Remembering Mexico's greatest F1 driver

“Racing is my life, and a weekend without a race is a lost weekend.” That line, said to North American Racing Team boss Luigi Chinetti, and which appears in the comprehensive work Brothers Rodriguez by Carlos Eduardo Jalife-Villalon, sums up Pedro Rodriguez’s approach to motorsport. It also helps to explain why the BRM and Porsche star was driving a privateer Ferrari 512M in a relatively minor Interserie race at the Norisring on 11 July 1971.

Despite the presence of much bigger machinery, Rodriguez was leading at the time he lost control, possibly due to a backmarker, and hit the wall. The Ferrari burst into flames and, despite quick medical attention, Rodriguez had little chance of survival.

“It was a tragedy,” recalls former Autosport editor Simon Taylor, who covered many of the Mexican’s races. “I believe he combined all the elements of a great driver of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s – incredible passion, a real will to win and being relaxed out of the car.

“He was in no way getting any slower. Like a lot of quick drivers, as he matured he didn’t get slower, he got more canny.”

At the time of his death, Rodriguez was the top driver in the JW Automotive Engineering Porsche team and was fourth in the Formula 1 world championship – which would have been third had his BRM not failed him the weekend before while running second in the French Grand Prix. In an era of many race winners, he was perhaps vying with Jacky Ickx as the second-best in the world, behind only Jackie Stewart.

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Rodriguez came from a rich and powerful Mexican family, and had access to good equipment as soon as he stepped into cars as a teenager, having been a multiple national motorcycle champion. He soon formed a formidable partnership with younger brother Ricardo, who was considered even more talented by many and who was much more of an extrovert.

Pedro was quieter, more calculating, and arguably became a more complete driver following Ricardo’s death during practice for the 1962 Mexican GP at the track that would later take the brothers’ name.

Pedro Rodriguez, Montjuïc 1971

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Much of Rodriguez’s early successes came in Ferraris, normally run or sourced by NART. He had a personal relationship with Enzo Ferrari and throughout his career wanted to drive for the famous Italian team. He did make occasional appearances, but Rodriguez wanted a combined F1-sportscar deal and was usually only offered endurance races.

It took Rodriguez much longer to break through in single-seater racing, partly because of a lack of relevant experience and partly due to the machinery at his disposal. He made his F1 world championship debut at the 1963 United States GP, but it wasn’t until 1967 that he got a full-time drive, with Cooper. He promptly won the 1967 season-opening South African GP and went on to finish sixth in the standings, ahead of team-mate Jochen Rindt.

The same adaptability that helped him drive around set-up issues also came through with his wet-weather performances. Along with Ickx and Stewart, he was one of the best drivers of his era whenever it rained

Team manager Roy Salvadori once said: “I think he was a future champion,” and was happy to have someone who was kinder to the car than the then-rough diamond Rindt. He was gritty too, as he showed with his drive to sixth in the 1967 Mexican GP, despite pain in his right leg following an enormous F2 crash at Enna-Pergusa. Or doing the heavy lifting in a 45-lap victory at the 1970 Daytona 24 Hours with a hand worn raw from gearchanges.

Rodriguez’s charging style provided a stark contrast to his manner out of the car. “Pedro was very approachable,” recalls Taylor. “He was about as different out of the cockpit as in it as you can imagine.”

He was also something of an anglophile, driving a Bentley and often sporting a deerstalker, but didn’t tend to socialise with the other drivers. He also liked hot, spicy food, something he occasionally used to catch out others – he had a sense of humour.

“He was very different, he had this mystique about him,” recalls designer Tony Southgate, who worked with Rodriguez at BRM in 1970-71. “He was his own man. I thought he was terrific.”

Though he was happy to help development work on the car, set-up work was not Rodriguez’s forte. “He wasn’t an engineer-type like John Surtees,” adds Southgate. “He just accepted what you gave him. He was extremely easy to work with.”

Tony Southgate and Pedro Rodriguez, 1971 Kyalami

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That’s backed up by the recollections of his 1970 Porsche co-driver Leo Kinnunen and Jackie Oliver, who was Pedro’s team-mate at BRM in 1970 and JWA in 1971. 

Kinnunen claimed Rodriguez’s preferred set-up was not ideal, telling Autosport in a 1989 interview that “if our 917 had been set up properly, I could have been faster, and I am sure Pedro would have benefited too. We both had a driving style that was very gentle on the car, and we could have been even better in endurance races.” 

Oliver also recalls Rodriguez not being the first choice on development. “When it came to testing the cars at JWA, if Jo Siffert wasn’t available they asked me,” he says. 

But the same adaptability that helped him drive around set-up issues also came through with his wet-weather performances. Along with Ickx and Stewart, he was one of the best drivers of his era whenever it rained.

Evidence of his wet-weather prowess, already apparent in sportscar racing, came during the rain-hit 1968 F1 season, most notably at the Dutch (where he finished third) and French GPs (where he battled for second before gearbox problems intervened) in mediocre BRMs. It was perhaps no coincidence that his Le Mans victory in a JWA Ford GT40 that year came in one of the wettest 24 Hours events in history.

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A combination of finesse and bravery also meant Rodriguez was at his best at high-speed circuits – he twice took pole at Le Mans and was brilliant at Spa, but he disliked Monaco.

He wasn’t one for the safety movement, either. A religious man, Rodriguez felt that ‘when it’s your time, it’s your time’ and was invariably at loggerheads with Stewart over the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association’s safety demands.

Despite a pre-race fire and rain that made the track conditions questionable, Rodriguez was one of the drivers who committed to starting the 1968 Tasman Cup series finale, the South Pacific Trophy at Longford. He duly delivered a superb second place, behind the talented Piers Courage on more suitable tyres, after a battle with Frank Gardner.

Rodriguez starred in wet conditions, despite middling BRM machinery, in 1968 French GP

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His big chance came in 1970, when JWA brought him into the team to drive the 917 and he returned to a revived BRM squad. JWA boss John Wyer had hoped to pair Ickx with Rodriguez, but the Belgian signed a Ferrari contract that included F1 and sportscars, “thereby probably making one of his greatest mistakes”, according to Wyer.

A Rodriguez/Ickx line-up would surely have been one of the finest in sportscar history, but perhaps it would have prevented some of Rodriguez’s greatest drives, doing the lion’s share of the work – and making superb comebacks – over the next two years. Often having to make up time lost by Kinnunen, Rodriguez showed his pace and stamina to become the benchmark Porsche driver.

That caused friction with Siffert, who shared the other car with Brian Redman. Siffert had been the accepted Porsche number one before JWA took over the German manufacturer’s programme and was determined to maintain his position. It led to tense moments, famously at the start of the 1970 Spa 1000Km, where the two touched through Eau Rouge on lap one, and at Watkins Glen.

"In terms of outright speed, there was little difference between ‘Seppi’ and Pedro, but I feel Pedro was more sympathetic with the car" Brian Redman

“The rivalry was somewhat one-sided, because Siffert felt that he was the better driver and must demonstrate the fact, whereas Pedro was quite sure that he was superior and did not think that any proof was required,” wrote Wyer in his famous book The Certain Sound.

In Gulf’s film on the 1970 season, A Year to Remember, Wyer also compared them: “Pedro is a more calculating type of driver. He likes to sit back in the early stages and watch the race develop before he stages his attack, which he does with an exquisite sense of timing. He has great mechanical sympathy and is very kind to the car.”

Redman agrees, despite his successful partnership with Siffert. “In terms of outright speed, there was little difference between ‘Seppi’ and Pedro, but I feel Pedro was more sympathetic with the car,” he says.

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Rodriguez’s qualifying record wasn’t the best, but that’s largely because he was more interested in the racing. “He never worried about qualifying, so if he qualified well you knew the car was working well,” confirms Southgate.

Rodriguez and Siffert bang wheels at the start of the 1970 Spa 1000km

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Having got everyone’s attention with one of the great wet-weather drives at Brands Hatch in the 917K and become a consistent F1 frontrunner (albeit losing many points through BRM unreliability), Rodriguez was an established topliner by the end of 1970.

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Interestingly, though, Patrick McNally still struggled to place him in Autosport’s F1 review. “Pedro Rodriguez has always been a very difficult driver to evaluate fairly,” he wrote. “In the JW Porsche 917 Pedro showed clearly that he was sportscar driver of the year, driving both intelligently and fast but always conserving the car. However in F1 it was difficult to tell how good the car was and how much of it was Pedro.”

For 1971, BRM produced the P160 – “A refined, sleeker and neater version of the P153, the engine was at its best and the whole car was competitive,” reckons Southgate – and Rodriguez was joined at JWA by Oliver, whom he had recommended to the team following their 1970 season as BRM team-mates.

BRM reliability was still not perfect, but Rodriguez won the non-championship Spring Cup from Peter Gethin’s McLaren and Stewart’s Tyrrell, and was a fine second in the Dutch GP after a race-long duel with Ickx’s Ferrari. As events later in the season would demonstrate, further wins surely weren’t far away.

Things were even better with JWA, Rodriguez taking his second consecutive Daytona 24 Hours win, this time with Oliver, then winning at Monza and Spa (at a record average speed of 154.8mph).

“I’ve had many team-mates in my career but only two [co-drivers] in world sportscar races, Jacky Ickx and Pedro,” recalls Oliver. “They were both very good and Pedro was a nice team-mate. After Spa, there was a track invasion and he thought it was Ferrari fans trying to get us so we made a run for it, but all they wanted to do was join the celebrations.”

A chance of driving with Ickx at Ferrari – in both sportscars and F1 – became apparent in the middle of 1971. Given Rodriguez’s early history with Ferrari and the fact that he’d been beating the red cars for Porsche, that was perhaps not a surprise.

Pedro Rodriguez, Jackie Oliver 1971 Spa 1000km

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In the meantime, a second Le Mans success proved elusive, despite Rodriguez, Oliver and the 1971 917L proving the race’s fastest package, but an incredible drive at the Osterreichring 1000Km, in which he took back two whole laps after an early delay, showed he was driving at his very best.

"At the wheel of a car he was the complete tiger, in the mould of Fangio, Moss and Clark" John Wyer

That would be his last victory. Neither BRM nor JWA wanted Rodriguez to go to the Norisring, but nobody stopped him – could anyone? – and off to Germany he went. His death hit the motorsport world, and the Mexican scene in particular, hard.

“Apart from being an inspiration to the team, this quiet, unassuming little Mexican was liked by everybody,” recalled Wyer. “At the wheel of a car he was the complete tiger, in the mould of Fangio, Moss and Clark.”

Taylor recalls: “His skill in the rain really sticks with me, he was a fighter. The great thing about Pedro was that, there are some drivers who when they’re going quickly don’t look quick, but he did. He was wonderful to watch.”

Pedro Rodriguez in action at Brands Hatch in 1970, arguably his greatest drive

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Was Ricardo really better than Pedro?

The received wisdom is that, as good as Pedro Rodriguez was, his younger brother Ricardo was better. They came up the ranks together and Ricardo was the first to make it into F1, qualifying a fine second on his debut at the 1961 Italian Grand Prix with Ferrari.

Jo Ramirez, a friend of the brothers who went on to win multiple titles with McLaren, supports that view.

“When they were together, Ricardo was always quicker than Pedro,” he told Autosport in 1991. “Pedro had to try so hard. When he didn’t crash, he’d spin, trying to get the same speed as Ricardo. He just didn’t have the same ability, same talent.”

But a look at their early careers indicates it might not be that simple. Both were motorcycle champions, Ricardo coming up the ranks after Pedro. A crucial moment came when Pedro went to the Western Military Academy in the United States, while Ricardo ended up racing a Porsche 550 RS, courtesy of his father.

While Pedro still raced when he could, during 1957-58, it was Ricardo who racked up the miles in competitive machinery. Even so, when they did race each other, Pedro still won his fair share of battles.

More openly confident and bold – crashes were not infrequent – Ricardo grabbed the attention and was regarded as the faster when both started to travel to Europe to contest selected sportscar events, including Le Mans. Each respected the other and, though Ricardo was often the quicker, they were a superb pairing. They twice won the Paris 1000Km (in 1961 and 1962) and also starred at the 1961 Le Mans 24 Hours.

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In his extensive book Brothers Rodriguez, Carlos Eduardo Jalife-Villalon also suggests Pedro often didn’t push 100% in practice, not wanting to get into a duel with Ricardo that could result in the machinery being pushed too hard or risks taken. Given Pedro’s overall attitude towards qualifying that would later become apparent, that theory is believable.

Ricardo, Pedro Rodriguez Spa 1962

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What few doubt is that Pedro got better after Ricardo’s death. In one of motorsport’s cruel moments, Ricardo was already on his way out of the circuit during practice for the 1962 Mexican GP when he was persuaded, with carburetion issues fixed, to go back out again.

For reasons never entirely explained – tyre failure, a mechanical breakage and driver error have all been suggested – he lost control of his Rob Walker-run Lotus 24 at the high-speed Peraltada right-hander. Ricardo hit the guardrail head on, suffering horrific injuries from which there was no chance of survival. He was just 20 years old.

"Pedro went a lot better when Ricardo was no longer around. He was more relaxed, and much quicker" Jo Ramirez

The older Rodriguez brother decided to continue and soon established himself as one of the world’s leading endurance racers, even if cracking F1 took longer as his experience grew.

“Pedro went a lot better when Ricardo was no longer around,” added Ramirez. “He was more relaxed, and much quicker.”

There were still mistakes – he crashed out of the 1970 Imola 500Km – but by and large Pedro was a rapid and reliable performer who looked after the machinery. Wyer said Pedro could “drive absolutely on the limit indefinitely, it seemed”.

Ricardo Rodriguez was undoubtedly a driver good enough to win GPs and become an F1 star. It was motorsport’s loss that he never got to achieve his potential, but that should in no way detract from his brother, who did become one of the world’s best before his own untimely death at the age of 31.

For more on Pedro Rodriguez, see the 8 July 2021 issue of Autosport magazine.

Ricardo Rodriguez, Monza 1961

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