My hero

By Cliff Allison

“It has to be Fangio. I took Lotus’s USA representative to the 1957 French GP at Rouen and went with him to the bottom of the hill to watch something very special: Fangio plunging down there in a 250F in a 140mph four-wheel drift. On the first lap he must have seen me standing there in my race kit because the next time he went by he gave us a wave, still drifting the car at 140mph. He went on to win that race, while Luigi Musso recorded the fastest lap. I only raced against Fangio once, at the French GP the next year at Reims, and before the start we had a pretty good idea it was to be his last GP. He announced his retirement after the finish — and Musso had lost his life.”