Mexico's six F1 drivers: tragic heroes, recent talents and a pay driver pioneer

F1

Only six Mexican drivers have ever raced in Formula 1 — but each has left their mark on the world championship. Matt Bishop looks back on their careers

Mexico's F1 drivers

Mexico's F1 history: From the triumph and tragedy of the Rodriguez brothers, to the shortcomings of Sergio Perez

Younger readers may possibly regard the Mexican Grand Prix as a new-ish thing, since, prior to its recommencement in 2015, it had not been a part of the Formula 1 world championship for a generation. But last Sunday’s race, won faultlessly for Ferrari by Carlos Sainz, was the 24th world championship-status F1 Mexican Grand Prix, and, apart from a flurry of five (1988-1992) that were run in early summer, all of them have taken place at this time of year.

There have been six Mexican F1 drivers, and none of them has won his home F1 race. Two local lads contested the first world championship-status F1 Mexican Grand Prix, in 1963: Pedro Rodriguez and Moises Solana, and their racing careers were very different. I will explain why that was in a little while, but, before I do so, I should tell you about the 1962 Mexican Grand Prix, which was a non-championship F1 race that was principally supported by British F1 teams, eager to learn about a new high-altitude circuit that would become a part of the F1 world championship the following season.

So it was that no fewer than 13 Lotuses were entered, plus three Coopers, a Brabham, a Lola, oh and three Porsches. One of the Lotuses, the one run by that great privateer Rob Walker, whose cars Stirling Moss had already raced to eight F1 grand prix victories between 1958 and 1961, was to be driven by Ricardo Rodriguez, Pedro’s little brother, who was just 20. Talented and precocious, at Monza the year before, 1961, Rodriguez Jr had become the youngest driver to race for Ferrari — a record that Oliver Bearman finally beat at Jeddah seven months ago.

If Bearman’s 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix performance was impressive — he qualified 11th and finished seventh — Rodriguez Jr’s 1961 Italian Grand Prix showing was magnificent. He qualified second — 0.1sec behind pole man Wolfgang von Trips in the leading Ferrari and 0.4sec, 0.8sec, and 2.5sec ahead of the Ferraris of Richie Ginther, Phil Hill, and Giancarlo Baghetti. Rodriguez Jr retired on lap 14 with a broken fuel line, and on a normal day the sparkling form of Ferrari’s new young gun would have been a big story. But it was not because, 12 laps before his retirement, on lap two, von Trips’ Ferrari had careened off the track on the approach to Parabolica, killing not only its driver but also 15 spectators.

Rodriguez

Rodriguez in his sharknose Ferrari ahead of a breathtaking debut at Monza, 1961

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In 1962 Rodriguez Jr raced five times in F1 — four world championship-status F1 grands prix at Zandvoort, Spa, Nürburgring, and Monza, and one non-championship F1 race at Pau. He was second at Pau, fourth at Spa, and sixth at the ’Ring. In finishing fourth at Spa he became the youngest driver to score F1 world championship points — a record that was finally broken by Jenson Button at Interlagos 38 years later. He also won the 1962 Targa Florio, sharing a Ferrari with Olivier Gendebien and Willy Mairesse.

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That was all that Enzo Ferrari had lined up for his new star for 1962, but he had big plans for him for 1963 and beyond, understandably so, for he was already being spoken of as a future F1 world champion. But, not surprisingly, he fancied a run in the 1962 non-championship F1 Mexican Grand Prix, the first ever F1 race in his homeland, and Ferrari had decided not to enter it. So it was that he wangled himself a run in Rob Walker’s Lotus 24, climbed into that sylphlike blue car, beckoned his father over, kissed the old man’s hand, patted his baby brother on the head, and drove out onto the circuit for first practice. As he braked for Peraltada, the fast 180-degree right-hander before the start-finish straight, the Lotus’s rear suspension collapsed, he crashed into the barrier, and he was killed. He was 20.

His elder brother, Pedro Rodriguez, made his F1 grand prix debut the following year, 1963, also in a Lotus. Pedro’s F1 career got off to a slower start than had that of poor Ricardo, and Rodriguez Sr would race Lotuses and Ferraris in just nine F1 grands prix in four trying years — 1963, 1964, 1965, and 1966 — before in 1967 he finally landed himself a regular works F1 drive, for Cooper, winning first time out at Kyalami.

He then moved to BRM — bagging six more F1 grand prix podium finishes, one of which (Spa 1970) was a fine win — but it was as a sports car demigod that he will be remembered for ever, for almost no-one ever raced those oh-so-powerful early-1970s monsters better than he did, and he was peerless in them in the wet. If you saw him blitz all comers in a Gulf Porsche 917 at Brands Hatch in a prolonged and heavy April shower in 1970, you will never forget it, for he lapped the field five times. I was not there, sadly. The Gulf team’s reserve driver David Hobbs was watching from the pits, and afterwards he said, simply, “It was the greatest performance I’ve ever seen.” As a result of that epic drive, and others almost as good, whenever I think Porsche 917, I think Pedro Rodriguez. In 1970 and 1971 he won in that formidable sports prototype at Daytona (twice), at Monza (twice), at Brands Hatch, at Watkins Glen, at Spa, and at Osterriechring: mighty victories, on mighty circuits, in a mighty car.

In July 1971, at not-mighty Norisring, he was at the wheel of another formidable sports prototype, a Ferrari 512M, when, on lap 12, its right-front tyre detached itself from its wheel rim, causing the car to slam into a wall. It then caught fire. Rodriguez was alive when he was pulled out, but he died shortly afterwards. He was 31.

As I say, there have been six Mexican F1 drivers, and, in addition to the Rodriguez brothers, I have already mentioned the third of that sextet: Moises Solana. A jai alai champion, he funnelled into his motor sport career the money he won playing that ball game, which was popular in Latin America but little known in the Anglo-Saxon world, achieving great success in Mexican road racing. He entered eight F1 grands prix — six at home and two in the United States — but he retired in five and failed to trouble the scorers in the other three. In the 1966 Mexican Grand Prix he bought himself a drive in a fifth Cooper-Maserati, and the team sent out an extra mechanic to look after him. That 19-year-old greenhorn had never been outside the UK before, but he fell in love with F1 as soon as he arrived in Mexico City, and then and there he vowed to devote his working life to his new passion. His name was Ron Dennis.

It is an irony, therefore, and a devastating one, that in July 1969, while pressing on in the Valle de Bravo-Bosenchever hillclimb, in Mexico, Solana ran his McLaren M6B too wide. It struck a concrete bollard, turned over, and burst into flames. Since it was now upside-down, there was no escape for its driver, and he died in a blaze that continued to rage for a whole hour before it could be extinguished, one of very few to perish in a car made by McLaren, the company that poor Solana’s one-time mechanic later went on to turn into one of the greatest powerhouses in the history of our sport.

Among F1’s first pay-drivers in the sense that the term is now used — in other words a journeyman who would not have reached the top tier of motor racing without having shelled out for the privilege — Hector Rebaque entered a Hesketh for six F1 grands prix in 1977, failing to qualify for five of them and failing to finish the one he did qualify for. He then formed his own Team Rebaque and campaigned ex-works Lotuses in F1 in 1978 and 1979.

Hector Rebaque 1978

Hector Rebaque — one of F1’s original ‘pay-drivers’

Grand Prix Photo

Again his results were mostly a mixture of DNQs and DNFs, but he finished sixth at Hockenheim in 1978, scoring an F1 world championship point thereby. Always on the lookout for a way to turn a buck, or reduce his outgoings, or both, Brabham boss Bernie Ecclestone then snapped him up and gave him the keys to Gordon Murray’s beautiful BT49 for 1980 and 1981. He scored points, but no podiums, while his team-mate Nelson Piquet won F1 grands prix in both years and the F1 drivers’ world championship in 1981.

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In case anyone thinks I am being a bit hard on Rebaque, I should make clear that the following year, 1982, he raced a CART March for Forsythe, and he won at Road America, one of the world’s great circuits: credit where it’s due.

After Rebaque’s last year in F1, 1981, no Mexican drivers made it to the very highest rung of international single-seater motor sport until Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez arrived in 2011 and Esteban Gutierrez joined him in 2013. As a teenager, Gutierrez had blitzed Formula BMW, on both sides of the Atlantic, winning four races in 2007 and seven more in 2008, then he did the same in GP3, winning five times and becoming champion in 2010. He was a race winner again in GP2 in 2011 and 2012, and it was then that he acquired Ferrari backing. As a result he had two seasons in F1 for Sauber-Ferrari (2013 and 2014) and one for Haas-Ferrari (2016). He finished a lot of races but he scored points only once, seventh at Suzuka in 2013.

That was the end of his F1 chapter, and he tried his hand in a number of other series, but he had always had his eye on business. He now lives in London, he is still only 33, and I am pretty sure that we will hear more from him at some point, doubtless involved outside the cockpit in a racing-related venture that will earn him a pretty penny.

Sergio Perez of McLaren and Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber walk in the paddock following practice for the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit on April 19, 2013

Mexico’s most recent F1 entrants: Sergio Perez (left) and Esteban Gutierrez (right)

Mark Thompson/Getty Images

And that leaves Perez, who finished 17th in his home F1 grand prix on Sunday and, despite having stood on 39 F1 podiums, six times from the central plinth, has had a mixed bag of a career. I worked with him at McLaren in 2013, when he was clearly talented, and chummy, but also undisciplined, and thereafter he raced for seven seasons for the team that was called Force India (2014-2018) then Racing Point (2018-2020), during which time he learned to deliver regular points and occasional podiums, becoming singularly adept in the art of coaxing grip out of deteriorating tyres even as others were struggling with them.

But at Red Bull over the past four seasons his team-mate has been Max Verstappen, one of the very fastest, most scintillatingly ambitious, and most indomitably resolute drivers the world has ever seen — in any category, in any era — and, as a result, Perez’s reputation has diminished. Indeed, sad as I am to write the following words, I think it has become clear that living and working in Max’s shadow has caused Checo to lose his mojo. I guess it was always going to be that way.