“Fangio: The Life behind the Legend” (Gerald Donaldson, 2003)

Posted on

| Written by

Five world championships, 24 wins from 51 starts – benchmarks that for decades the Formula 1 fraternity thought un-surpassable.

They have been beaten now, but his victory strike rate and sheer total of championships won – second only to Michael Schumacher – will remain etched in the pages of history.

But anyone who came to the sport after Fangio’s F1 career ended, almost five decades ago, may know little of the man beyond these bare statistics. Gerald Donaldson’s excellent biography fills in the blanks with a detailed history of F1’s first great.

Fangio contested the first world championship Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1950 at the age of 38 – not an age active Grand Prix drivers typically reach these days.

He already had a long and dramatic career behind him before he scored such memorable victories as that at the N??rburgring in 1957. Much of the opening chapters of the book focuses on his extraordinary exploits in the fiercely demanding Argentinian road racing competitions that took weeks to complete, covered thousands of miles, akin to doing a couple of Mille Miglias through mountains and jungle.

Throughout the book Donaldson returns to several key points about Fangio that go a long way to explaining why he was (and still is) held in such reverence. It wasn’t just his spectacular skill – though that was humbling enough – it was his own humility and politeness.

Conventional histories of Fangio also tend to underestimate his vital role in car repair. His mechanical training was vital in the Argentinian races, where he would effect enormous and complicated repairs that would have caused other drivers to retire.

Donaldson acknowledges that a substantial amount of his material comes from the official Fangio biography by Roberto Carrozo, but he has added plenty of other references, and not just from the usual suspects like Autosport.

Donaldson seems to have made the judicious call of using Fangio’s most uncritical admirers (such as Stirling Moss) quite sparingly, and is also careful to tip-toe around dubious claims made in some less reliable books.

It’s clearly the product of a vast amount of research and only the final pages of the book, which skims through his post-F1 life rather briskly, give any cause for disappointment. “The Life behind the Legend” is a first-rate biography of one of the sport’s genuine, incontrovertible greats.

Virgin books
2003
1852270837

RaceFans rating

Related links

Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

One comment on ““Fangio: The Life behind the Legend” (Gerald Donaldson, 2003)”

  1. As a biography it’s indeed fantastic. The detailed description of Fangio’s early career in those road races are thrilling to read, likewise Fangio’s time in Europe. I would have liked to read a little bit more about his post-race life, but fair enough.

    For me it has done two major things: as an F1 fan, it definitely helped put things into perspective. If you compare present-day F1 to the 1950s, then very little is the same, which is unfortunate in a way. Aside from that, Fangio is described as a person you can look up to. The quotes from drivers and close friends in the book show how much respect they had for Fangio.

    It has also made me want to read more about the early days of Formula 1. If you’re even slightly interested in historic GP racing, then I would recommend this book, definitely.

Comments are closed.