Carlos Reutemann: The only Argentinean who stepped out of Fangio's shadow

On the day it became known that Stirling Moss died at the age of 90, a Formula 1 driver with a similar record celebrates his birthday. Argentinean Carlos Reutemann turned 78 today. It's a name that doesn't appeal to the imagination of the general public, but he came closer to a world title than Moss ever did.

Moss, however, had to compete against another Argentinean in the 1950s. Juan Manuel Fangio, statistically the most dominant F1 driver who ever lived. His achievements are legendary, especially when you consider that he achieved most of his successes after his 40th. It will be a long time before one of his compatriots will surpass him.

An old hand, just like Fangio

The only Argentinean who managed to step out of his shadow in all these years was Reutemann. Like Fangio, he was quite old when he started. He was almost 30 when he drove his first Grand Prix in 1972 and it would be almost another ten years before he would compete for the world title. And that wasn't due to faulty material.

He impressed right from his debut by training pole position for the Argentine Grand Prix. Something in which only Mario Andretti had preceded him and Jacques Villeneuve would repeat. In these first years at the Brabham of Bernie Ecclestone Reutemann regularly managed to win and gain podium places, but due to fluctuating results he never competed seriously for the title.

As replacement for Niki Lauda at Ferrari

After the accident of Niki Lauda, however, an opening came at Ferrari and Reutemann was brought in as the new star. Enzo Ferrari thought that Lauda would never reach the same level again and Reutemann was designated as the first driver for 1977. Lauda was so aggrieved by this that he was even more motivated to show what he could do. Lauda would defeat Reutemann in the end and became world champion for the second time.

Lauda left for Brabham before 1978 and this gave Reutemann the space to achieve successes of his own. With four victories it would turn out to be his most successful season, but due to erratic results he only finished third in the battle for the world title. The lotus of Mario Andretti turned out to be too strong that year.

A switch to Lotus for 1979 seemed only logical, but that turned out to be an unfortunate decision. However, the new Lotus 80 proved to be a disastrously bad car and so the Lotus 79 was used again. The ground effect car with which Andretti had won the title, however, was outdated and moreover unreliable. Jody Scheckter meanwhile, became world champion in 'his' Ferrari.

Finally the best car at Williams

And so the Argentine made another switch, this time to the Williams team. This seemed to be the golden move. After many years of struggling, Frank Williams finally got his team on track with Arabic money and thanks to Patrick Head there was a very fast car at the start in 1980. Reutemann, however, did not foresee that he had to enter into an unprecedented duel with the Australian Alan Jones.

Jones had won four races with Williams in 1979 and he got along well with the hard personalities of Williams and Head. Also in 1980 Jones was in top form and Reutemann had no choice but to watch his teammate take the world title. He finished third and got a nice victory in Monaco.

A wasted world title

The following year Reutemann had made the Williams his own and decided that this was his best chance to become world champion himself. This immediately led to problems when he ignored team orders during the Grand Prix of Brazil. The relationship with Jones, who wasn't great anyway, was damaged beyond repair.

The two despised eachother for the remainder of the 1981 season, which didnt help the performance on track either. The lead Reutemann had built up in the first races disappeared and for the last race in Las Vegas he had only one point ahead of Nelson Piquet in the Brabham.

Reutemann started from pole position, but had such a dramatic race that he finished outside the points. Rarely did a title contender spoil his chances. Jones easily won the race and Piquet became world champion thanks to fifth place. Reutemann would later claim that the atmosphere within the team had contributed to the lost world title. Jones had said to everyone that he was not going to help the Argentinean at all and the team did not correct him.

Therefore the atmosphere didn't improve the next year. Alon Jones had left, but the Falklands War broke out. Tensions between the United Kingdom and Argentina were high and the very patriotic Reutemann decided to turn his back on Williams and Formula 1 for good at the beginning of 1982. To this day he is a politician and was governor of the province of Sante Fe for many years.