Farewell to the Pampas Bull
It was sad to see that José Froilan Gonzalez, the Pampas Bull and Ferrari’s first GP winner, passed away recently at the age of 90.
I’m pretty sure it was an early 50s photo of him in Road & Track a few years later that was the first one to be captioned “When the drivers were fat and the tyres were skinny.”
He won the 1951 British GP in the mighty Ferrari 4.5 litre 375, beating Fangio in the supercharged Alfa and Villoresi in another Ferrari. Gonzalez went on to win Le Mans and the British GP again, both in 1954; but he was greatly saddened by the death of his young compatriot, Onofre Marimón, at the Nurburgring in that same year and didn’t have much major racing success after that.
The 1951 winning car is the one that supposedly* came to NZ for Ron Roycroft after Louis Rosier had raced it: Gavin Bain later masterminded a superb restoration of the car. (* I said ‘supposedly’ because UK motorsport writer Doug Nye doesn’t agree!)
I met Gonzalez in the pits at a brilliant Silverstone Classic race meeting in 1997, where Ferrari was the ‘theme’. JFG was pushing Clay Regazzoni in his wheelchair: Regga of course had won the Italian GP for Ferrari, the race meeting at which Rindt had been killed in practice. Scheckter, Hill, Brooks and Allison were also on hand, as was a stunning Ferrari-powered racing boat!
Leaving aside any Indy 500 winners from the days when that race counted for the world championship, I am pretty sure this means Sir Jack Brabham is now the oldest living GP winner.