Who was Alfonso de Portago? The first Spaniard to achieve a podium in F1 with Ferrari has a contextual menu

“If I die tomorrow I will have lived 28 wonderful years,” said Fon de Portago andn an interview in early May 1957. On the 12th of that same month, he lost his life, along with his co-pilot and friend Edmund Nelson and a dozen spectators, after an accident at 250 km/h. in the XXIV edition of the Mille Miglia as it passes through Guidizzolo, forty kilometers from the finish line.

Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Ángel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton (11th Marquis of Portago, 13th Count of La Mejorada y Grande de España) was born in London on October 11, 1928 into a family of the highest rank. and of greatest prestige in Spain: he was a descendant of Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, discoverer of Florida; sponsored at baptism by King Alfonso XIII; grandson of Vicente Cabeza de Vaca, mayor of Madrid; and son of Olga Leighton, Irish and one of the richest women in North America since she had inherited an immense fortune after being widowed by her previous husband, one of the founders of HSBC (The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation); and Antonio Cabeza de Vaca, film actor and decorated hero of Franco’s National side after the Civil War. Your action? He sank a Republican submarine, which he swam to one of its hatches and introduced a homemade bomb inside, leading it to sink.

Nothing in Alfonso’s childhood was comparable to his contemporaries in our country, including the freedom that always surrounded him largely due to the absence of his father who died of cardiac arrest in the shower when Fon was twelve years old. He lived in all kinds of luxuries among the properties that his family had in Spain, France, Italy, Great Britain, the United States… He was a great tennis player, golf player, polo player, expert swimmer and skier, fantastic equestrian steeplechase rider, which led him to participate in two editions of the ‘Grand National’ and win more than one hundred races… and fourth in the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina D’Ampezzo with Luis Muñoz Cabrero in a two-man bobsleigh. Fourteen hundredths separated them from bronze which was for the US team. Furthermore, with the addition of their cousin Vicente Sartorius and Gonzalo Taboada and Martínez de Irujo they were ninth in the four-man bobsleigh. Sports exploits that he linked to craziness always linked to women or risk, like when he won $5,000 in a bet after flying a small plane under London Bridge at the age of 17 in a reckless action.

Recognized ‘playboy’ of the time, he succeeded in motor racing to the point of being an official Ferrari driver (where he earned $40,000 annually at the time) or Maserati and achieved the first F1 podium for a driver of Spanish nationality (before De la Rosa, Alonso and Sainz) when he was second in the 1956 British GP along with Peter Collins… and only surpassed by a certain Juan Manuel Fangio. “There comes a time when money bores you and not even women satisfy you anymore. At that moment you discover a drug that becomes everything for you, that drug is called risk,” he says as one of his phrases that have survived him. However, precisely the Female conquests were one of his great weaknesses (“making love is the most important thing I do every day”) and the black legend of his fatal accident considers it the main cause of the sad end.

Beard of two or three days, 180 centimeters tall and athletic build, long hair for the time, cigarette stuck to his lips and leather jacket They were the hallmarks of a man of few words and exquisite manners who could stay in the best hotel in the city or lie down to sleep on a bench in any park. Or decide to paint a Ferrari 750 MM black… with a wall painting brush. A somewhat crazy driver, but with great technical qualities and courage, he convinced Enzo Ferrari with his performance, who was the one who trusted him directly. after demonstrating his skills as a ‘gentleman driver’ and official sports car driver in a difficult world to which he arrived at the hands of Luigi Chinetti and Edmund Nelson.

His death, after which he received the nickname of the Spanish ‘James Dean’, brought together all the dramatic overtones that the best Hollywood screenwriter could have imagined. In 1957 he had a consolidated romantic relationship with the Mexican artist Linda Christian, ex-wife of actor Tyron Power, first Bond girl (‘Casino Royale’) and mother of Italian singer Romina Power. Portago was recruited by Ferrari to run the Mille Miglia, an open road test without excessive security that was done non-stop with the Brescia-Rome-Brescia route.

The aristocrat would drive a Ferrari 335S, with Nelson as co-pilot, and number 531 (his departure time). And the night before he wrote a letter to his beloved, which said: “As you know, love, I didn’t want to run, but Enzo Ferrari forced me to do it. I hope I’m wrong, but maybe he’s going to an early death. I don’t like the Mille Miglia, no matter how much one trains and memorizes the route, it is almost impossible to remember each of the curves along the route and a slight error by the pilot can kill fifty people since spectators cannot be prevented from crowding the routes.

Precisely, according to legend, Portago and Christian decided to express their love when the pilot reached a confluence of streets in Rome in the middle of the competition. Alfonso braked the car and they both shared a long goodbye kiss… which the transalpine press baptized after the fatality as the ‘kiss of death’. After accelerating the vehicle again, it appears that it touched the front wheel on a curb and slightly bent one of the suspension arms. In one of the last stops he was warned of this circumstance by a mechanic, but the Spaniard decided to continue since he was in second and was opting for victory.

At the entrance to Guidizzolo, at 250km/h the front tire burst, unbalancing the Ferrari and causing it to skid. It left the road, took off, and flew toward an area of ​​trees where many spectators were sheltering from the sun and watching the competition. Portago died instantly 28 years old, like his co-pilot Nelson, 42, and a dozen fans among whom were five young children. The tragedy, which also left 30 people injured of various degrees, caused the Italian Government to cancel forever the most important road race in the world as it was held.

Portago was the first Spaniard in Ferrari F1, then Marg Gené and Pedro de la Rosa arrived as testers and Fernando Alonso as official driver. The Asturian far surpassed the pioneer’s successes with victories and runners-up finishes in the world. In 2021 it was Carlos Sainz’s turn, a more than worthy heir to the talent and bravery of one of the non-biological children that Enzo Ferrari took in to give glory and luster to the mythical ‘Scuderia’.