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Pechito López won the 24 Hours of Le Mans: an Argentine on the top of the Hemingway iceberg

2021-08-22T14:34:15.847Z


The success of the Cordovan was built on the basis of great disappointments, which he knew how to face, challenge and overcome again and again.


Roberto Berasategui

08/22/2021 11:24 AM

  • Clarín.com

  • sports

Updated 08/22/2021 11:24 AM

With the old and decisive school of journalism, Ernest Hemingway turned into literature a style as his own as his defined personality.

With a well-coined writing technique from the needs of informing in his initial vocation, from psychology and in leadership oratory, a theory that was born from a foundation of the author of "The Old Man and the Sea" is discussed.

The American writer argued that

“if a prose writer knows well enough what he writes about, he can silence things that he knows, and the reader, if the writer writes with enough truth, will have a feeling of these things as strong as if the writer would have expressed them.

The dignity of movements of an iceberg is due to the fact that only one eighth of its mass appears on the water ”

.

His sentence was taken for the construction of the iceberg theory.

It is true, with the naked eye you can see the tip of that mass of ice in the sea.

But the solvency is provided by the other eight parties that remain submerged under water.

José María López obtained his great sporting achievement.

He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Pechito entered the history of world motorsport by winning one of the three most exclusive competitions on the planet, along with the Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix, Formula 1.

Kamui Kobayashi and the No. 7 car he shared with Pechito López and Mike Conway cross the line at Le Mans.

Photo: AP

But as on the iceberg, what shines today in López's successful career was built on the basis of great disappointments, which the Cordovan rider knew how to face, challenge and overcome again and again.

Born on April 26, 1983, he excelled in zonal, national and Pan-American karting, on dirt circuits first, then asphalt.

At just 15 years old, he continued his journey in Europe, already with his mind set on the great goal: to reach Formula 1.

A young Pechito López who was looking without luck for a place in Formula 1.

He jumped into motorsports and there he established himself in the European Formula Renault and in the Formula Renault V6 Eurocup.

He was part of the roster of young talents of the Renault Formula 1 team, when Fernando Alonso was consecrated with that team in the highest category.

When it seemed that everything was heading to fulfill his aspirational desire, Formula 1 did not open the door.

The unease was gigantic.

With the broken illusion, he returned to Argentina and transformed the local motorsport.

It raised the bar of national activity.

He introduced the importance of superior physical training for Argentine pilots, while he was crowned two-time TC2000 champion (2008 and 2009), Top Race champion (2009) and monarch of the incipient Super TC2000 in 2012.

Matías Rossi and Pechito López, a golden duo in the Super TC 2000. Photo: archive

Such was his talent for the vernacular that once again the possibility of competing at an international level appeared.

And with natural persistence, plus a unique talent, the illusion of reaching Formula 1 appeared again.

His case was so special that it closed all the cracks there had been and to have to support him in his maximum objective.

Those motorsport leaders who were historically estranged were united and the same happened in the world of politics: from the support of the National Government, from the hand of the then Minister of the Interior Florencia Randazzo, to the opposition senator Carlos Reutemann.

But fate hit him again where Pechito hurt the most.

A strange maneuver by a team that did not even see the light of day in Formula 1 pushed him into great frustration.

Far from lowering his arms, he continued in his sporting perseverance.

He took advantage of an opportunity that seemed lost when he won on the Argentine date of the World Tourism Championship, the then WTCC and that allowed him to join the official Citroën team in 2014, where he surpassed his fellow stars: the consecrated Sebastien Loeb and Yvan Muller.

With the French brand he won the three-time championship.

Pechito López made history in the WTCC.

Photo: Archive

The burgeoning Formula E, with its much touted electrical technology, did not give it the required space.

It was more what he fought than what he could enjoy.

And López continued with his perseverance.

In the face of adversity, it seems to enlarge.

Toyota opened the doors to the Resistencia project.

True to Eastern philosophy, the goal was long-term.

And there Pechito embarked on a new illusion.

He suffered team mistakes and “natural” privileges, such as when he was a teammate of Fernando Alonso, who landed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and took glory.

López saw various possibilities slip away from him.

Finally, only the fifth was the charm.

In 2020, a strange season in every sense, the Rio Tercero pilot became world champion, integrating the crew with the Japanese Kamui Kobayashi and the British Mike Conway.

The three who this time celebrated at the top of Le Mans.

José María López, in Formula E. Photo: Archive

Pechito López's extensive and successful sports campaign is just the iceberg of a life dedicated to motorsport and its well-defined goals.

He could not achieve his greatest wish: to reach Formula 1.

But there is the highlight of the Cordovan.

He did not give up, he rebuilt himself and showed that glory can be achieved despite everything.

Maybe he even achieved more than he thought.

He achieved what Juan Manuel Fangio could not, when Mercedes retired after that tragic day in 1955.

The tip of the iceberg.

Success and his image celebrating on the podium of the legendary Le Mans stage.

The celebration of José María López is based on this series of frustrations and perseverance.

Almost like the figure that the great Hemingway indicated and that was used so much in different fields.

It is not the work of chance, but the merit of those who strengthened in the face of adversity

and now places the crown of laurels, well above the iceberg.

Special for Clarín.

Look also

Pechito López won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and made great history for Argentine motorsports

Le Mans, the mythical race of motorsport that Pechito López wants to win for the first time

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-08-22

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