The sources are multiplying all the time with the Swiss and the Spanish now reporting that the announcement of Pedro de la Rosa as Kamui Kobayashi’s team-mate is now imminent. The word is that he will have a one-year contract with an option for a second year. This is believed to be dependent on sponsorship contract being finalised. The word in Spain is that the drive will be funded in part by an organisation called Universia, which is a network of 11,000 universities in 15 countries, which offers information and content for more than 10m students and 850,000 academics. The organisation is heavily supported by Santander. De la Rosa had hoped that to get a drive based solely on his experience as an F1 test driver but such is the need for money at the moment that he has had to deliver cash as well. Although the deal has yet to be confirmed, it appears that it will go ahead.
De la Rosa has been around Formula 1 since 1998, when he was named as a test driver with the Jordan team. In 1999 he raced for Arrows and scored a point on his debut at the Australian GP. In 2000, he scored two points and then moved to Jaguar Racing in 2001 and 2002, but was dropped in 2003. He then became a McLaren test driver but returned at the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix when Juan Pablo Montoya injured his shoulder and finished fifth. When Montoya quit the team in the middle of 2006 Pedro took over the drive and in Hungary finished second to Jenson Button. He was passed over when McLaren picked Lewis Hamilton for 2007 but has remained McLaren’s test driver.
Good luck to PdLR !
Sign of _my_ times i still have him down as “talented, youthful” . .
But what with the whole new – team – financing situation, the twisted marketeer in me thinks one at least should have chosen Irvine & Herbert, just to ensure the media exposure.
No. Seriously. I’d do it for a season if i had the deep pocket to play about in this sport. Or Montoya + Villneuve.
Basically anything where i could do a back – deal with Bernie so i get paid for having tarty stupid handbag punchups *during the race* rather than off season in the rumor pages between people who don’t even race.
Pedro deserves a seat in a decent car.
I think he’s very underrated, probably because Jaguar was a poor car in 2002 (his last full season) and in 2006 Mclaren didn’t had the best car of the grid and in the last races he must run with lower revs in the engine to homologate it.
Instead that, 19 vs 26 points against Kimi and in that conditions isn’t a bad result…
His job in Arrows was really good. You can remember his 6º position in his first race, his outstanding performance in Austria 2000 until the car failed when he was 3º at 50% of race. The same in Nurburgring until it started to rain a lot and finished 6º, etc…
Some sources (good sources) said that in 2002 Toyota called Lauda to hire De la Rosa for 2003 and Lauda didn’t let him go out. Two months later, when Toyota was with his two cockpits full, Lauda kick De la Rosa. This was the start of his personal “nightmare” until this month.
That’s why I think he deserves his last opportunity, at least one more year. And I’m sure that Kobayashi will be very happy to learn alognside this amazing man (of course also driver and developer). You can ask Hamilton about it, and probably all of you would get surprised about Hamilton’s opinion of De la Rosa…
The spanish website http://www.as.com has the same story but with the ‘rumour’ part left out, they take it as a done deal.
I was sick and tired of hearing all those positive comments about PdlR’s driving in Bahrain 2005 when he replaced Montoya. For God’s sake, he spent more time on the run-off areas than on the track itself! Had there been no asphalted run-offs, he woulh have stuck in the gravel on the 3rd or 4th lap.
Pedro must be a good test driver, otherwise McLaren wouldn’t have kept him for so long. If he is a good racing driver, I’m not so sure. For a media boom, Sauber would have gained much more by signing Villeneuve.
Good of Pedro to make all those nice comments about himself, wasn’t it…;)
Good for him. Underrated, and he deserves it.
Still waiting for news of little Nick, also underrated and fully deserving of a seat this year.
de la Who, as I used to call him while he was racing, isn’t exactly fast or young. His last races in F1 were in 2006 or 3 seasons ago, he had looots of chances to test and he was miles behind Kimi(very motivated by the car that season) especially in the races.
If he was a Schumacher, OK, but he’s just de la Who. The guy just gained lots of publicity of just being the faithful McLaren tester.
Sauber need a fast driver, not top driver, but a fast one.
With all due respect to Pedro, I really cannot understand how Heidfeld wasn’t approached before De la Rosa.
Sweet article, Joe. Very well written including good flow of interesting news -instead of the typical rumors bash.
I think de la Rosa is a very capable driver, steady and/or aggressive, as required… or as they did let him.
It will be a blast to see him racing again. Moreover, nobody develops a car like him. Also, fluent in Japanese, Kamui will learn tons…
Wish the best to de la Rosa and Kobayashi.
Thank you Peter Sauber for bringing back the essence of a F1 Team!
From Chicago
Top stuff, and to make this an even more happy day, it means Heidfeld has no chance of getting back in.
Cant see him at campos, maybe STR at a pinch, but na, back to DTM!!!
I second Pedro’s comments–DLR was very impressive in his early drives, but obviously made a poor career choice in moving to Jaguar. Let us hope we do not have a repeat of Ferrari’s experience with Badoer.
His job in Arrows was really good.
[...] According to Joe Saward, de la Rosa’s deal is being backed by a network of universities called Universia. [...]