Logan Sargeant’s experience behind the wheel of the Williams after the Dutch GP it seemed close to being concluded, and so it was: already from this weekend at Monza the American will not continue his adventure with the Grove team, with James Vowles however surprising with the nomination of his replacement. The British team seemed ready to opt for Mick Schumacher or Liam Lawson as Alexander Albon’s new teammate for the rest of the championship, preferring instead the ‘internal solution’ with the promotion of a youngster from its Academy: Frank Colapinto.
A Williams alumnus since 2023, the 21-year-old won the Spanish F4 title in 2021, before moving up to Formula 3 and Formula 2, a category in which he took a win in the Imola Sprint Race this year, as well as two podiums. Colapinto will now devote himself full-time to Formula 1, also becoming the first Argentinean driver to compete in a GP for the first time since 2001when Minardi fielded Gaston Mazzacane on the grid for the last time. But how many and who were the ‘biancocelesti’ drivers who arrived in the Circus before him?
In total, before Colapinto, Argentina had brought 22 drivers to Formula 1, but few of them have really written the history of this sport. Most of them have completed their exploits in the 1950sthat is, in the first decade of F1. It will forever remain an icon of Ferrari, for example, Jose Froilan GonzalezIt was him, The Cabezonto win the first GP of the history of the Prancing Horse in Formula 1crossing the finish line first at Silverstone in 1951He also won with the Redand not only, Juan Manuel Fangio. Considered one of the best pilots of all time, ‘The Chueco’ got 24 victorieswhich still represent the record for an Argentine in F1, but above all he won well five world titles. He succeeded in 1951 with Alfa Romeo, and then strung together four consecutive victories from 1954 to 1957 with three different teams: Maserati, Ferrari and Mercedes. An absolute record that remained intact until 2002, when only Michael Schumacher achieved the same number of world championship victories, and then reached seven world championships, tied with Lewis Hamilton. He could have written a different story even Onofre Marimontwice on the podium with Maserati (3rd on both occasions) if it had not been for a fatal accident in 1954 during the German GP trials at the Nürburgring. A podium, always in third position, for Carlos Menditeguy in his Argentina, before the start of a long period of crisis for Argentine motor racing, with drivers who had only one or two races (among them Alejandro De Tomaso, who became more famous for founding the car manufacturer of the same name), many of which ended even before the checkered flag.
A dark period that continued until the 70s, when Argentina seemed to start dreaming again with Carlos Reutemann. “Tormented and tormenting”as Enzo Ferrari defined him, was the protagonist of ups and downs during his career that brought him close to winning the world title in 1981, when he came 2nd with Williams behind another South American like Nelson Piquet. Holder of the record for the most GPs contested by an Argentine driver (147), ‘Lole’as he was nicknamed in his homeland, won eleven championships with Brabham, Ferrari, Lotus and the aforementioned Williams 12 racesin addition to conquering 45 podiums and six pole positions. Having devoted himself to politics after hanging up his steering wheel, to the point of becoming Senator of the Province of Santa-Fe, Reutemann passed away in 2021 after a long illness. After his parenthesis in the 80s, Argentina then met other compatriots in F1, but without the successes of ‘Lole’ or his predecessors: Ricardo Zunino, Miguel Angel Guerra, Oscar Larrauri, Norberto Fontana, Esteban Tuero and Gaston Mazzacane.
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