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.
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.