If you get the chance, pick up the January issue of F1 Racing magazine. It's
all about "Quick." What it is, who is, etc. It's really a very interesting
issue.
One of the features is "Top 10 Quick Moments" from F1 history. They don't
try to put these in any order. Some of them I remember seeing, like
Mansell's pass of Senna at Barcelona in 1991, Mika Hakkinen and Michael
Schumacher blowing past poor Ricardo Zonta on either side at Spa in 2000,
and Alonso's incredible pass on Schumacher around the outside of 130R at
Suzuka in 2005.
But the one I'd heard about for years was Fangio's incredible performance at
the old Nurburgring circuit in 1957. For those who won't be able to find the
magazine, here it is:
Hampered by a botched pit stop that turned his 28sec lead into a 50sec
deficit, the great Juan Manuel Fangio began the charge of his life - a
mesmerising chase around the 14-mile switchback as, with devastating
commitment, he reeled in the leading Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter
Collins. "If you left the car in a higher gear for some of the faster
corners, as long as you went in at the correct angle, you came out faster,"
he said, "I began to take nearly all the bends like that." Slashing a
massive 20sec from the lap record, he finally caught and passed both red
cars on the penultimate lap. It was Fangio's last win. "On that day, I
finally managed to master the Nurburgring," he later wrote. "I made such
demands on myself that I couldn't sleep for two days. I knew I'd never be
able to go so fast again, ever."
Gordon Glasgow
Renton, WA
www.gordon-glasgow.org
"The difference between what we do
and what we are capable of doing
would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."
- Mahatma Gandhi
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