The race of the decade
Who: Juan Manuel Fangio When: German Grand Prix, Nurburgring
When: 1957 Result:1st
“Even now, these many years later, I can feel fear when I think of that race. Only I knew what I had done, the chances I had taken. The Nurburgring, you know, was always my favourite circuit, without any doubt. I loved it, all of it, and
I think that day I conquered it.
“On another day, it might have conquered me, who knows? But I believe that day I took myself and my car to the limit – and perhaps a little bit more. I had never driven like that before, and I knew I never would again…”
Fangio’s triumph at the 1957 German Grand Prix ranks as one of the most famous wins in the 75-year history of the sport of Formula 1. At the wheel of arguably the car of the decade – the six-cylinder Maserati 250F – his tactic in the race was to start on half-tanks and make a pitstop for fuel and fresh tyres.
In practice that took 30 seconds, but during the race, on that hot August afternoon in Germany, the stop left Fangio close to 50s adrift of his rivals – Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins – with 10 laps of the fearsome Nordschleife to go.
Fangio started to put the hammer down, taking corners a gear higher than normal. He began to lap the 14-miles 15 seconds faster than the course record he’d set the year before. His pole time in ’57 was 9m 25.6s but at the end of lap 20 his new lap record was announced: nine minutes and 17.4s – beating his pole time by eight seconds…
The beautifully balanced 250F was sliding around Flugplatz, Adenauer, Pflantzgarten in perfect harmony with the road. He caught the leaders and three laps from the flag overtook Collins, slipping one wheel off the track to pepper the Englishman with small stones – one of which broke his goggles.
And on the penultimate lap he passed Hawthorn, to hold on and beat the second Ferrari by 3.6s at the line. Victory for the Argentine netted him his fifth World drivers’ championship and, at the age of
46, the 24th and final win of his illustrious career.