Pedro
Rodríguez

Pedro Rodríguez was born in Mexico City in 1940. Like his younger brother Ricardo, who in 1961 became the first Mexican to compete in Formula One, he started young on bicycles and motorbikes and became a Mexican national motorcycle champion. He then moved on to cars and made his international debut on four wheels at Nassau in 1957, driving a Ferrari. In 1961 he won the Paris 1000 km together with Ricardo. After his brother was killed in practice for the 1962 Mexican Grand Prix, Pedro considered retiring but carried on racing.

He made his World Championship debut for Lotus in 1963, drove for Ferrari in 1964 and 1965, and was back with Lotus in 1966. In 1967 he joined Cooper and won the season opener at Kyalami, the first Grand Prix victory by a Mexican driver. He was team-mate to Jochen Rindt and finished sixth in the championship. In 1968 he moved to BRM and again placed sixth. He was second to Bruce McLaren at Spa and set the only fastest lap of his Formula One career at Rouen. In Spain he led for 28 laps before spinning off.

In 1969 he began the year with BRM and switched to Ferrari during the season. He was back in a BRM in 1970 and won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa by 1.1 seconds from Chris Amon, at the highest average speed in Formula One history at that time. He finished seventh in the championship. In 1971 he pressed Jacky Ickx in the wet in the Dutch Grand Prix and only just missed out on victory. In total he made 55 starts, with two wins and seven podiums, but no pole positions.

In sports cars he won the 1968 24 Hours of Le Mans with Lucien Bianchi in a JW-Gulf Ford GT40. From 1970 he drove the JW-Gulf Porsche 917, won eight races in it across 1970 and 1971, and took two victories in the 24 Hours of Daytona with Porsche. On 11 July 1971 he was killed in an Interserie race at the Norisring in Nuremberg, driving a Ferrari 512 M. Since 1973 the circuit in Mexico City has been named Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, and a corner at Daytona also carries his name.

Source: Wikipedia, “Pedro Rodríguez (racing driver)”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.