Carlos Alberto "Lole" Reutemann (12 April 1942 – 7 July 2021) was an Argentine racing driver and politician, who competed in Formula One from 1972 to 1982 and served as the Governor of Santa Fe from 1999 to 2003.

Reutemann was runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1981 with Williams and—at the time of his retirement—held the record for most podium finishes (45); he won 12 Grands Prix across 11 seasons.

He immediately received attention when he took out Austrian Formula One driver Jochen Rindt (that year's eventual posthumous World Champion) on the first lap of his first race at Hockenheim, but carried on to finish fourth.

[citation needed] Brabham F1 team boss Bernie Ecclestone signed Reutemann to drive alongside veteran and two-time World Champion Graham Hill for the 1972 season.

He finished the race in seventh after having to pit to replace his soft tyres, and the main highlight for the rest of the year was his win in the non-championship Interlagos Grand Prix.

[citation needed] Teamed with Brazilian Wilson Fittipaldi Júnior for the 1973 season, Reutemann scored two podium finishes and seventh in the Drivers' Championship in the tiny but radical Gordon Murray-designed BT42.

Though he matched Drivers' Champion Emerson Fittipaldi's win total, inconsistent performances in the other races left Reutemann sixth in the season standings.

After seven retirements and only one finish in the points (fourth place in Spain) in the first twelve races, Reutemann negotiated a release from his Brabham contract to sign with Ferrari, who was looking for a temporary replacement for the injured Niki Lauda.

[citation needed] For the 1977 season Ferrari opted to keep the now fully recovered Lauda and have Reutemann replacing Clay Regazzoni, who moved on to the Ensign team.

Over the course of the season, however, Lauda reaffirmed his position as team leader, and the Austrian won his second championship, while Reutemann finished fourth and did not win another race that year.

Reutemann also had a huge accident at the Spanish Grand Prix after a tyre failure and a collision with Jacques Laffite sent his Ferrari into the air, clearing the Armco barrier and landing in the debris fencing.

Reutemann continued to score more points than Jones throughout the remainder of the season, and the Brazilian victory (and another in Belgium) helped put him in a position to challenge for the title in a three-way battle with Nelson Piquet and Jacques Laffite at the season-ending race in Las Vegas.

[citation needed] On lap 17, battling over seventh place as they approached the last left-hander before the pits, Piquet's Brabham was nearly touching the back of Reutemann's Williams.

The Falklands War, however, generated a tense political period between Argentina and the United Kingdom, and Reutemann chose to distance himself from the team and retire after the Brazilian race.

This is disputed by Williams's Chief Designer Patrick Head, who felt that the Falklands War was only an excuse and that Reutemann had simply retired because "his heart wasn't in it anymore".

[citation needed] Reutemann's second term was marked by the nationwide economic problems brought by the recession that had started in 1999 and ultimately led to the socioeconomic crash of 2001.

Under Reutemann, Santa Fe kept a conservative fiscal policy, whereby it applied discounts and froze public workers' salaries and pensions through an Economic Emergency Law.

[citation needed] After the 2001 crash and the resignation of Fernando de la Rúa, Reutemann surprised and disappointed many by declining, on several occasions, to run for president.

[citation needed] During a session in the Argentine Senate on 17 July 2008, Reutemann presented an alternative project for the Commission of Agriculture in opposition to the one of then Vice-president Julio Cobos.

His project didn't pass, and in February 2009 he renounced his role in the Bloque Parliamentario del Frente para la Victoria to create his own political fraction, "Santa Fe Federal", with the intention of protecting the interests of the province.