This story, from the same race, starts with what happened on the track but ends up in a hospital in Sebring and again illustrates what a great man driving champion Juan Manuel Fangio was.
As you know Fangio and co-driver Eugenio Castellotti won the ’56 Sebring race in a factory Ferrari 860 Monza. Just after the start of the third hour of the race Fangio’s friend and fellow Argentinian, Carlos Menditeguy, was driving a 3-liter Maserati and coming out of the Esses when he hit several hay bales which caused his car to flip several times throwing him from the car and onto the track.
He suffered serious injuries with skull fractures and deep lacerations of the face and arm (no roll bar or seat belts in the Maserati). After a short delay, while he lay bleeding on the active track, Menditeguy was finally rushed to the American Red Cross mobile hospital unit brought up from Miami for the Sebring race. There they stabilized him before he was transported to Weems Hospital in Sebring.
For the rest of the race on Saturday Fangio tried to get information on the condition of his friend but not much was known except he was still alive. On Sunday morning Fangio went to the hospital in Sebring to see his good friend but Menditeguy was in bad shape and by today’s standards his condition might be considered critical. A message had been sent to his family members in Argentina about his condition and prognosis, which wasn’t good.
All day Sunday many of the factory race cars were being readied for the trip back to Europe for the Mille Miglia in late April. Also returning to Europe were the European drivers who had racing commitments either in Formula One or other events. Fangio, however, stayed at the bedside of Carlos Menditeguy from Sunday until the following Tuesday when Menditeguy’s brother and sister arrived from Buenos Aires. Later Menditeguy would be transported to St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach because they had more experience dealing with this kind of trauma.
All during those trying days at the hospital in Sebring Fangio received numerous and sometimes angry telegrams from Enzo Ferrari in Modena requesting his presence to prepare for the next race. It was during this time that the relationship between Fangio and Ferrari began to change and might have been one of the reasons that Fangio decided to drive for Maserati at Sebring in 1957. He won that race.
When Fangio defected to Maserati in 1957 Eugenio Castellotti was elevated to top driver for Ferrari. Tragically one week prior to the 1957 Sebring race Castellotti was killed driving a Ferrari in a private testing session at the Modena Autodrome. He was only 26 years of age. Castellotti was considered the greatest Italian driver since Alberto Ascari who had died testing a Ferrari two years earlier at Monza.
Sebring founder Alec Ulmann was well aware of what Fangio was risking with Ferrari by staying with his friend at Weems Hospital in Sebring and not returning to Europe. He had referred to his actions as, “…a remarkable act of sportsmanship.” Carlos Menditeguy eventually recovered from his injuries and raced for several more years. He retired from racing after competing in the Argentine Grand Prix in 1960.
Info via Louis Galanos
