Argentina was big in the news in race history over the years on the thirteenth of January.
That country’s greatest son and future five-time Formula 1 Juan Manuel Fangio champion opened his 1952 account with victory in the Interlagos Grand Prix in Brazil in a Ferrari 166. Five years later, Fangio was at it again as he stormed to home ’57 Argentine Grand Prix glory in a Maserati 250F.
Seventeen years anon, another former world champion Denny Hulme celebrated announcing his retirement from F1 by winning the 1974 Argentine GP at Buenos Aires in a McLaren M23 Cosworth (below). Also in Buenos Aires, future world champion Alan Jones took his Williams FW07 Cosworth to win the 1980 Gran Premio de Argentina from maiden F1 podium finishers Nelson Piquet and Keke Rosberg. Sections of the track re-laid overnight after it broke up during qualifying, disintegrated again, causing chaos in the race.
Looking much further back to 103 years ago on this day, Barney Oldfield’s unique Miller ‘Golden Submarine’ won two of the three main events at Ascot’s Los Angeles 1918 AAA races.
Moving on down under, Jack Brabham won both 1962 Tasman Levin Internationals in his Cooper T55 Climax at Levin, where Chris Amon’s Ferrari 246T Jim Clark’s Lotus 49T Cosworth shared the ’68 wins. Graham McRae took his F5000 Leda GM1 Chevrolet to victory there in 1973. In other races, Darrell Waltrip took the 1980 NASCAR Western 500 and Felix Rosenqvist won the 2018 Marrakesh Formula E Prix.
Two Paris to Dakars ended on this day – controversially in 1989 when Peugeot team boss Todt tossed a coin to decide that Ari Vatanen and not Jacky Ickx (below) should take the car win in his Peugeot 405 T16. Gilles Lalay won the bike race. And Hiroshi Masuoka won the 2002 car race for Mitsubishi, while Fabrizio Meoni took KTM’s first bile win and Vladimir Chagin took truck victory for Kamaz
On the day that actor-cum-Le Mans racer Patrick Dempsey and F1 racer Gianni Morbidelli were born, Jaguar launched its new R4 Formula 1 car Cosworth in London in 2003.