Juan Manuel Fangio, 30 years after his death

The quintuple, one of the most important athletes in the history of Formula 1 and Argentina, left his stamp forever. Great figures gathered by their death, which occurred on July 17, 1995.

Juan Manuel Fangio integrates the Table of the Olympus of Argentine Sports, the one that barely has a handful of chairs. The other names that make up the group are left out of any discussion in times in which even the slightest debate generates insubsanable cracks. Diego Maradona, Carlos Monzón, Luciana Aymar, Emanuel Ginobili, Guillermo Vilas and Lionel Messi have their place. Maybe someone else has credentials to join and others will achieve them in the future, but Fangio has his deserved position. Five titles of the Formula 1 world for the man of whom the 30th anniversary of his death is fulfilled this Thursday.

On Monday, July 17, 1995, at 4.10 in the morning, the Balcarceño died in the Mater Dei Sanatorium at 84, because of a bronchopneumonia. The Quíntuple health had already been deteriorating for three years, since a tumor of a kidney was removed. Kidney problems grew and began to dialize three times a week. The end of the year of 1993 went to Mater Dei for an intestinal problem and in 1994 he was held in his house in Palermo. Only the closest ones visited them, among them, Stirling Moss, the champion without a crown of the F1 and Argentine companion in the times of Mercedes-Benz. Fangio celebrated his 84 years on June 24 and on July 15 he was hospitalized by a flu state, which worsened and ended with his death.

The chueco was veiled in three different places. First, in the White Hall of the Casa Rosada that was made available to the then President Carlos Menem. The crowns that Fangio had warned that he did not want in his wake, crowded in the enclosure. The burning chapel opened for the public and it was a lot of people who went through the coffin in the four hours agreed.

From there, he was transferred to the Club Argentino Automobile building, where Luigi Scalfaro, then president of Italy (visiting Argentina) was one of those who came to say goodbye to that huge figure of world motoring. In the ACA there were also crowns, one of the July 26 movement, those who had kidnapped Fangio in Cuba in 1958.

On July 18, Fangio’s remains were transferred on a air force plane to Balcarce and was veiled at the Fangio Museum. The citizens of the small town approached to say goodbye to the idol, who was finally buried in the family vault of the Balcarceño cemetery. Moss, Jacky Stewart, Froilán González, Carlos Reutemann, Gastón Perkins, Cocho López and skewer Castilian were some of the figures of the motor sport of Argentina and the world that fired the chueco. The tributes in memory of the chueco multiplied by every corner of the planet.

Juan Manuel Fangio won the nickname of Chueco in his adolescence, when he played football in Rivadavia de Balcarce. He also practiced boxing, before getting into motor racing: he debuted to the 18 as a companion of Manuel Sy Syntza in the laps of Coronel Vidal and General Guido. Later he would pass behind the wheel and He would mark history in Argentine motor racing: he gave the first victory and the first title to Chevrolet in Road Tourism, the oldest category in the world and that has the duel between Ford and the bun as a banner.

Later he would go to Europe, seduced after his great walk in the Grand Prix races that were made in 1949 in the old seasons of large awards, the prehistory of the F1. He was at the birth of Formula 1 in the GP of Great Britain of 1950 in Silverstone and achieved his first win on the second date of that season, in Monaco, with Alfa Romeo. Later the five titles that were recorded until Michael Schumacher in 2003 and its 24 wins in 51 races, an average success that is a very difficult brand to match.