He won his first four races, and then two more, which brought an invitation to join Farina and Fagioli in the Alfa Romeo team for the first season of the world championship. So, in just a single international season, Fangio earned a seat with the dominant grand prix team of 1950.
Which was when I first met him, around the Continental paddocks. Of course he was one of the top men – that year he won the Monaco, Belgian and French Grands Prix, and was runner-up for that first world title. I was just a young lad from England in an under-powered, under-funded HWM. But to this day I remember clearly what was, I suppose, our first meeting on the track.
It was in the Bari Grand Prix in Italy. This was effectively my first Formula 1 race, even though my HWM was just a 2-litre F2 car. Farina and Fangio were battling away in those marvellous screaming supercharged 158 Alfas, and they came up to lap me. Farina came by under braking into a corner, and carved me up a bit – he was like that: very refined and distinguished off the track, but he could be a bastard on it – and in so doing he messed up his line and ran wide. So I re-passed him on the exit of the corner in my little HWM. Of course he was pretty upset about that, but once he’d sorted out his problems he put his foot down and tore past me.
Fangio came through right behind him, and as he drew abreast of me he looked across and gave me a big grin, as if to say: ‘That was a bit cheeky!’ He obviously thought it was a huge joke.
He was world champion in 1951, even though Ascari and Ferrari were at last able to beat the now ageing Alfas, and for 1952, the first of the 2-litre formula, he joined Maserati. And he and I were briefly team-mates for the first time when we both drove the unsuccessful V16 BRM in Formula Libre races. (I always say it was the worst car I ever raced). It was after driving the BRM that he had the worst accident of his career.
He’d raced the V16 at Dundrod on the Saturday and, as usual, it had broken. But he was also due to drive for Maserati in the non-championship Monza Grand Prix the next day. He flew from Belfast to Paris that evening, but bad weather grounded his flight on to Italy. So he got hold of a car and went by road, driving overnight from Paris to Milan. He arrived at Monza a scant hour before the start of the race, started from the back of the grid – and the Maserati somersaulted at Lesmo, giving him head injuries and a broken vertebra in the neck which put him out for the rest of the season. For once, his extraordinary powers of endurance had let him down.