Juan Manuel Fangio was an Argentinian racing driver who won five Formula One world championships. He won 24 out of 52 races in his career and formerly held the record for the most Grand Prix victories for thirteen years. He entered Formula One with Alfa Romeo at the inaugural Formula One season to become a pioneer of the sport alongside fellow World Champions Giuseppe Farina and Alberto Ascari, finishing runner-up behind Farina before clinching his maiden drivers' title the following year.[1][2][3] Fangio became one of the leading drivers in the early days of Formula One as he dominated the mid-1950s by winning four consecutive world drivers' titles with Maserati, Mercedes and Ferrari, becoming the only driver to win world championships with four different teams and – most importantly – the record world champion at the time with five drivers' titles.[4][a] Fangio is also the oldest driver to win a Formula One World Championship to date, aged 46 years and 41 days.[6][7] As of 2024, he remains the only Argentinian driver to win the world championship.
Fangio achieved his first victory at the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix on 21 May, followed by two further victories at the same year in Belgium and France. He remained with Alfa Romeo for another season and won his maiden driver's title by achieving three victories. Following Alfa Romeo's sudden withdrawal in 1952, Fangio found himself without a seat and was therefore unable to defend his title. He was driving instead for BRM in non-championship Formula One races, but was later ruled out from the remainder of the season following a serious crash in Monza. Fangio returned to the sport in 1953 with Maserati, winning the final race of the season in Monza. In 1954, he took two wins at the start of the season before joining Mercedes midway through the season, securing a further four wins en route to winning his second world championship overall.[b][9] He repeated his success by winning the following three seasons from 1955 to 1957 with Mercedes, Ferrari and Maserati respectively, achieving four Grand Prix wins in 1955, followed by three in 1956 and four in 1957.[10][11][12]
The majority of his race victories came with Mercedes as he scored eight wins with the German manufacturer; he also took seven victories with Maserati, six with Alfa Romeo and the remaining three victories with Ferrari. He was most successful at the Autódromo Oscar y Juan Gálvez on home soil in Argentina with four victories, more than any other driver and with all of them being consecutive wins.[13] His largest winning margin happened on three occasions (Monaco, Italy and Great Britain) by respectively lapping the entire field once.[14][15][16] His narrowest winning margin was at the 1954 French Grand Prix, a race that was known for one of the closest finishes in Formula One history as Fangio won the race by just 0.1 seconds ahead of Karl Kling.[17]
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