The Argentine Grand Prix (Spanish: Gran Premio de Argentina) was a round of the Formula One championship, held intermittently from 1953 to 1998. Although it is no longer on the Formula One calendar, the race has a long and varied history. Argentine president Juan Perón was the driving force behind the creation of the circuit, after seeing the success of the country's own Juan Manuel Fangio.
Built just outside of Buenos Aires on swampland in 1952, the "Autódromo", as it was known, featured a white archway dedicated to the memory of Admiral Guillermo Brown (William Brown). The circuit opened in March 1952 with the running of the "Perón Cup", which was won by Fangio. In 1953, the Autodrome hosted the first ever Formula One race held outside Europe. The race saw native son Fangio retire his Maserati after 36 laps due to a transmission failure; Alberto Ascari's victory for Ferrari was overshadowed by a stadium accident which killed nine people.
The following year, Fangio did reach the top step of the podium, winning his home Grand Prix on his second attempt; he would go on to win three of the next four Grands Prix in Argentina. In 1958, Stirling Moss took the win, in what would be the penultimate race in Fangio's distinguished career. With his retirement and the disappearance of other Argentine drivers such as Jose Froilan Gonzalez, and with the exile of Peron (in 1955) leading to several unstable governments, the Argentine Grand Prix disappeared from the F1 calendar in 1961 for over a decade.
A non-championship Formula One race was held at Buenos Aires in 1971, won by Chris Amon over two heats. In 1972 the Argentine Grand Prix returned to the World Championship, with Carlos Reutemann emerging as the new homegrown hero. Reutemann took pole position in his world championship debut, becoming only the second driver to achieve this feat. The race was won by world champion Jackie Stewart. The Grand Prix remained in Argentina through 1981, but the 1982 event was canceled because of Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands resulting in a brief war with Britain.
A private consortium purchased the track in 1991 and began to upgrade it. They got on the 1994 F1 season calendar, but the race (set for October) was aborted to continue modernization. The modernized Argentine Grand Prix returned in 1995, with victory going to Damon Hill. Hill would win the event again in 1996 (his championship season), and in 1997 Jacques Villeneuve won the race in his championship season. Unfortunately, with the organizers of the event running into financial difficulties, the 1998 race was the last running of the Argentine Grand Prix, the checkered flag waving victory to Michael Schumacher, in his ninth win for Ferrari.
The race was held on 4 different configurations of the same variable track (that was renamed over the years). From 1953–1960 the race was run on the "No.4" configuration, which was the same as the most recent configuration used, minus the Senna "S". In 1953 the race was run in an anticlockwise direction, but all the later races were run in a clockwise direction. From 1971–1973 the race was held on the "No.9" configuration, more or less the same as the "No.2" configuration but the Horquilla hairpin was made tighter and shorter. Then from 1974–1981 the race was run on the "No.15" configuration, the longest and fastest configuration, a section that combined 2 very fast successive right and left hand corners with 2 long straights and a spectacularly long and wide third corner (called the Curvon Salotto) combined with the infield section from the previous "No.9" configuration. And then from 1995 to 1998 the race was held on the twisty "No.6" configuration using only the infield section and a chicane resembling an "S" for Ayrton Senna.
A race was scheduled for 1999, but was cancelled pre-season, leaving a 5 week gap between the opening two rounds of the 1999 championship.
In February, 2012, Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced negotiations were coming to a close to bring the Grand Prix back to the country by 2013, this time at a street circuit to be created in the seaside resort city of Mar del Plata, scotching stories which surfaced on December 2011 that suggested a new circuit, being constructed at Zárate, was to target F1. Contracts are expected to be signed on May 2012.
Only one Argentine driver has won the Argentine Grand Prix. Juan Manuel Fangio won the race four times, although Carlos Reutemann came close on several occasions, particularly in 1974, 1979, and 1981.
Famous quotes containing the word grand:
“We now come to the grand law of the system in which we are placed, as it has been developed by the experience of our race, and that, in one word, is SACRIFICE!”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)