Argentina in the Car Racing World

As a country, I’m sure Argentina has a lot to offer. But this isn’t a travel guide.

Formula 1 last visited the South American country in 1998, racing at Buenos Aires’ Autódromo Juan y Oscar Gálvez. The race was a popular one, despite driver complaints of a bumpy track surface, but the rising costs and declining government support led to an end to F1 racing in Argentina.

Thanks in no small part to local legend Juan Manuel Fangio’s successes in Europe, in 1951 then-President Juan Peron ordered the construction of Autódromo 17 de Octubre, later renamed Autódromo Juan y Oscar Gálvez.

In March 1952, Fangio won the circuit’s maiden race, the Peron Cup. The following year, the track played host to the first Formula 1 World Championship event to take place outside of Europe. Fangio retired from the landmark event with transmission failure, and the race was won by Alberto Ascari.

Racing continued in Buenos Aires throughout the 1950s, and Fangio won his home Grand Prix in 1954, 1955, 1956, and 1957. But when Fangio retired in 1958, there was no obvious successor to the Argentine hero. Local interest in F1 declined, and a succession of changing governments saw international racing slide to the bottom of the agenda. The 1960 Grand Prix, won by Bruce McLaren, would be Argentina’s last F1 race for a decade.

Changing governments, global politics, and money troubles have been constant companions in Argentina’s F1 history. Promoters interested in bringing the sport back to the country have had trouble securing long-term investment, a familiar complaint across the globe. The Falklands conflict saw Argentina without a race for most of the 1980s, and the late 1990s return was very short-lived.

When F1 did return briefly to Argentina, Bernie Ecclestone was unhappy with both track and facilities, and has sworn that Formula 1 will not return to the Autódromo Juan y Oscar Gálvez. But racing in Argentina is about much more than a circuit on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The country has a rich tradition in all forms of motorsport, including but not limited to Turismo Carretera (the oldest TC series in the world) and off-shoot TC2000; the Dakar Rally, which began in Buenos Aires in 2010; Rally Argentina as a round of the IRC; and Formula 3 Sudamericana, to name but a few.

In 2008, the FIA GT Championship was treated to a round at the Circuito Potrero de los Funes, probably the most beautiful track in the world. High in the Argentine mountains, the circuit winds its way around a high-altitude lake, with breath-taking scenery at every turn. The track takes in elevation changes, making the most of its natural surroundings, and offers straights and sweeping corners that look ripe for overtaking.

The clip below is a highlights reel of a 2008 TC2000 event, held to christen the redeveloped track before the GT race. The Circuito Potrero de los Funes offers all the thrills an F1 fan could want – close walls, limited run-off areas, a challenging track, and opportunities for wheel-to-wheel battles. The catch? I don’t think the track has been approved for Formula 1 cars, whose higher speeds make an already challenging track borderline dangerous.

But a track like this? I’d be quite happy watching a unicycle race…

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SOURCE:
“Why you should love, Argentina”
Written by Kate Walker
Monday, 09 August 2010
http://www.girlracer.co.uk
http://www.girlracer.co.uk/motorsport/kate-walker/6092-why-you-should-loveargentina-.html