Juan Manuel Fangio’s ‘drive of his life’ at the 1957 German Grand Prix

On this day — August 4 — in 1957, Juan Manuel Fangio scored his final Formula 1 victory, one that is considered one of the finest wins in all of racing history, and one that secured him the World Championship two races early.

There are so many elements that made the race impressive: Fangio’s quick thinking and strategy calls, his ability to win regularly on such a difficult track, his ultra-quick driving that broke the lap record time and again. Today, we remember what Fangio recalled as the “drive of his life.”

1957: Fangio’s final title

By 1957, Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio had been in the racing game for years. He was tired, worried about his family, hoping to spend time with his parents in their final years. But the desire to compete still burned strong within him.

1957 was to be Fangio’s final full season in Formula 1, and he kicked it off in style by winning the first three Grands Prix of the year in Argentina, Monaco, and France. A retirement at the British Grand Prix was a low point in the season for Fangio — but in preparing for August’s German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, the Argentine racer knew he had an advantage.

“There was always a fear at the Nurburgring, but fear is not a stupid thing,” Fangio said, reported in Fangio: The Life Behind the Legend by Gerald Donaldson. “Winning is not a question of courage, but of faith in oneself and in the car.

“The Nurburgring was always my favorite track, from the first day I drove on it in an Alfetta in 1951.

“A circuit that was dangerous was good for me, because there you could tell the difference between us all, and my luck never let me down.”

That mindset had proven true; each year Fangio raced at the 14.5-mile track through the German forests in F1, he finished no lower than second. Further, he had set lap records at the circuit and had perhaps mastered the track in a way no other driver would have thought possible.

So, heading into the 1957 German Grand Prix, Fangio had reason to be hopeful. He had further reason for his confidence when he made a critical strategy call for his Maserati team after observing how the Ferrari drivers had set up their cars. Where Ferrari donned harder tires and a full tank of fuel with the intention of running the full race without stopping, Fangio decided he’d risk a pit stop by starting with a half-tank of fuel and much softer tires.

When the green flag flew to signal the start of the Grand Prix, the Ferraris of Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn launched into a battle for the lead as Fangio sat back, studying them. On lap three, he made two decisive moves that placed his Maserati ahead of both Ferraris — and allowed Fangio to build up the gap he needed in order to make his pit stop strategy work.

On lap 13, Fangio was 28 seconds ahead of the second-placed cars, and he pulled into the pits. As he sipped a drink, however, his race began to fall apart.

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The mechanics servicing Fangio’s machine were throwing away precious seconds and fumbling the stop. A wheel nut rolled under the car and took half a minute to find. By the time Fangio was finally able to return to the track, he’d lost his full gap to the Ferraris, plus an additional 48 seconds, and would have just 10 more laps to make up the distance.

“I had to get the tires bedded in, so on the next lap, I was 51 seconds behind,” Fangio recalled to Donaldson. “After that, the car really began to perform to my liking.

“The Nurburgring is one of those tracks where you lose touch with things; you think you’re going fast and you’re not going fast at all.

“I began to use higher gears. I had learned from experience that if you left the car in a higher gear for some of the faster curves, and as long as you went in at the correct angle, you came out with the engine revving at a faster rate on the following straight, which made a difference in terms of time.

“It wasn’t very comfortable, feeling the lack of grip as the car went round, but after all, I had to win.”

As the laps ticked by, Fangio went faster and faster. He broke the Nurburgring lap record a stunning nine times, chopping down Hawthorn’s lead by 15.5 seconds on one lap, then an additional 8.5 on the next.

“They told me afterwards that there had been quite a stir in the Ferrari pits,” Fangio recalled to Donaldson. “As I seemed at first to be losing rather than gaining after my pit stop, they had told their drivers to reduce their pace.

“But when they looked at their stopwatches after the first lap in which I’d used the higher gears, they couldn’t believe their eyes. I had made up 10 seconds.”

At the start of lap 21 — just one lap to the end — Fangio swept by Collins stealing second place. Later, on that same lap, he powered past Mike Hawthorn in a decisive move that saw him brush the grass.

“On that lap,” Fangio recalled, “I saw a red blur disappearing round a bend among the trees, and I said to myself, ‘I’ll certainly catch that Ferrari!’

“The pits had signaled to me that there were not two cars in front of me, but only one; I had no idea that the other was only a few meters in front of the one I had seen.

“On the Adenau descent, I saw the two red cars, one behind the other. I knew I was going to catch them.”

Hawthorn seemed shocked that Fangio had made such an aggressive pass, recalling later, “If I hadn’t moved over, I’m sure the old devil would have driven right over me!”

But as his surprise wore off, Hawthorn regained his composure and began to attack Fangio for the lead. Making things worse was a loose seat for Fangio, which forced him to hold himself steady on his way to the checkered flag.

Hawthorn, though, was no match for Fangio. The Argentine racer held strong and pushed through to the win.

“What a celebration there was!” Fangio recalled to Donaldson. “When I managed to get to the podium, Hawthorn and Collins were ecstatic, as if they had been the winners. They never stopped congratulating me and shaking me by the hand.”

Fangio’s average speed of 88.7 miles per hour for the entire race was faster than anything anyone had done before. It was, frankly, exceptional.

But for Fangio, it marked a turning point.

“When it was all over I was convinced that I would never be able to drive like that again — never.

“I had reached the limit of my concentration and will to win. Those were the two things that allowed me to take the risks I did that day.

“Until that race, I had never demanded more of myself or the cars. But that day I made such demands on myself that I couldn’t sleep for two nights afterward.

“For two days I experienced delayed-action apprehension at what I had done, a feeling that had never come over me after any other race, a feeling that still returns to me this day when I think about that time.”

His insight was truly prescient; the 1957 German Grand Prix was Fangio’s final major win. He secured second-place finishes in the final two races of the F1 season. In the two Grands Prix he contested in 1958, he only finished fourth.

That 24th victory created a legend: Fangio was crowned the F1 driver with the highest career win percentage of a stunning 46.15%. No other driver has ever come close.

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