F1’s biggest scandals: When the reigning F1 champion was kidnapped

It’s the late 1950s, and the president of Cuba Fulgencio Batista is fighting an increasingly losing battle against the rebel guerilla forces of Fidel Castro. 

But keen to carry on as normal, he engaged in a dose of what we might call today sportswashing to lure the wealthy businesspeople to Havana to invest in a country increasingly being torn apart by corruption, with heads being turned by the communist offer of Castro. 

So in 1957, the first Cuban Grand Prix was run on a 3.23-mile circuit, twisting through the streets of Havana. 

It was not, and never was, an official part of the world championship, one of a number of ‘non-championship grands prix’ held in that era, but it attracted a stellar driving roster. 

Juan Manuel Fangio, in the year he would win his fifth and final F1 world title, won the race, with the great Stirling Moss also in attendance. Carroll Shelby – he of Shelby Cobra fame also headed 90 miles south of Florida for the race. 

A year later and Fangio had retired from full-time F1 competition, but still took in a handful of world championship grands prix, including his home Argentine round and his 51st and final entry, the French Grand Prix, in which winner, and eventual world champion, Mike Hawthorn slowed down in the final laps so the great man would not suffer the ignominy of being lapped.

The Cuban GP was one event Fangio was down to compete in, with Maserati, but 12 months on from the inaugural race, events would take a dark turn as Cuba headed towards the coup d’etat that would end with the Castro’s in power on December 31st, 1958.

Juan Manuel Fangio is kidnapped

As the political situation worsened, on the eve of the race itself, Fangio was assailed in his hotel by a member of the 26th of July Movement – the group formed by Castro in 1953 to begin the coup against President Batista – himself only in power having seized it. 

The man was armed with a pistol and threatened to use it against one of Fangio’s entourage when he tried to step in to prevent the five-time world champion being taken. 

In taking one of the biggest names in world sport, the rebels hoped their bold action would draw attention and publicity to their campaign and embarrass Batista into cancelling the grand prix – a hammer-blow to his own reputation. 

However, he dug in and run the race as normal, won by Moss, who was promptly placed under armed guard in his hotel. He would later recall that Fangio had told his kidnappers not to take him because he was on his honeymoon, which was a lie. 

Fangio himself was actually treated fairly well, given good meals of steak and Castro’s second-in-command even apologised and offered him a radio so he could follow the race, but the great man refused.

Conditions were actually quite tricky in the race after a Porsche broke an oil line, as organsiers initially feared Castro-inspired sabotage, but fortunately, the truth become clear.

Sadly, there was a fatal accident in the race, as a local racer, Armando Garcia Cifuentes crashed his Ferrari into a group of spectators. 

A total of seven were killed after a bridge crossing was taken out. 

Moss (below) diced with Masten Gregory, eventually taking the win after out-dragging his rival on the run to the line after the red flags were flown.

			© XPBimages


© XPBimages

Fangio is released

Fangio was swiftly handed over to the Argentine authorities after the embarrassment to Batista had played out, although the headlines generated being anti-Castro after the kidnapping.

Cifuentes, the driver of the Ferrari was crashed was actually charged with manslaughter whilst lying critically ill in hospital as Fangio’s kidnappers were hunted down.

In 1959, the race was cancelled, but it did return in 1960 as Moss won on a track around a military airfield, although one driver, Ettore Chimeri, would die after crashing into a ravine. 

After the 1960 race, the Cuban GP was no more as the Castro regime moved away from the spectacle, as events on the tiny island would move a lot faster than racing cars could.

By October 1962, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war after the United States found evidence of Soviet Union nuclear missiles on the island. 

This led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, only averted by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s removal of the weapons after agreeing a deal with US President John F Kennedy for the US to remove its own such weapons from Turkey – although this part of the deal was kept quiet.

Fangio would not harbour ill-will towards his kidnappers, but the ordeal quickly became a footnote in Cuba’s history.

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