1958

A team of his own

Maserati had closed its racing department at the end of 1957, and two of its lightweight Maserati 250Fs went to Argentina under a name of Fangio’s own, the Scuderia Sud Americana: one for him and one for Carlos Menditeguy. The third was bought by the Australian motorcycle racer Ken Kavanagh, who lent it to Jean Behra, who had no car, and put off his own debut in motor racing by a couple of weeks.

The rules had changed. From 1958 Grand Prix cars had to run on commercial petrol, which in practice meant aviation fuel of 130 octane, and races were cut to about 300 kilometres, so the Argentine Grand Prix fell from 100 laps to 80. The Sud Americana cars were altered only as far as the new fuel required, in their compression and carburation. He had thought of stopping before any of this. In 1979 he told Nigel Roebuck why he had not:

I was becoming very tired after 10 years of F1, and probably would have finally retired at the end of 1957. But Maserati begged me to drive, even if only occasionally, and I agreed.

The last win

Neither Vanwall nor BRM sent cars for the Argentine Grand Prix, run on 19 January at the Buenos Aires Autodrome. Ferrari brought its new V6 Dino cars for Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins and Luigi Musso, and among the ten starters was Stirling Moss in Rob Walker’s little 1,960 cc Cooper-Climax, with its engine behind the driver. Less than a second covered the first five in practice, and Fangio was fastest, with 1:42.0. Collins broke a drive-shaft as he let in the clutch at the start. Hawthorn led, fighting a Ferrari that would not turn in, and Fangio took the lead on lap 10.

On lap 30 he set the fastest lap of the race, 1:41.8. Soon afterwards a tyre threw its tread, and he stopped for a new pair of rear wheels; he had been 16 seconds clear of Moss, and he rejoined fourth. The engine then began to misfire and overheat on the new petrol. Moss did not stop, nursing tyres worn through to the canvas, while Musso, sure that he would have to stop, pressed too late. The Cooper won from Musso and Hawthorn: the first win for a rear-engined car in a Grand Prix since the Auto Unions of the 1930s. Fangio was fourth, 53 seconds behind, with 4 points, one of them for his lap.

A week later, in the Buenos Aires 1000 km, he shared Francisco Godia-Sales’s Maserati 300S. With no chance against the new three-litre Ferraris, Motor Sport reported, “In consequence he ‘played bears’ in an attempt to enliven the opening laps, and spun off on a corner and wrote off the front end of the Maserati in a most impressive manner.”

The Buenos Aires Grand Prix of 2 February, for Formula Libre cars, was run in two heats of 30 laps, in rain at the start. At the first corner a hot-rod that could not stop in time knocked Moss’s Cooper off the road. Hawthorn won the first heat from Fangio, whose Maserati now had a three-litre engine. At the start of the second, Hawthorn’s drive-shaft broke; Fangio had no one left to race, won the heat comfortably and took the aggregate. It was the last race he ever won.¹

Havana

He went to Cuba in February for the second Cuban Grand Prix, having won the first a year before, and was fastest in practice in a Maserati 450S owned by Temple Buell. On the Sunday evening, 23 February, gunmen of Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement took him from his hotel, for the publicity it would win them against Fulgencio Batista’s government.

The race was run the next day without him, with Maurice Trintignant in his car, and stopped after a car struck spectators; that night, some 27 hours after he was taken, they let him go through the Argentine embassy. He said afterwards that he had been well treated.

Havana: the kidnapping, February 1958

Indianapolis

For a long time he had wanted to race at Indianapolis, and the 500 of 30 May was a round of the World Championship. To be there he missed the Monaco and Dutch Grands Prix. Floyd Clymer, a Los Angeles publisher and promoter, told him publicly that he doubted he could even qualify, and offered bonuses of up to US$6,500: US$500 for entering, US$1,000 for qualifying, and US$2,500 for a place in the first five in an American car or US$5,000 in a European one. Fangio accepted, and said that any money would go to charity.

He arrived about a month before the race, and George Walther’s team gave him its Dayton Steel Foundry Special, a Kurtis Kraft 500G with a four-cylinder Offenhauser engine. He spun on 4 May, passed his rookie test on 8 May and went round at more than 228 km/⁠h (142 mph), about 6 km/⁠h short of the pace. The car, by ESPN’s account, was half-built and heavy, and the mechanics could not tune its engine; there were problems with the steering and within the team, and no spares. He also tried the Novi-engined Kurtis Kraft 500F and was soon faster than its regular driver, Paul Russo. On 15 May, 15 days before the race, he withdrew without attempting to qualify.² His spokesman explained that “the car is not in the optimum condition to permit Mr. Fangio to uphold his reputation as a world champion race driver.” (attributed)

A few weeks later, in New York, he talked to Arthur Railton of Popular Mechanics. He had no complaint about the Speedway, which he thought well run: “It is the safest of all tracks both for the driver and the public.” But in 15 days there, he said, he had had only two days of practice, and the car had never had a chance. “But if I don’t have a chance to win a race, I shouldn’t be in it.” Of himself he said: “This is my last year. This year I am only racing to satisfy a few commitments. I am too old. I am semi-retired.”

The Race of Two Worlds

In 1957 the European drivers had refused to race the Americans on the banking at Monza, and Motor Sport recalled that Fangio had called it “A dangerous race” (attributed). In 1958 Fangio, Moss, Hawthorn, Musso, Harry Schell and Trintignant all entered; it was, Motor Sport observed, a matter of money.

On 29 June, over 500 miles in three heats, he drove a borrowed American car, the Dean Van Lines Special, a Kuzma-Offenhauser that Jimmy Bryan had driven to victory in 1957, with A. J. Foyt as his reserve. He qualified at 275.841 km/⁠h (171.4 mph), the fastest until Musso’s 281.077 km/⁠h (174.7 mph) in a 4.1-⁠litre Ferrari. On race morning a cracked piston was found, and he could not start the first heat. The car was ready for the third, which he started from the back, and Motor Sport recorded the end of it: “Fangio had done one lap and retired at the pits with a faulty fuel pump, which was a truly ignominious withdrawal for the great man after his efforts in practice”.

Reims, 6 July

For the French Grand Prix at Reims-Gueux Maserati prepared a new, shorter and lighter 250F, of the kind often called the Piccolo, and it was entered in his own name: Motor Sport noted that the private Maserati of Fangio himself was in fact a works car.³ Doug Nye writes that Maserati built these light cars to keep him racing. It was not enough. “The new Maserati was a great disappointment, and though Fangio tried hard he could not approach the times of his rivals”, Motor Sport reported; Hawthorn’s 2:21.7 was the fastest lap ever seen at Reims, and Fangio started eighth.

He was sixth at the end of the first lap, behind Hawthorn, Schell, Musso, Moss and Brooks, and was soon fighting for fourth and then for second with Schell, Behra and Moss, at one point within a foot or two of the pit wall as he tried to take the lead of the group. On lap 10 Musso, chasing Hawthorn for the lead, lost control of his Ferrari in a fast bend and crashed. He was taken to hospital in Reims, and died there.

On lap 25 Fangio called at his pit. Motor Sport understood that he was complaining about the gear change. In his own account the clutch pedal, drilled full of holes to save weight, had broken early in the race: “I came into the pits, and handed them the pedal!” Guerino Bertocchi, the chief mechanic, pleaded with him to carry on, and he went out again.⁴ He ran sixth, then fifth. Other things, he said, were going through his mind. He felt sorry for the crowd, some of whom, he supposed, had come to see him race and saw him apparently driving like a beginner. He thought back over his career: he had come to Europe for a year, never expecting to win a race, and he had stayed 10 and won five championships. He told himself that it would be foolish to go on.

As we headed to the finish, I decided out of respect not to lap the Old Man, but instead to watch him. He had all his old skill, and his placing of the car for a corner was, as it always had been, immaculate.

Hawthorn won. On the last lap Collins ran out of fuel after Thillois and pushed his car to the line; Fangio took fourth place from him, and Hawthorn, coming up behind, followed him home rather than pass. Fangio finished 2 minutes 30.6 seconds behind, and yet he is credited with all 50 laps: Hawthorn never went by.⁵

It was his 51st World Championship Grand Prix and his last race.

After Reims

He learned only after the race that Musso had died, and he always denied that the death decided him. He had seen the accident, he told Roebuck, but by the time he knew what had happened his mind was already made up; in his years in Grand Prix racing 30 drivers had died, and he had been sad each time, but he could not let it influence him.

On 3 August Collins, who had once had him to stay with his parents in England, was killed in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. Hawthorn went on to win the championship by 1 point from Moss. Fangio never raced again.

When he came home to Buenos Aires on 10 October, the journalists were waiting for him:

Francamente, alcancé mucho más de lo que imaginé en mis comienzos. Estoy satisfecho y por eso quiero dejar el lugar a los jóvenes que vienen pidiendo cancha. Gané 64 carreras con máquinas especiales. Ya está bien

Frankly, I achieved much more than I imagined when I began. I am satisfied, and that is why I want to leave the place to the young men who are asking for their chance. I won 64 races in racing cars. That’s enough.

Two days of these last seasons have chapters of their own: the Nürburgring and Havana.