, very accurate driver. Lap after
lap, if you were to put a coin on the road he would put his tyres on that coin
lap after lap. He was extremely precise. But, the real reason why he was so
special I could not see. However, in those days when they were sliding their
cars, Fangio was of course fantastic at that. I remember I once had a rather
boozy evening with Jean Behra and I asked him why Fangio was the better driver.
And Jean said that while he could slide his car up to about 200kph, Fangio
could slide his at much faster speeds and hold his slide for considerable distances.
That suggests he had more car control, probably through better reflexes. I
don't think Fangio had more bravery than Behra, who after all died from an
overdose of bravery. It's just that while Behra thought he knew his limit,
Fangio's limit was higher." - Jabby Crombac (journalist)
"To begin with, 'El Chueco' is a driver born, just as there are
great musicians, painters and sculptors born. He is a natural with a highly
develped sixth sense which behind the wheel resolves itself in a combination of
super-sensitive balance, hair-trigger reaction and faultless judgement. He
seems touched by magic - almost infallible and invulnerable behind the wheel of
a race car. His eye is dead true, his evaluation of chances a cold, detached,
objective process, entirely unaffected by feelings of the moment. The secret of
his very high percentage of finishes is that he knows instinctively just how
much any machine will take. The calm and casual style that cloaks 'El Chueco's'
absolute mastery behind the wheel is actually a carry-over of his everyday
existence, from which all unnecessary activity has been eliminated. He is the
most relaxed individual imaginable and - partly perhaps because of his low
blood pressure - he simply does not know the meaning of emotional crisis."
- John Bentley (journalist)
"At the height of his racing career adjectives singing his praises
had as good as run out. When he was nearer 50 than 40, and beating drivers
young enough to have been his sons at the time of his fifth world title in
1957, his feats put in the shade what those with long memories recalled of
Nuvolari, Varzi, Rosemeyer, Caracciola and Wimille. At that age, drawing from
his vast experience and knowledge, he was able to remain one step ahead of
anything that happened, to anticipate his rivals' manouevres, and beat them by
whatever cunning or strategem was necessary." - Roberto Carozzo (Fangio
biographer)
"For his admirers the 'Old Man' symbolized the heroic age when
racing drivers went about their business in cork helmets, polo shirts,
string-backed gloves and suede loafers. forearms bare to the wind, faces
streaked with hot oil. It was an age when chivalry played a part and when the
physical danger was such that each race seemed to thin the ranks of the
participants. Perhaps the two were not unconnected." - Richard Williams
(journalist)
"There is no way you can compare me with him. What he achieved, at
the wheel of fairly basic cars in just shirt sleeves and with no helmet, hardly
bears thinking about. It wasn't even the same sport. No, I could never do what
he did. That man was a hero." - Michael Schumacher (driver)
- excerpt from FANGIO
The Life Behind
The
Legend
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