The Race

The 1957 German Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on 4 August 1957 at Nürburgring. The 22 lap race was won by Juan Manuel Fangio, (Balcarce, 24 June 1911 - Buenos Aires, 17 July 1995), nicknamed "El Chueco" ("knock-kneed") and is often cited as one of the greatest victories in racing history.

Fangio had taken notice of the tire and fuel-level selection of the Ferrari drivers, and realized they were probably going to run the entire race without a pit stop. Fangio decided he would use softer tires, and only a half tank of gas. This would allow the car to take corners faster, but also require a pit stop. Fangio took his pit stop on lap 13, in 1st place, and 30 seconds ahead of Hawthorn and Collins.

The pit stop was a disaster, the pit crew had trouble removing one of the wheels. Fangio left the pit lane in 3rd place, and 48 seconds behind Collins who was in 2nd place. Over the next 10 laps, Fangio broke and rebroke the lap record 9 times (7 of the records were in successive laps). Early in the 21st lap, Fangio was beside Collins on a straightaway, approaching a bridge that was barely wide enough for both cars to fit side by side. Collins backed off, and Fangio took 2nd place. Late in the 21st lap, during a left corner, Fangio cut past Hawthorn on the inside of the corner, with only his right tires on the track and his left tires on the grass. Fangio maintained his lead, and won the race.

After the race, Fangio commented, "I have never driven that quickly before in my life and I don't think I will ever be able to do it again".

He won five Formula One World Driver's Championships — a record which stood for 46 years until eventually beaten by Michael Schumacher

Many weeks away by boat in 1957 Colin McCahon begins a second series of French Bay paintings which are even more radically prismatic and brilliantly coloured than his first series. The view in these works is from the cliff-top looking down towards the water, rather than the scene as viewed from the beach. The paintings are densely faceted, full of tiny diamond shapes of colour and glow with a jewel-like intensity.

A day by TEAL clipper from New Zealand the 1957 Alexandra Bus Boycott began, it was a protest undertaken against the Public Utility Transport Corporation by the people of Alexandra in Johannesburg.

It is generally recognised as being one of the few successful political campaigns of the Apartheid era

The bus boycott lasted from January 1957 to June 1957. At its height, 70,000 township residents refused to ride the local buses to and from work. For many people this daily journey to downtown Johannesburg was a twenty mile round trip.


A hemisphere away Yves Klein, 'Aerostatic Sculpture (Paris)'. This was composed of 1001 blue balloons released into the sky. Klein also exhibited 'One Minute Fire Painting' which was a blue panel into which 16 firecrackers were set. Later in 1957 Klein declared that his paintings were now invisible and to prove it he exhibited an empty room. This exhibition was called 'The Surfaces and Volumes of Invisible Pictorial Sensibility'.

The race.