AUTODROMO HERMANOS RODRIGUEZ

The Mexican Grand Prix circuit is named after the brothers Pedro (left) and Ricardo Rodriguez. (F1.com photo)


Both of the hard-charging Mexican drivers were killed in action. Their wealthy father bought fast sportscars for them to race when they were in their mid-teens. Before a race the Rodriguez boys would kneel on the tarmac to be blessed by their mother, who then went away and read a book.




Before Ricardo set off on the final lap of his short life he crossed himself and kissed his father's hand. More flamboyant than his older brother (he owned 100 suits and 60 pairs of shoes) and even more of a risk-taker, Ricardo told his worried wife, Sarita, that he would stop after he won his first Grand Prix. He was killed in front of Sarita in his home Grand Prix in Mexico City, on 1 November 1962. He was 20 years old.

He had contested five F1 world championship races for Ferrari but the Italian team had not entered this non-championship race so Rob Walker provided the Mexican favourite with a Lotus.

ROB WALKER: “Ricardo had been motorcycle champion of Mexico when he was 13, he’d started racing cars at 15 and became a Ferrari F1 driver at 19. I think the Mexican fans really expected him to win his home race, which was a lot of pressure for such a young man to handle...On a quick lap in practice he lost it at about 120mph on the bumpy part of the banking, was thrown out into the barrier and killed."

ENZO FERRARI: “I recall thinking to myself that Ricardo Rodriguez is a holy terror, who drives with a frightful lack of any restraint. If this young fellow will only learn to control himself, he will be a big success. A short time afterwards his luck ran out. He was a really good lad – always happy, with that innocent face of a mischievous schoolboy.”

Though devastated by Ricardo’s death Pedro continued racing in F1 and in sportscars, always charging hard and gradually earning respect as he went from frighteningly fast to bravely quick. He was particularly successful in powerful Porsche sportscars, winning many races and two World Sportscar Championships. During his 55-race F1 career which began in 1963 he drove for four different teams and had two victories. He won the 1970 Belgian GP at desperately dangerous Spa, fearlessly flogging his BRM at an average speed of 149.94mph (241.31km). He strongly disagreed with Jackie Stewart's safety crusade in which the Scot contended that lethal circuits like Spa should be banned.

JACKIE STEWART: “Pedro Rodriguez is everything the neophyte thinks about racing drivers. Hot-blooded. Latin, and totally irrational. Certainly not one of your more stable drivers. His thinking rarely goes to depth…I’m almost certain he’s incapable of anything short of an emotional response. He's too excitable. When he gets into one of those states it's best to stay away from him."

PEDRO RODRIGUEZ: “Racing is something that comes out of you. You have something in your blood. It unwinds itself. God is the only one who can tell you when it is the end of the line. You can be racing, in the street, in church, you can be anywhere. Nuvolari, he raced thirty years, every week, and he died in bed of illness.”

JO RAMIREZ (a F1 team veteran who first came into the sport with his friends the Rodriguez brothers): “If anybody offered Pedro a wheelbarrow to race he would race it. He was just a racer all the way. He didn’t agree with all the safety campaigns that people like Jackie Stewart did – he believed that when it’s your turn to go, you gotta go, regardless.

Pedro's turn to go came on 11 July 1971. He was killed at the Norisring in Germany when his Ferrari sportscar crashed and burned. He was 31.

- excerpt from FORMULA 1 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (edited by F1Speedwriter)