Fangio flourished in an era when racing was raw and romantic, when heroic drivers manhandled machines on daunting and dangerous tracks that are no more. Ascari, Moss, Farina, Brooks, Gonzalez, Varzi, Fagioli, De Portago, Castelloti, Musso, Schell, Collins and Hawthorn - larger than life characters one and all, and all of them beaten by Fangio, who was also left to mourn the deaths of far too many of them.