44 years ago (RIP Pedro Rodriguez)

At the beginning of the first practice session of the 1° Mexican Grand Prix, on 02 November 1962, at 17:00 happened the accident that claimed the life of Ricardo Rodríguez. It was his debut at the wheel of a Lotus 24, after a complete 1962 season for the Scuderia Ferrari: after his 2nd place in the F.2 Pau G.P. he obtained his first F.1 World Championship points in Belgium (4th place) and in Germany (6th place), and in the World Sportscar Championship he was 2nd overall (with the fastest lap) in the 3 Hours Daytona Continental in February, in a Dino 246SP with Phil Hill, and in May he won the 46° Targa Florio driving the same car, with Olivier Gendebien and Willy Mairesse. Then he shared the Dino with his elder brother Pedro in the Nürburgring 1000 Kms - retired - and at Le Mans - retired. On 21 October 1962, just two weeks before the tragedy, Ricardo and Pedro Rodríguez won the 1000 Kms of Paris at Montlhéry in a Ferrari 250 GTO for Luigi Chinetti's N.A.R.T.
After this race he was free from the engagements with Ferrari, and he wanted at any rate to partecipate (and to win) his first hometown F.1 G.P. When he was 14 y.o. he had won the first Mexican motorcycle G.P. now he was 20 and had the will to win the first Mexican F.1 G.P.
At 17:00 on 02 November 1962 Ricardo had finished his first reconnaisance lap, stopped his car in the pits and then re-started. While approaching the Peraltada bend, the last 180 degrees turn of the circuit, at about 140 km/h, he lost control of the Lotus that slided, overturned and cought fire. Rodriguez was ejected out of the car and fell into the asphalt. He died during the transport to the hospital, for broken skull and neck. According to other F.1 drivers, eye-witness of the accident, he arrived too fast near the bend and perhaps he had too little knowledge of his new car.
After the accident, his brother Pedro immediately announced his retirement from racing. Some months later he changed his mind and retraced his steps.

Ricardo Rodríguez was born in Mexico City on 14 February 1942, just two years after his brother Pedro, sons of a wealthy family. When he was 7 y.o. he started his racing career in motorcycle races, when he was 14 he won the 1st Mexican motorcycle G.P.
In 1957 he passed to racing cars, sharing the wheel with Pedro: at the beginning they had an Osca 1500 Sport, then a Porsche 550RS in which Ricardo won his class at Riverside and at the Nassau Trophy. During the following season he had a great accident at Mesdakdale and destroyed the Porsche, and then he arrived au Mans to race the 24 Hours in a Ferrari for the N.A.R.T. of Luigi Chinetti, business agent for Ferrari in USA, but the organizators refused him to race because he was still under age. So Jean Behra replaced him in the team with Pedro.
In 1959 the Rodríguez' brothers raced a works Osca 750 Sport in USA and finally Ricardo had his debut au Mans - retired. The following year, in a Ferrari Dino 196S for N.A.R.T. they arrived 7th at the Targa Florio, and retired at Sebring and at Nürburgring. For the 24 Hours of Le Mans Pedro drove a works Ferrari 250TR, so Ricardo shared his N.A.R.T. 250 TR with André Pilette: the fiery Mexican and the aged and expert Belgian arrived 2nd overall!
At the end of the season Ricardo again with Pedro arrived 2nd in the 250TR at Nassau Trophy, behind Dan Gurney.
While campaigning in Europe in 1960, Ricardo Rodriguez raced also some F.Junior races and in January 1961 he won at Mexico City his first single-seater race, driving a Cooper F.Junior.
In the 1961 World Sportscar Championship he drove again the Ferrari 250TR for the N.A.R.T. and this was perhaps his best season: Ricardo with Pedro were 3rd at Sebring, 2nd overall in the Nürburgring 1000 Kms and retired au Mans (Ricardo signing the fastest lap of the race), dominating all the races. At the end of the year they won the 1000 Kms of Paris at Montlhéry in a Ferrari 250 GT SWB, and for the following season the Scuderia Ferrari signed on Ricardo to drive F.1 and sportscar races.
During his brief and intense career Ricardo Rodriguez had five F.1 starts, his best result was 4th, his best qualifying was 2nd.

Ricardo Rodríguez was inducted into the Salón de la Fama of the Confederación Deportiva Mexicana besides his brother Pedro in 1978.




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Nuremberg: A Sunday 30 Years Ago. Remembering Pedro
Taken from the biography "The Rodríguez Brothers" soon to be published
by Carlos Eduardo Jalife Villalón
July 8, 2001

Editors Note: Pedro Rodríguez, the great Mexican driving champion, died 30 years ago July 11, 1971. He was perhaps the fastest driver we ever saw in the rain, more dominant than even Ayrton Senna, and he did it not only in F1 cars, but also in Sports cars. This week we remember him.
In Nuremberg Germany, the second Sunday in July is race day, just like Memorial weekend at Indy or mid-June weekend at Le Mans. It is a long held tradition and although nowadays we see the DTM Touring cars, there were times when faster cars would run there.

30 years ago this Sunday, the Nuremberg 200 Miles was run, a race belonging to the Inter-Series championship for Group 7 cars, the continental equivalent to Can-Am. The organizers tried to get Pedro Rodríguez to race, he was a box office magnet at the time, but couldn't get him to agree until Herbert Müller, a Swiss driver who owned 2 Ferrari 512 prototypes -bought from Steve McQueen after he finished filming his Le Mans movie- said he would try.

The Mexican driver, 31 years old, was recently crowned as driver champion for a second consecutive year in the World Makes Championship running for the John Wyer Automotive team, using the brutal 5-liter Porsche 917K, having vanquished Ferrari and Alfa completely. Pedro had scheduled a Can-Am race for BRM but his car wasn't ready and when Herb called he was looking at a rare free weekend.
Herb, who ran the Sicilian Targa Florio with Pedro a few months ago, offered one of his Ferraris. Pedro agreed but asked for a retainer because he knew his name would strengthen the box office take enormously. The organizers agreed to give him a payment of over 5,000 dollars and Pedro simply announced to his teams he would race at Nuremberg. Nobody really objected, nor Wyer nor BRM, because they had nothing planned for him and they knew Pedro considered a non-racing weekend as something akin to torture.

Pedro went alone to Paris, left his Porsche 911 in a friend's house and then went to Germany, arriving Friday night to the hotel Müller reserved for him. In Nuremberg he checked the circuit, the Norisring, during Saturday practice. It's an easy track, good for high top speed since it resembles an inverted 'L' with hairpins on either end, one very wide and the other extremely narrow, measuring 3,940 meters (2.455 miles).

Probably its most interesting feature is the old, slowly decaying, concrete stands -where Hitler would supervise the marching nazi youths a few decades earlier. The track runs in front of these stands and behind too, making a small 'S' turn which has a bridge allowing access to the stands right at the "S" corner. It is an extreme track, high speed in the straights and heavy braking in the hairpins, medium speed average, no problems. After first practice in his 512M, Pedro was delighted with the car and said "With this one, let's see someone dare to beat me" and his old love for Ferrari shone again.

Among the drivers, there are some famous names and some drivers he has lapped time and again in Sports car races: one is his former teammate Leo Kinnunen with a Porsche 917 spyder -who would say before practice begins that "the 'S' turn with the bridge is stupidly dangerous"; Müller in his 512M; Peter Gethin who had lost his Can-Am seat to Peter Revson but has a McLaren run by Sid Taylor for Castrol; Chris Craft with a McLaren M8E from Ecurie Evergreen of Alain de Cadenet; Jo Bonnier in his Lola T220; George Loos in another M8E with an 8.1 liter engine; Teddy Pilette in another M8E belonging to team VDS, new mount after crashing an M8C at Zolder; and some other minor drivers.

When word gets out that Pedro was there and he will start in the front row, ticket sales boom and the extra money taken easily covers Pedro's retainer. That night at dinner with some drivers, Müller among them, Pedro would say: "It is a pity there's no rain. Rain makes driving more fun and more dangerous too" and he knows that under the rain nobody in the world comes close to him.

Early Sunday morning, Pedro sends a telegram to México, to his dad -Don Pedro- in which he says: "Run today at Nuremberg; call after the race". He arrives at the Norisring, signs many autographs and spends time watching the ambiance and checking his rivals.
The race is to be run in two 100 miles heats so there was no need to stop for refueling in the heats. He is sure he will win, the Ferrari 512M is very fast, and when the time of the start draws near he meets with Müller to talk tactics. A real simple plan: take the lead and win. He also meets Kinnunen; time has mellowed the rough relationship left when Leo left JWA, and after wishing each other luck and predicting their own victory, they agree on dinner after the race with the loser paying the bill. Pedro is happy, it is a minor race he should win easily, unlike the hard racing he usually has in his schedule, and this could be a well-paid racing holiday.

The cars line up for the start and when Pedro gets the flag he immediately takes the lead. No trouble staying in front and each lap his margin over second place is larger. On this track 41 laps make 100 miles and by lap 5 Pedro is already passing backmarkers.

By lap 11 Pedro, still in the lead, followed by Kinnunen and Craft, gets to the narrow hairpin and catches German driver Kurt Hild on the way to the 'S'. Suddenly his car goes out of control, crashes against the wall at great speed, twisting spinning and hits the concrete stand coming back to the side of the track and catching fire in a couple of seconds.

Here there are several versions. Some people suggest the Ferrari lost a wheel due to poor maintenance, theory supported when they find the wheel about 250 meters from the crash, too far to get there just by the impact. Others suggest that while lapping the backmarker, who didn't watch his mirrors and accidentally cut across him, sending him to the barrier. Hild's white Porsche certainly touched Pedro's car when he was spinning but it was a minor contact after the initial crash. Hild would later say: "I saw Rodríguez approaching and ran to the right so he could pass (on the left). t was a normal passing situation happening about 400 meters (1/4 mile) from the crash. I was doing about 220 kilometers per hour (138 mph) and when the accident happened I was about 120 meters behind the Mexican" and in his car there are no other signs of action, although it would be possible Pedro could have swerved to miss him and lost control when the wheel broke due to material fatigue; or maybe the wheel got loose after the impact but nobody remembers seeing it bounce afterwards, so there's no way to tell the cause of the accident.

His Ferrari catches fire and a brave Marshall -named Helmut Schlosser- gets close to fight the fire while the cars go by at racing speed a few meters from him. The Marshall puts out the fire helped by some other track marshals, he and two of them suffering burns, one of them serious ones.

Two minutes elapsed before the rescue team opened the car and they have to carry Pedro because he has lost consciousness, he is burned all over, wet with fire fighting foam and with various fractures all over the body. The first doctor to take care of him tries to keep him alive and will bring him back 3 times in the rush to the hospital when Pedro's heart stops. A bit after they arrive, his heart stops for the fourth time and there's no way to bring him back this time, although the medical team tries for a long time.

Pedro is dead and the news slowly spreads around the world. People cry for him everywhere and his body is received in Mexico by a crowd of hundreds of thousands who will take him to his resting place where he will meet brother Ricardo, almost nine years later. He's gone, leading until the last second of his life. 30 years later, his place rests empty, his shoes have not been filled

His Record - Note his finishing average
Year Race & Track Type Car Result Comments
1949 National Youth Champ Cycling
1954 National Champ Motorcycles 125cc
1957 LA Times GP Riverside Sportscars Ferrari DNF International Debut
1958 24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Ferrari 500TR DNF lap119 European Debut
Nassau Trophy Sportscars Ferrari 250TR 58 2
1959 24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars OSCA 750 TN DNF lap32 w/ Ricardo Rodríguez
Ferrari Only - Nassau Sportscars Ferrari 250TR/59 2
500 K City of Mexico Turismo Volvo PV544 1800 1 Inauguración Pista
G.P. Cuba Sportscars Ferrari 250TR/59 2
1960 Targa Florio, Sicily Sportscars Ferrari Dino 196S 7
24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Ferrari 250TRI/60 DNF lap22
Nassau Trophy Sportscars Ferrari 250TR 58 2
12 Hours of Sebring Sportscars Ferrari 250TR 58 3 w/ Ricardo Rodríguez
1961 1000 K of Nürburgring Sportscars Ferrari 250TRI/60 2 w/ Ricardo Rodríguez
24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Ferrari 250TRI/60 DNF lap305 w/ Ricardo Rodríguez
G.P. Canada Sportscars Ferrari 250TRI/61 2
1000 Km. Paris Sportscars Ferrari 250 GT SWB 1 w/ Ricardo Rodríguez
Governor's Trophy Sportscars Ferrari 250TRI/61 1
Nassau Trophy Sportscars Ferrari 250TRI/61 3
24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Ferrari 246SP DNF lap174 w/ Ricardo Rodríguez
1962 Double 400 Bridgehampton Sportscars Ferrari 330 TR 1
G.P. Canada MoSportscars Sportscars Ferrari 330 TR 2
1000 Km. Paris Monthlery Sportscars Ferrari 250 GTO 1 w/ Ricardo Rodríguez
Continental 3 Hours Daytona Sportscars Ferrari 250 GTO 1
1963 12 Hours of Sebring Sportscars Ferrari 330 TR 3
24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Ferrari 330TR DNF lap113/115
G.P. Canada MoSportscars Sportscars Ferrari 250P 1
G.P. USA Watkins Glen F1 Lotus 25 Climax DNF lap 37 Debut F1
International Trophy Nassau Sportscars Ferrari 250P 2
Continental 2000K GT Ferrari 250 GTO 1
1964 12 Hours of Sebring Sportscars Ferrari 250 GTO 7
Double 500 Bridgehampton Sportscars Ferrari 275P 2
G.P. Canada MoSportscars Sportscars Ferrari 330P 1
1000 Km. Paris Monthlery Sportscars Ferrari 250 GTO 2
G.P. Mexico F1 Ferrari 158 6 First Point F1
BRDC Intnl. Silverstone F1 Lotus 25 4
1965 24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Ferrari 365P2 7 Class Win
12 Hours of Reims Sportscars Ferrari 365P2 1
Bridgehampton 500 Sportscars Ferrari 365P2 2
G.P. Canada MoSportscars Sportscars Ferrari 365P2 3
G.P. USA Watkins Glen F1 Ferrari 1512 5
24 Hours of Daytona Sportscars Ferrari 365P2 4
1966 1000 K of Nürburgring Sportscars Ferrari Dino 206S 3
G.P Rouen F2 Lotus 44 SCA 3
Nassau Tourist Trophy GT Ferrari 275 GTB/C 2
G.P. South Africa Kyalami F1 Cooper T81 Maserati 1
1967 24 Hours of Daytona Sportscars Ferrari 330P3/4 3
G.P. Monaco F1 Cooper T81 Maserati 5
G.P. France Bugatti-LeMans F1 Cooper T81 Maserati 6
G.P. England Silverstone F1 Cooper T81 Maserati 5
GP of Madrid Jarama F2 Protos 16 FVA 7
G.P. Mexico F1 Cooper T81B Maserati 6
South Pacific Trophy, Australia Tasman BRM P261T 2.1 V8 2
1968 12 Hours of Sebring Sportscars Ferrari Dino 206S 9
Race of Champs, Brands Hatch F1 BRM P133 2
BOAC 500 Brands Hatch Sportscars Ferrari 275LM 5
G.P. Belgium Spa F1 BRM P133 2
Rhein Pokalrennen Hockenheim F2 Tecno 68 FVA 4
G.P. Holland Zandvoort F1 BRM P133 3
G.P. Germany Nürburgring F1 BRM P133 6
Gold Cup Oulton Park F1 BRM P126 4
200 Millas Elkhart Lake Can-Am Ferrari P4 13
G.P. Canada St. Jovite F1 BRM P133 3
24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Ford GT40 1 w/ Lucien Bianchi
G.P. Mexico F1 BRM P133 4
500 Millas Brands Hatch Sportscars Ferrari 312P 4
1969 1000 K of Spa Sportscars Ferrari 312P 2
6 Hours of Watkins Glen Sportscars Matra 650 4
G.P.Italia Monza F1 Ferrari 312/69 6
200 Millas of Bridgehampton Can-Am Ferrari 312P 5
G.P. USA Watkins Glen F1 Ferrari 312/69 5
1000 Km. Paris Monthlery Sportscars Matra 630/650 2
24 Hours of Daytona Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
1970 12 Hours of Sebring Sportscars Porsche 917K 4
BOAC 1000 Brands Hatch Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
1000 K Monza Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
Targa Florio, Sicily Sportscars Porsche 908/3 2
G.P. Monaco F1 BRM P153 6
G.P. Belgium Spa F1 BRM P153 1
6 Hours of Watkins Glen Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
G.P. Austria F1 BRM P153 4
200 Millas Elkhart Lake Can-Am Ferrari 512S 7
G.P. Canada St. Jovite F1 BRM P153 4
200 Millas Donnybrooke Can-Am BRM P154 9
G.P. USA Watkins Glen F1 BRM P153 2
200 Millas Laguna Seca Can-Am BRM P154 5
G.P. Mexico F1 BRM P153 6
200 Millas Riverside Can-Am BRM P154 3
1000 K Buenos Aires Sportscars Porsche 917K 2
1971 24 Hours Daytona Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
500 Millas Daytona NASCAR Chevy '69 13
12 Hours of Sebring Sportscars Porsche 917K 4
Gold Cup Oulton Park F1 BRM P160 1
G.P. España Jarama F1 BRM P160 4
1000 K Monza Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
International Trophy Silverstone F1 BRM P160 4
1000 K of Spa Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
1000 K of Nürburgring Sportscars Porsche 908/3 2
24 Hours of Le Mans Sportscars Porsche 917LH DNF lap 204 unbeaten Lap record
G.P. Holland Zandvoort F1 BRM P160 2
1000 K Austria Osterreichring. Sportscars Porsche 917K 1
The author can be contacted at [email protected]

 

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some photos of Ricardo:
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