Maserati is celebrating the 50th anniversary of what is still called the greatest race win of all time, when Juan Manual Fangio won the 1957 German Grand Prix on 4 August en route to securing his fifth world championship title in a season in which in won ten of the 16 races he contested.

The German Grand Prix was originally run on the infamous Nürburgring track, called “the Green Hell” by Jackie Stewart, who created his own race track legend on the same track in 1968, also on 4 August. For more than 22 kilometres and more than 170 corners, an epic length compared to today’s short race tracks, the track dips and sweeps through a pine forest, providing the driver with few visual cues to his position on the track. It is generally agreed that this and length of the track mean that in any generation there is only handful of drivers, the so-called ‘Ringmeisters’, who know the whole track, making consistent fast laps very difficult. Within this mighty distance are corners that are infamous in their own right, the Flugplatz (the ‘airport’), where cars routinely get airborne; the Bergwerk, the site of Niki Lauda’s fiery accident in 1976; and the steeply banked Karussell, where Fangio advised young drivers to “aim for the highest tree.”

For the 1957 event, the pressing question for all the teams was whether to run a non-stop race or two stop half way through the event for fuel and tyres. Ferrari, with its drivers Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins and Luigi Musso, chose to run a non-stop event. Maserati elected to have a mid-race halt. From the start Maserati’s plan faltered. Fangio made a poor start behind Hawthorn and Collins and despite running with less fuel and, therefore, less weight, it took two laps of the 22 km track to take the lead and it was another ten laps before he had sufficient margin to enter the pits for fuel and new tyres. But problems in the pits changing the wheels and then more time wasted putting more fuel in his Maserati not only allowed the three Ferraris to catch up Fangio and his Maserati 250F, by the time the Argentinean ace left the pits, he was 45 seconds adrift of Maranello drivers with ten laps to go.

It was such a significant gap on the Nürburgring that the Ferrari drivers relaxed, especially as on his first lap back on the track, Fangio made no headway as he bedded-in his new tyres. But then began a drive of which legends are made. Lap after lap Fangio relentlessly closed the gap – in ten laps he set a new lap record seven times, beating his own qualifying time by a massive eight seconds.
 

By the time the Ferrari team realised what was happening and frantically began signalling to its drivers to pick up their pace – something that was very had to do on such a long track in an era before radio links to drivers -  it was too late. One by one Fangio picked off the three Ferrari drivers on the last lap before crossing the finishing line with a three second winning margin. At the end of the race, the Argentinean struggled to take in what he had achieved: "I have never driven that quickly before in my life and I don't think I will ever be able to do it again."

To mark the 50th Anniversary of this legendary win by Fangio in his Maserati 250F, the Italian super car maker has launched a unique web site - www.maseraticelebratesfangio.com – that contains a plethora of information, pictures and historic documents from the period. This coming weekend (12 August 2007) Maserati will present a special trophy to the highest placed 250F that competes in the Old Timer Grand Prix classic to be held at Nürburgring.

The Maserati 250F that Fangio used at Nürburgring in 1957 will be on show at the Maserati stand at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show in September. It will appear alongside models from the current range including the new GranTurismo and the Quattroporte. Another example of the Giulio Alfieri designed single-seater will be on display together with classic Trident cars at the ‘Maserati 1957-2007. 50 anni dal mondiale di F.1’ (50 years of F1) exhibition at the Bonfanti-VIMAR Automobile Museum. The show was inaugurated on 5 May and will run until 21 October 2007.

Maserati Corse also paid homage to Fangio last year at Nürburgring. The occasion was the famous 24 Hour race where Laffite, Giudici, Meaden and Hong’s Maserati Trofeo GranSport sported a dark red livery with a yellow grille, the same as Fangio’s race wining car. The GranSport finished the race an honourable fifth.