NIGEL ROEBUCK’S F1 HEROES
Ricardo Rodríguez, one half of a tragic Formula 1 family
championship season invariably ended at Watkins Glen in October, but time was there were also non-championship F1 races, and in November 1962 most teams gathered in Mexico City for the country’s inaugural Gran Premio.
Ferrari, though, did not enter, and for the organisers this was potentially disastrous: for one thing, their absence detracted from event; more fundamentally, Ricardo Rodríguez de la Vega, at 20 already a national hero in Mexico, was a Ferrari driver.
Contracts were more malleable in those days. Rodríguez, desperate to race before his own people, asked Rob Walker if he could drive his Lotus 24 in Mexico, and instantly fell in love with the car, finding it way nimbler than the ‘sharknose’ Ferrari he had been driving. Fastest for most of the opening session, his time was beaten by John Surtees, and in the closing minutes he went out again.
In the track’s original configuration, the final corner – Peraltada – was a banked, bumpy, right-hander, and it was there that the Lotus suffered suspension failure, and hit the guardrail. Thrown from the car, Rodríguez died shortly afterward.
Throughout Mexico there was an outpouring of grief, and for the family it was a traumatic time. The father, Don Pedro, had spent freely on his sons, wishing to see them high in the racing firmament. Of the two, Ricardo was regarded as the more gifted; for Pedro it seemed more like a hobby.
He was there the day his brother died, and briefly renounced racing, but won the Daytona 3 Hours on his own in 1963 and in 1964 the Daytona 2000Kms with Phil Hill. Some years would pass before Pedro committed himself to fulltime racing, but he would achieve greatness before dying at the Norisring in 1971.
In his early days Pedro was something of a wild man, while Ricardo, by contrast, was silky with a car. At 15, Ricardo was racing a Porsche Spyder, and winning with it, and in 1958 was mortified to have his entry for Le Mans rejected. Sixteen, said the Automobile Club de l’ouest, was too young. Pedro, all of 18, did go to La Sarthe, however, and in 1959 Ricardo got to partner him in an OSCA. Thereafter, they frequently drove together, usually in Ferraris for Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team.
By now, though, Ricardo’s style had begun to change. Decidedly less restrained than before, he worked his cars hard, and had a lot of accidents. Chinetti, however, was a fundamental believer. Always a man with the ear of Enzo Ferrari, he talked up both Rodríguez brothers, and the wily Enzo allowed Don Pedro to buy them into the factory team. While Ricardo seized the opportunity, Pedro, still not certain he wanted to be a pro, decided against it.
Back in the day it was Ferrari’s custom to enter extra cars for the Italian Grand Prix, and in 1961 five were on hand, for Phil Hill, Wolfgang von Trips, Richie Ginther, Giancarlo Baghetti – and Rodríguez, at 19 the youngest Ferrari driver of all time.
To make your F1 debut at Monza in a Ferrari is to face as much pressure as racing can exert, and the consequences could have been disastrous. Astonishingly Ricardo qualified second, but retired early from a tragic race that cost the lives of von Trips and several spectators. Enzo Ferrari was condemned by the Vatican and the Catholic press and, as ever, rode out the storm, announcing his programme for 1962, nominating Rodríguez as one of his drivers.
It would be a poor season. Dominant the previous year, Ferrari was overwhelmed by superior British chassis, powered by new V8 engines from BRM and Coventry-climax. Only Hill had a regular drive, the Old Man constantly shuffling the rest of his pack.
“I KNEW HE WAS BEING EATEN ALIVE BY BLIND AMBITION -ENZO FERRARI
On occasion Rodríguez was able to demonstrate his talent, winning the Targa Florio with Olivier Gendebien and Willy Mairesse, fighting Hill all the way at Spa in a battle for third place, and clearly outshining his team mates at the Nürburgring. His willingness to take outrageous risks, though, worried his fellow drivers, and even Ferrari professed concern for the young man.
In My Terrible Joys, his appropriately entitled memoirs, Ferrari said this: “Ricardo Rodríguez is a fierce young man, who drives with a terrifying carelessness. I said to him, ‘Ricardo, you’ll only be the great racer you want to be if you learn control. If not, I’m not sure how much longer your talent for improvisation will save you’. Ricardo said he got the message, but I knew he was being eaten alive by blind ambition, and that his family was kindling it, rather than trying to cool it – I wrote to his father about it.”
Hill, too, worried for his team-mate: “If he lives I’ll be surprised…” The times, they were different.
So to Mexico, and the accident that ended Rodríguez’s life. “I wasn’t there that day,” said Jo Ramirez, one of his closest friends, “but people who were told me it was just horrible – they were trying to help him, but there was nothing anyone could do. ‘Don’t let me die, please don’t let me die,’ he kept saying...”
It was as a result of meeting Rodríguez that Ramirez came to spend his life in motor racing: “We came from very different social backgrounds, but became great friends, and I asked him to help me get into racing. When he had his first F1 drive I was still in Mexico, but he telephoned me after qualifying on the front row. He said, ‘They ask me which gear I’m using in this corner, and when I start braking for that one – and I don’t know what to tell them!’
“It was a big blow for me when he died but I never thought of getting out of racing – by now I was too much involved, and it was all because of Ricardo. I’ve never doubted that he was going to be one of the greatest.
“Over the years I also got to know Pedro very well – he was more of an introvert, but after Ricardo’s death came out of his shadow. One Saturday in July 1971, he and his girlfriend were coming to us for dinner, but then he called to say he wouldn’t be able to make it – he’d been asked to drive a Ferrari at the Norisring, and Pedro never could turn down a race. Such a tragic family.”