Nationality: Spanish
Born: 1971
Races: 0
Debut: Australia 1999
Teams: Arrows ('99)
Current Team: Arrows |
Pedro started driving at the age of 6 in Mini-Karts, however his public motor racing debut was to be 12 years later in the Spanish Formula Fiat Uno Championship. In his first season he became the champion, showing upcoming stardom, and in the next year he joined a promotional operation called “Ofensiva Dos”, winning the Spanish Formula Ford 1600 Championship.
In 1991, Pedro raced in the Spanish Formula Renault Championship and despite a horrifying accident, finished an impressive fourth. Not wishing to languish in low formulas any more, for the next year he moved to Britain to compete in the British Formula Renault Championship, which he won, again in his first season, with West Surrey Racing.
In 1993, Pedro moved up to British Formula 3 racing, again with the West Surrey Racing team, and finished 6th, poor by his standards at this point. For the next season he stayed with F3, but for 1995 accepted a drive for the works Toyota team in the Japanese F3 Championship. Without any knowledge about their circuits or style of racing, Pedro still became the champion, by midseason, with 8 wins.
1996 was both a learning year and a busy year, participating in the FIA Japanese GT Championship and Formula Nippon F3000, finishing 8th in both. The next year was more successful winning both championships, with Michael Krumm as his co-driver in the GT Championship.
At the end of last year, Pedro achieved the most publicity yet, being voted 3rd in the Champion Spark Plug World Driver Rankings behind Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher. Pedro was also later elected to be the 1997 Driver of the Year by the Japaneses Motorsport Journalists Association (J.M.A.).
His first season in Formula One started very well with a 6th place in Australia giving Arrows a much needed point. However, for the rest of the races he and teammate Takagi struggled with a poor car, and were consistently competing with Minardi for the back four places. De la Rosa, however, did show some signs of his talent and, given a good car, could be a success in F1.
The year 2000 is looking much better for Pedro with a much improved Arrows car with the Supertech engine and many believe he is a future title contender.
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