page_title: Juan Manuel Fangio
section_title: Early racing career
hierarchical_section_title: Juan Manuel Fangio / Early racing career
caption_attribution_description: English: 1950 Simca Gordini T15s 1941cc Compressor
context_page_description: Juan Manuel Fangio, nicknamed El Chueco or El Maestro, was an Argentine racing car driver. He dominated the first decade of Formula One racing, winning the World Drivers' Championship five times.
  From childhood, he abandoned his studies to pursue auto mechanics. In 1938, he debuted in Turismo Carretera, competing in a Ford V8. In 1940, he competed with Chevrolet, winning the Grand Prix International Championship and devoted his time to the Argentine Turismo Carretera becoming its champion, a title he successfully defended a year later. Fangio then competed in Europe between 1947 and 1949, where he achieved further success.
  He won the World Championship of Drivers five times—a record which stood for 46 years until beaten by Michael Schumacher—with four different teams, a feat that has not been repeated. He is regarded by many as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time
  and holds the highest winning percentage in Formula One – 46.15% – winning 24 of 52 Formula One races he entered. 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.
context_section_description: After finishing his military service, Fangio opened his own garage and raced in local events. He began his racing career in Argentina in 1936, driving a 1929 Ford Model A that he had rebuilt. In the Tourism Highway category, Fangio participated in his first race between 18 and 30 October 1938 as the co-pilot of Luis Finocchietti. Despite not winning the Argentine Road Grand Prix, Fangio drove most of the way and finished 5th. In November of that year, he entered the "400 km of Tres Arroyos ", but it was suspended due to a fatal accident.
  During his time racing in Argentina, he drove Chevrolet cars and was Argentine National Champion in 1940 and 1941. One particular race, the 1940 Gran Premio del Norte, was almost 10,000 km (6,250 mi) long, one that Fangio described as a "terrible ordeal". This race started in Buenos Aires on 27 September, and ran up through the Andes and Bolivia to Lima, Peru, and then back to Buenos Aires, taking 15 days, ending on 12 October with stages held each day. This horrendously gruelling race was held in the most varied and difficult conditions imaginable- held at variable times in hot and dry deserts, insect-ridden jungles with crushing humidity and 1,000 feet (300 m) cliff drops, and mountain passes in freezing cold, snowy weather at extremely high altitude, sometimes in darkness- all on a mixture of dirt and paved roads. Early in the race Fangio hit a large rock and damaged the car's driveshaft, which in the next town would have to be replaced. Later on at an overnight stop in Bolivia one of the townspeople crashed into Fangio's car and bent an axle- he and his co-driver had to spend all night fixing it. Following this repair the fanblade got loose and punctured the radiator, which meant another repair before it would have to be replaced later. They drove 150 miles through scorching desert with no water, and during a night stint the headlights fell off and they had to be secured with his co-driver's necktie. The weather in the mountains was so cold that Fangio had to drive with his co-driver's arms around him for hours. These mountainous routes in Bolivia and Peru would sometimes involve going up to altitudes of 14,000 feet above sea level- a 40 percent reduction of air thickness, making breathing incredibly difficult and the engine being severely down on power. When he finally got back to Buenos Aires, Fangio had won this race- his first big victory. 
  In 1941, he beat Oscar Gálvez in the Grand Prix Getúlio Vargas in Brazil. For the second time, Fangio was crowned champion of Argentine TC. In 1942, he took tenth place in the South Grand Prix. In April he won the race "Mar y Sierras", and then had to suspend activity due to World War II. In 1946, Fangio returned to racing with two races in Morón and Tandil driving a Ford T. In February 1947, Fangio competed at National Mechanics (MN) at the Retiro circuit, and on 1 March, he started the race for Rosario City Award. Subsequently, Fangio triumphed in the 'Double Back Window' Race.In October 1948, 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 km (5,950 mi) through Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and finally Venezuela. Fangio, with his co-driver Daniel Urrutia battled hard with brothers Juan and Oscar Galvez, and Domingo Marimon throughout. On the 10th day, on the Lima to Tumbes stage in northern Peru, on coastal roads along the Pacific Ocean, Fangio was driving at night in thick fog generated from the ocean in near-pitch black darkness when he approached a left hand bend at 140 km/h (87 mph) near the village of Huanchaco. With his cars' lights not helping him much thanks to the thick fog, he approached the bend too fast, lost control of the car and tumbled down an embankment, and Urrutia was thrown out of the car through the front windscreen. Oscar Galvez stopped to help Fangio, who had neck injuries, soon found the badly injured Urrutia. Another competitor, Luciano Marcilla, stopped and took Fa
caption: 1950 Simca Gordini T15s, as raced, and retired, at the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans by José Froilán González and Juan Manuel Fangio
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