Pedro Rodríguez: an essential part of motor racing

There are just a few very special racing drivers who during their careers gradually become an essential and inevitable part of the motor sporting scene. Jim Clark was one, Bruce McLaren was another. When a driver like this is killed it is particularly hard to come to terms with the fact.
Pedro Rodriguez was just such a driver. Although only 31 years old, his international career in Europe stretched back over 14 seasons. In sports car racing he was perhaps the top driver of all: in Formula 1 he was the most important driving force behind the recent revival of the BRM team.
His death in the Intervene race at the Norisring last Sunday invites inevitable comparison with the accident at Hockenheim three years ago which cost the life of Jim Clark. Although no official announcement has been made yet about the Rodriguez accident, both would appear to have been caused by a puncture of some sort. Both occurred in comparatively minor events in Germany; in some totally absurd way one perhaps Would have felt less cheated if the accident had happened in an important race, when Pedro was giving of his best before the eyes of the world.
It is when a driver dies that, by his very absence, one becomes fully aware of the role he played. For the John Wyer/ Gulf Porsche team, he was simply the best longdistance sports car driver available: totally professional, with great stamina, unlimited courage, and enormous reserves of skill and experience to cope with the most difficult circuit and the most treacherous condition's. It was on the hardest circuits, like the NUr-burgring, the most gruelling races, like Le Mans, and in the worst conditions, like the 1970 BOAC 1000, that these qualities pushed him head and shoulders above everyone else.
For the BRM team he was the catalyst that finally brought the Bourne team's long-unrewarded efforts into the winner's circle. In 1970 BRM at last, after so long in the also-ran class despite the efforts of drivers like Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill and John Surtees, were a force to be reckoned with—but how quick would they have been without Pedro? It was Pedro who won for them the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa last year (once again a difficult circuit, unpopular with many drivers, bringing out his skill and courage); Pedro who would have won the American Grand Prix, but for a stop for fuel in the final laps which dropped him to second; and Pedro who battled with the Ferrari of Jacky Ickx—the only driver to approach him in wet-wether skill, and interestingly another whose skills have been developed in sports car racing—in the treacherously slippery Dutch Grand Prix recently.
In many ways Pedro Rodriguez was not a typical modern racing driver. He was not particularly concerned with safety amenities and meetings of the GPDA. He would race almost anything with equal "tiger" and will-to-win—Formula 1, sports cars, CanAm, Formula 2—which was why he accepted Herbert MUller's offer of a private Ferrari drive in an Interserie race after the CanAm BRM in which he was originally entered was withdrawn.
Pedro was born on January 18 1940, of rich and influential parents in Mexico City. From an early age he and his younger brother

Ricardo were racing motorcycles: he won his first race at the age of 12, and at 14 he was Mexican Champion. When he was 15 his father used his influence to get him a licence to race cars. His first outing was in a Mexican race at Avandaro in a Jaguar XK120 bought for him by his father: he won his class and was third overall. Soon he and Ricardo were sharing drives in long-distance races, usually in Ferraris: when he was 17 Pedro had his first race out of South America, at Riverside.
In 1958 the Rodriguez brothers went to Le Mans with a 2-litre Ferrari: the organisers would not let 16-year-old Ricardo run, but Pedro drove the car with Jose Behra. Up to and including this year, he never missed a Le Mans from then on, competing in 14 consecutive events.
Ricardo went on to become a Formula 1 prodigy, driving a works. Ferrari in the Italian Grand Prix at the age of 19 (and lapping second fastest in practice!), but Pedro's career developed a little more slowly, although with his brother they made up a formidable pairing in sports car racing. In 1961 at Le Mans they harried the No 1 works Ferrari in a NART car, battling for the lead until their engine blew up two hours from the end. The next year they had a works car, and were leading at half-distance when their transmission broke.
But that year Ricardo, driving a works Lotus in practice for the non-championship Mexican Grand Prix, was killed. Pedro carried on racing.
For the time being he remained in sports cars, building up experience and reputation, frequently in Ferraris entered by NART. In 1963 he won at Daytona, was third at Sebring with Graham Hill, did Le Mans with Roger Penske, and won the Canadian Grand Prix sports car race. He drove a works Lotus Fl car in the American and Mexican Grands Prix without much success, but in 1964 he had a Fl Ferrari in NART colours for the Mexican Grand Prix, and finished sixth. He also won the Daytona and Canadian GP sports car races again. In 1965 and 1966 the same pattern continued, with sports car successes and the occasional Fl outing, including a works Lotus at the May Silverstone in 1965, when he was fourth, a 2-litre Lotus in the 1966 US GP, and even a drive in a Ron Harris F2 Lotus at Rouen in 1966, when he was sixth.

But for 1967 Pedro had a proper Formula 1 drive at last, with Jochen Rindt in the Cooper-Maserati team, and he astonished everybody by scoring a lucky victory in his first race for them, the South African Grand Prix. Two fifths and two sixths later in the year put him sixth equal in the championship with Graham Hill.

In 1968 his long association with BRM began when he signed for the team as No 2 to Mike Spence. Poor Spence was killed at Indianapolis, so that Pedro found himself leading the team, and although the BRM P133 was not the most competitive of Grand Prix cars that year he was second at Spa and in the Race of Champions, and third at Zandvoort and Mosport. For the first time he had become a Formula 1 driver to be reckoned with. And at last he won Le Mans, at his llth attempt, driving a GT40 for the Gulf/JW team —the start of another important association.