A LOOK AT: A LIFE OF SPEED THE JUAN MANUEL FANGIO STORY

Recently F1 fans have been treated to a new documentary on Netflix which documents the life of arguably the best Formula One driver ever to grace the race track - Juan Manuel Fangio.

Fangio started racing at the age of 37. He raced for 10 years in which time he won five World Championships (1951, 54, 55, 56 & 57) and he came runner-up twice. He entered 51 Grand Prix's of which he started from the front row 48 times (including 29 pole positions) and set 23 fastest race laps en route to 35 podium finishes, 24 of them victories. He won his last title at the age of 46.

The documentary explains to the viewers just how gifted the Argentine racer was with how smooth he was able to control the car. In an era which Formula One cars were simply as some have described it in the past as a 'bomb on wheel's' which are then travelling at speeds excessive of 200mph.

In the documentary interviewee and Mercedes F1 Team principle Toto Wolff tells us that Fangio is in a very exclusive club of being one of only a few drivers to win a Formula One race in a Mercedes F1 car along with Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Rosberg.

A topic that came up multiple times during this documentary was a statistic which is unlikely to ever be broken - Fangio won a championship in four his of five teams he went to. The closest modern example we have of a driver doing this is Hamilton who has won a championship with both McLaren and Mercedes.

This is certainly a fantastic way to spend some time in quarantine as fans eagerly await the first race of the 2020 season. Other film/documentary recommendations for racing fans to watch during lockdown include;

Rush,

Senna,

& Drive to Survive S1 & 2.