The body of five-time Formula 1 World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio has been exhumed today in order to test his DNA and determine his paternity over two men.

 

Minutes after 11:00am local time in Argentina, the process started to exhume the body of the F1 legend at the cemetery of Balcarce, Fangio’s hometown.

 

The procedure had been ordered by a judge in Mar del Plata, a city nearby Balcarce, located in Buenos Aires province, for a lawsuit started in 2013 by Oscar Espinoza, 77. He wants to demonstrate that Fangio was his father.

 

The genetic samples, which were taken in the cemetery’s morgue, will also help to determinate if Fangio was the father of Ruben Vazquez, 73, who started a similar lawsuit in 2005.

 

Espinoza, known in motorsport circles as Oscar 'Cacho' Fangio, had a career as a driver in Argentina and overseas, racing in Turismo Carretera, Formula 2 and Formula 3, among other series.

 

Fangio himself never married nor had recognized children in his lifetime, although he had a long relationship with a woman, Andrea Berruet, Espinoza’s mother.

 

Vazquez claims that his late mother, Catalina Basili, confessed in 2005 that he was Fangio’s son, the product of a relationship she had with the driver in the 1940s.

 

Espinoza did not attend today's exhumation at Balcarce’s cemetery, although Vazquez did.

 

The results of the examinations are expected to be ready in mid-September.

(motorsport.com)