Opinion: James Newbold

He may not be a global household name, but Argentina’s latest motorsport hero Jose Maria Lopez may even overtake Fangio’s tally of world titles

“Make no mistake, Lopez is a big deal in Argentina and by far its biggest motorsport star”

If Vernon Kay were to front a motorsport-themed edition of Family Fortunes and ask for the names of Argentinian racing drivers, you can bet the first answer would be five-time F1 world champion

Juan Manuel Fangio. F1 devotees might cite Froilan Gonzalez or Carlos Reutemann, with Oscar Larrauri and Esteban Tuero at the niche end of the spectrum [yes, very niche! – ed].

It’s unlikely that you’d immediately think of Toyota’s World Endurance Championship charger Jose Maria Lopez for the simple reason that he never raced in motorsport’s most popular series. But with four world titles (three in World Touring Cars and one in WEC) already to his name, Lopez is arguably the nation’s foremost motorsport export since the late Reutemann, and it’s not too much of a stretch to picture him surpassing Fangio in world titles.

‘El Maestro’raced into his late forties – his famous record as

F1’s oldest champion, aged 46 in 1957, is unlikely to be surpassed – and there’s no reason why 38-year-old Lopez couldn’t do the same. The reigning WEC champion is operating at the height of his powers, as his recent showing at Monza proved – fastest in every practice session, he took pole in qualifying and, together with team-mates Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, won the race (although he didn’t set the fastest lap).

As with many drivers of his generation, Lopez grew up admiring Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, but was conscious from an early age of the impact that Fangio had on racing in Argentina.

“What we are, the little thing we have still in world motorsport, is because of him – because of Fangio,”says Lopez, who says the nation’s limited international presence is in part down to the strong domestic scene that, much like Australia, makes it possible for drivers to make a living locally.

Make no mistake, Lopez is a big deal in Argentina. Where Conway faces enormous competition from Britain’s three F1 aces to gain public recognition, Lopez is far and away the biggest star in what he says is“one of the main sports in Argentina”.

“Yeah, I’m recognised – especially in my city, in my province,” he says.“sometimes I try to avoid the street!”

But Lopez admits that wasn’t the case until his Plan A of reaching F1 as part of the Renault Driver Development scheme collapsed amid two difficult GP2 seasons and prompted a return home, where he became Argentina’s most successful touring car ace. The experienced hardship of seeing his dreams wrested from his grasp – he cites being dropped by Renault in 2006 as harder even than the way he lost Le Mans in 2019 – has made his appreciation for what happened afterwards greater.

“Especially how it happened that I came back [to Europe] after being in Argentina,”he says.“it was really hard to imagine if I think about 2013 when I was back racing there.”

Given the veneration in which he is held, perhaps it’s no surprise that Lopez hasn’t given much thought to Fangio comparisons.“i never really thought about it,”he says.

“I’m quite humbled on that. Fangio got it in F1.”

So what does motivate him?“the challenge to keep learning new things and keep improving,”he replies.“i never liked to be on the comfort zone.”

It would have been easy to stay in tin-tops after three WTCC titles on the spin with Citroen, outshining team-mates Yvan Muller and Sebastien Loeb. But he returned to single-seaters for the first time in a decade by switching to Formula E, initially with DS Virgin, comparing well against Sam Bird, before leaving in the expectation that he would follow DS to Techeetah. It didn’t happen and he joined Dragon, where Lopez admits he often tried too hard to prove he merited a better seat.

At the same time, he was learning the ropes as an endurance driver. His Toyota career got off to a rocky start in 2017 – he crashed out of his debut in the wet at Silverstone, missed the following round at Spa, and was shifted to a third car for Le Mans. But his first win, on home turf for Toyota at Fuji the next year, showed Lopez was more than‘just’a touring car driver.

“I was kind of achieving everything in WTCC, and I still had this bittersweet [feeling] of missing F1,”says Lopez.“so for me becoming a Toyota driver, racing Le Mans against people who have been in F1, it was a thing to push myself. To reach where I am today, I filled what I was missing. I feel like I’ve progressed a lot driving cars that are very advanced and very quick.

“Of course, championships are always nice to win, but we’ve been missing the Le Mans win for a few years so for me, Mike, Kamui, it’s one of the things we’re really pushing for and we hope we can achieve it together.”

Fangio never finished in his four Le Mans starts, but was leading for Mercedes with Stirling Moss in 1955 when team-mate Pierre Levegh’s tragic accident prompted his withdrawal. Lopez’s misfortunes at the Circuit de la Sarthe are well known, but a first victory for his nation since Gonzalez in 1954 would only elevate his status at home further, and surely mean he is discussed among Argentina’s true greats.