Why Argentina’s current great isn’t motivated by emulating Fangio

If Vernon Kay were to front a motorsport-themed edition of Family Fortunes asking for the names of Argentinian racing drivers, you can bet that the first answer given would be five-time Formula 1 world champion Juan Manuel Fangio. F1 aficionados might cite Jose Froilan Gonzalez or Carlos Reutemann, with Oscar Larrauri and Esteban Tuero at the more niche end of the spectrum.

It’s unlikely that one would immediately think of Toyota’s World Endurance Championship charger Jose Maria Lopez for the simple reason that he never raced in motorsport’s most popular series. But with four world titles already to his name, Lopez is arguably the nation’s foremost export since the late Reutemann and it's not too much of a stretch to picture him surpassing Fangio in the world titles stakes.

‘El Maestro’ raced into his late 40s - his famous record as F1’s oldest champion, aged 46 in 1957, is unlikely to be surpassed - and there’s no reason why 38-year-old Lopez couldn’t do the same. The reigning WEC champion is operating at the height of his powers, as his recent showing at Monza proved - fastest in every practice, he took pole in qualifying and together with team-mates Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi won the race (though didn’t set the fastest lap).

As is common for drivers of his generation, Lopez grew up admiring Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, but was conscious from an early age of the impact that Fangio had on racing in Argentina.

“What we are, the little thing we have still in world motorsport, is because of him - because of Fangio,” says Lopez, who says the nation’s limited international presence is in part down to the strong domestic scene that, much like Australia, makes it possible for drivers to make a living locally.

Make no mistake, Lopez is a big deal in Argentina. Where Conway faces enormous competition from British F1 aces Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris and George Russell, Lopez is by far and away the biggest star in what he says is “one of the main sports in Argentina”.

“Yeah, I’m recognised – especially in my city, in my province,” he says. “Sometimes I try to avoid the street!”

Lopez is Argentina's foremost racing export

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

But Lopez admits that wasn’t the case until his Plan A of reaching F1 as part of the Renault driver development scheme collapsed amid two difficult GP2 seasons and prompted a return home, where he became Argentina’s most successful touring car ace.

“When I went back to Argentina in 2007, nobody really knew me – even if I was Formula Renault [2.0 Eurocup] champion, I was [Formula Renault] V6 champion, I was a test driver for Renault close to being in F1,” he says. “But my name wasn’t really popular there because they look a lot at the national series.”

"What motivates me the most is the challenge to keep learning new things and keep improving. I never liked to be on the comfort zone" Jose Maria Lopez

Having known the hardship of seeing his dreams wrested from his grasp – he cites returning to Argentina empty-handed as harder even than the way he lost Le Mans in 2019, making two late stops after a sensor had incorrectly informed the team that his right-front tyre was punctured when the offending item was instead the left-rear – it has made his appreciation for what happened afterwards far greater.

“Especially how it happened that I came back [to Europe] after being in Argentina,” he says. “It was really hard to imagine if I think about 2013 when I was back racing there.”

Given the veneration in which he is held, perhaps it’s no surprise that Lopez hasn’t given much thought to Fangio comparisons.

“I never really thought about it,” he says. “I’m quite humbled on that. Fangio got it in F1.”

Does it motivate him to match Fangio’s tally?

“Not really that particular thing, what motivates me the most is the challenge to keep learning new things and keep improving,” he replies. “I never liked to be on the comfort zone.”

Lopez was a Renault test driver and junior, but was dropped before getting a chance to race due to indifferent GP2 form

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Yet it could all have been different had he not taken a leap of faith in 2013. Lopez fully admits he wasn’t keen on the idea of giving up a rare weekend off to guest drive a privateer Wiechers BMW that had seen better days in the World Touring Car Championship’s Argentina flyaway – anticipating he would say no, his father had teed it up on his behalf with the Automobile Club of Argentina, which wanted a local wildcard for the event. But his reversed grid win in race two was the trigger to open talks with Citroen initially for a part-season deal, that became full-time such was his prowess in testing.

“When WTCC announced the [2013] calendar, it’s not like I wasn’t interested but I had my mind on other things so I didn’t even think about it,” says Lopez. “My father always believed that even if I was winning and having success in Argentina, ‘You should be in Europe’ so behind me, he organised everything. When he told me, it was already too late to say no.

“When I arrived to Termas, the car was pretty much taped everywhere. It was kind of like, ‘Come on, I have to do this?’ But I jumped in, tried to do my best and found myself winning the second race on Sunday – which was amazing. I was lucky to be in the right place because at that time Citroen was looking for a third driver for maybe four races per year.”

Up against esteemed team-mates in four-time WTCC champion Yvan Muller and marque favourite, rally legend Sebastien Loeb, few expected Lopez to come out on top in 2014. But he laid down a marker by winning the first race in Marrakech – a memory he holds as his favourite from his three years with Citroen – and went on to win three titles on the spin.

“When they saw the result of the tests, they changed their mind – they wanted me to do the whole championship so they had to convince the board,” he says. “The first year I didn’t have the pressure basically. I knew that by being top three in the championship would have been enough to keep racing – I nearly came to race for free, just because I really wanted to come back to Europe and start over again.”

It would have been easy to stay in tin-tops after Citroen’s programme came to an end after the 2016 season, but he returned to single-seaters for the first time in a decade by switching to Formula E, comparing well against DS Virgin team-mate Sam Bird in a 2016-17 campaign that yielded two podiums.

“By the end of the year I had the opportunity to keep going with the team, but I believed it would have been possible to move to DS Techeetah,” he says. “That wasn’t the case, so I gave up the seat – if I would have stayed in Virgin, I think it’s a team that you can aim for good things and is very competitive.

Lopez remained part of the Citroen/DS family following its WTCC withdrawal and switched to Formula E with Virgin

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“I had to stay home for a few races [in 2017-18] and then I got the opportunity with Dragon. It was great to go back, but I did a few mistakes trying to get the opportunity with someone else. I wasn’t enjoying the time being on the back of the grid, that’s why I committed to Toyota.”

At the same time as his turmoil with Dragon, Lopez was learning the ropes as an endurance driver. His Toyota career got off to a rocky start in 2017, crashing out of his debut with “a rookie mistake” when a rain shower arrived suddenly at Silverstone – “maybe [I was] coming too much from a sprint races where you always have to try and be 100%” – which caused him to miss the following round at Spa with a back injury.

“To reach where I am today, I filled what I was missing. I feel like I’ve progressed a lot driving cars that are very advanced and very quick" Jose Maria Lopez

Being shifted to a third car for Le Mans appeared from the outside to be a demotion, but meant Lopez wasn’t under the same pressure of his title-chasing team-mates and could gain confidence out of the spotlight.

“I actually arrived to Le Mans with no [race] mileage in the car,” says Lopez, who reveals he also shunted in a pre-Le Mans shakedown at Spa. “I arrived to Le Mans and I have to say, the first two stints I did in the race, I was not afraid but I didn’t have the confidence. I was having the feeling that I was going to have a problem again, and then the third stint came together and I came back again after that.”

His first win when it came, fittingly on Toyota's home turf at Fuji in 2018, showed Lopez was more than ‘just’ a touring car driver.

“I was kind of achieving everything in WTCC, and I still had this bittersweet [feeling] of missing F1,” says Lopez. “So for me becoming a Toyota driver, racing the 24 Hours of Le Mans against Sebastian Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Fernando Alonso, measuring myself with people like Kamui, Kazuki [Nakajima] who have been in F1, it was a thing to push myself.

“To reach where I am today, I filled what I was missing. I feel like I’ve progressed a lot driving cars that are very advanced and very quick.

Conway, Lopez and Kobayashi won 2019-20 WEC title as a trio and are now targeting Le Mans glory

Photo by: TGRE

“Endurance races, you really have to experience it to know how hard it is. Physically-speaking, I had to change a lot because it was spending a lot of hours in the car and in the LMP1, the lateral G-s were very important. It took me time because as a touring car driver, physically it’s not so demanding.

“You don’t have to only be quick which is already hard, but you also have to be quick in traffic and you have to be focused in different conditions, at night and everything, basically you cannot relax. In a sprint series if you’re lucky you’re going to pass two or three cars [per race], we end up passing maybe six to ten cars per lap.

“Of course championships are always nice to win, but we’ve been missing the Le Mans win for a few years so for me, Mike, Kamui, it’s one of the things we’re really pushing for and we hope we can achieve it together.

“There is a lot of unknowns this year. If we have a problem, now you’re not only losing the race but you can also be losing the podium because the LMP2s are very close. They have reliability, it’s a car that has been running forever and we have a new car. But still we know we have a great car, we are in the best team.

“It could happen this year, it could not. But if it doesn’t happen, we will keep trying.”

Fangio never finished in his four Le Mans starts, but together with Stirling Moss was leading for Mercedes in 1955 when team-mate Pierre Levegh’s tragic accident prompted the car's withdrawal. Only in 1954, when Gonzalez and Maurice Trintignant triumphed for Ferrari, has an Argentinian ever taken the chequered flag first.

But despite his modesty, a first victory for the nation in almost 70 years would only elevate Lopez’s status at home further and surely mean his name is discussed among Argentina’s racing legends.

A long-awaited Le Mans win would give Lopez an accolade that Fangio never achieved

Photo by: Motorsport Images