The Spanish pilot, Pedro Martinez De la Rosa will be the BMW Sauber ‘Scuderia’ second official pilot in the 2010 Formula One World Championship, as confirmed this Tuesday through a press release by the team based in Switzerland.
38 year old, De la Rosa, who has been a McLaren-Mercedes test driver for the last seven seasons, will partner in his new racing-team with the Japanese, Kamui Kobayashi.  Hence, the pilot from Barcelona makes his comeback to the ‘Great Circus’ as official pilot and does so with 71 Grand Prix under his belt and 29 points in the World Championship.  With his signing, he will become the championship’s second most veteran after Michael Schumacher (41).
At 17 Pedro De la Rosa began competing in 1988 in Karting and from that moment on, and thanks to the support of the Spanish Automobile Federation, he was able to go up through the categories until he reached Formula One.
Until 1991, he competed in Spain where he won the Formula Ford British Championship.  The following year, he went to Great Britain to win the Formula Renault, the European Series of that category and the ‘Privilege Formula 3 Festival’.
From there he jumped to Japan, being decisive stage for De la Rosa –from 1995 to 1997—since he won all the championships in which he competed, Formula 3 (1995), Formula 3000 (1997) and Great Tourism (1997).  For this reason he received the nickname of ‘Nippon Ichi’, that means ‘Japan’s Number 1.’
The Catalan’s first contact with a Formula 1 car took place in 1998, as Jordan’s test driver, a year before his definitive jump, becoming Arrows’ official pilot, where he challenged 16 races and added a point, ending the championship in 18th position.

A year later, still in Arrows, he added two more points in 17 tests, before signing with Jaguar for the 2001 season.  In this racing-team, the Spaniard, could not shine due to the not very competitive single-seated he drove, attaining only fifth (Italy 2001) and sixth positions (Canada 2001) as his most outstanding performances.

JUMP TO MCLAREN AND PODIUM IN HUNGRY.

From 2003 on, De la Rosa he becomes McLaren’s test driver, and two years later he gets the chance to dispute a race with the Anglo-German racing-team, the Bahrain Grand Prix, where he finished on fifth position.
But the best moments for the pilot from Barcelona in McLaren would come a year later, in 2006, where he challenged eight races as substitute of the Colombian, Juan Pablo Montoya.  De la Rosa added a total of 19 points and for the first time in his career, managed to take a podium place by finishing second in the Hungarian Grand Prix, even ahead of Michael Schumacher.

Even though there was much speculation around De la Rosa’s jump to an official wheel –specially as a result of Fernando Alonso leaving McLaren-, finally the Finish Heikki Kovalainen closed the doors on him and the last three seasons he has not been able to challenge any Grand Prix.

During the last months everything seemed to indicate that the Catalan –who has been President of the Pilot Association for two years-, would come back to the competition by the hand of the Spanish debutant team, the Campos Meta, negotiations with the Adrian Campos’ racing-team were interrupted so it will finally be the Sauber team which takes in the veteran pilot.

PETER SAUBER VALUES HIS “EXPERIENCE.”

“Pedro has worked during the last years for one of the best teams of technical level athletics.  We, as a team, want to take advantage of his experience, as we would like Kamui to do,” stated in a press release Peter Sauber, Principal of the team.

Likewise, the team principal of the Catalan’s new ‘Scuderia’ underlines that “the combination of an experienced pilot with a bright young hope usually renders good results.”  He seemed “sure” that in this case, “it’s what’s going to happen next season.”

“Of course, it’s essential that we can give them a good car and I have a very optimistic view of the evolution we can achieve at our factory.  We’re capable of continuing our work with the 2010 car, just as we had programmed, despite of the recent uncertainty period”, Peter Sauber pointed out.

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