BMW Sauber announced on Tuesday that Pedro de la Rosa will race for the Swiss-based team this season. De la Rosa, who will pair up with new team mate Kamui Kobayashi, has 71 Grands Prix starts under his belt and has worked with McLaren as a test and reserve driver for the last seven years.
“Pedro has spent many years working for a top team at the highest technical level,” said team principal Peter Sauber. The BMW Sauber team are said to be excited to learn from de la Rosa’s experience as well as from their newest driver Kamui. The combination of a seasoned racer and an up-and-coming young driver has repeatedly proved a very fruitful one.
I wouldn’t expect either of them to disappoint in 2010, but of course results can only be got with a strong car, so its also down to the rest of the team to make sure they are a sucess.
Pedro De la Rosa, 38, said that he always thought he would be given another chance as a team driver as opposed to a reserve and is excited to drive with a team which has been featured in Formula One since 1993.
De la Rosa began karting at the relatively late age of 17, but was immediately discovered and sponsored by the Spanish Automobile Federation. A year later he had already progressed to a single-seater racing car and went on to win the Formula Fiat Uno series. After successful stints in Formula Ford, Formula Renault and British Formula Three, 1997 saw him win the Japanese Formula 3000 and GT championship.
In 1998 he made his debut as a Formula One test driver for the Jordan team. He contested his first Grand Prix in Australia in 1999 for Arrows, taking his inferior car straight into the points with a sixth-placed finish. He remained with Arrows in 1999 and 2000, moving to Jaguar for the 2001 and 2002 seasons.
From 2003 through to 2009 he worked for McLaren as a reserve driver. Called upon to race for the team in nine Grands Prix, he capitalised on these opportunities. In 2005 he finished fifth in Bahrain and claimed the fastest race lap. 2006 saw him stepping into the breach again and over eight races he managed to pick up 19 world championship points and take a second place in Hungary.