de la Rosa in numbers
35 official points · best championship finish: 11th in 2006
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
1% of races
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
11.1% of races with McLaren
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
Pedro de la Rosa scored a point in his first Formula 1 race and took seven years to reach the podium. A Spaniard born in Barcelona in 1971, he made his debut in 1999 with Arrows and was sixth in Australia, on his debut.
After Arrows and two seasons at Jaguar he was left without a seat, and he found a role that was not glamorous but was highly valued: McLaren test driver. For years he was the team's test bench and raced only when a regular was missing. In 2005 he stood in for Juan Pablo Montoya in Bahrain and scored points.
His big chance came in 2006. Montoya left McLaren mid-season and De la Rosa raced the last eight rounds. In Hungary, in the rain, he finished second: his only podium. He ended the year eleventh with 19 points, the best season of his career.
He was a race driver again in 2010 with Sauber and signed off in 2012 with HRT, the Spanish team, which scored no points. One podium in fourteen years, and a role few have held for so long: the driver the team calls when it needs one.
What if Rosa had another car?
We took his real attributes and put him in the best car of each era: in a real driver's seat, against the team-mate that car actually had. 30 full seasons in each.
| Car | Team-mate | Finish | Wins | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McLaren1988 | Alain Prost-121 pts | P2 | 0.8 | 0% |
| Williams1992 | Riccardo Patrese-85 pts | P3.4 | 1.3 | 0% |
| Ferrari2002 | Rubens Barrichello-94 pts | P2.1 | 3.4 | 0% |
| Red Bull2013 | Mark Webber-97 pts | P2.4 | 3.2 | 0% |
| Mercedes2016 | Lewis Hamilton-169 pts | P2 | 1.3 | 0% |
| Red Bull2023 | Sergio Perez-103 pts | P2 | 4.8 | 0% |
| Cadillac2026 · 11th on the grid | Valtteri Bottas-1 pts | P13.6 | 0 | 0% |
The only one who beats him is Lewis Hamilton in the 2016 Mercedes: 169 points clear over a full season.
Rating by season
- First season
- 71 1999
- Peak
- 72 2000
- 2012
- 64 HRT
6 seasons in the database, from 1999 to 2012. Our own rating, from 50 to 99.
Teams
Tags
Best year
2006
What would Pedro de la Rosa have achieved with a different car or in a different era?
Related drivers
His team-mates
6 team-mates across 9 seasons. When both finished the race, de la Rosa was ahead in 11 of 30; on the grid he started ahead in 56 of 106.
| Year | Team-mate | In the race | On the grid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Toranosuke TakagiArrows · 16 races | 2-0 | 8-8 |
| 2000 | Jos VerstappenArrows · 17 races | 0-3 | 11-6 |
| 2001 | Eddie IrvineJaguar · 13 races | 0-3 | 6-7 |
| 2002 | Eddie IrvineJaguar · 17 races | 0-3 | 7-10 |
| 2005 | Kimi RäikkönenMcLaren · 1 race | 0-1 | 1-0 |
| 2006 | Kimi RäikkönenMcLaren · 8 races | 0-3 | 0-8 |
| 2010 | Kamui KobayashiSauber · 14 races | 1-4 | 7-7 |
| 2011 | Kamui KobayashiSauber · 1 race | 0-1 | 0-1 |
| 2012 | Narain KarthikeyanHRT · 19 races | 8-1 | 16-3 |
The first number is always de la Rosa's. A team-mate is whoever started the same race for the same team. "In the race" only counts races both finished, because a retirement says nothing about who was quicker. "On the grid" is the starting position, with penalties already applied.
Compare de la Rosa with another driver
Titles, wins, poles and podiums side by side, against any of the 789 drivers in history.
Keep reading
Where Pedro de la Rosa comes up in what we have measured, with our own numbers.
- 11 min readHow many drivers lose their seat mid-season: 163 replacements, and half of them never come backHadjar broke his wrist boxing and his absence moved three seats. We counted every replacement of a race driver since 1988: 163 across 39 seasons, a…
- 8 min readWhat does a weak second driver cost? 1,200 seasons with the seat swappedMassa next to Alonso, Pérez next to Verstappen: we re-ran four real seasons changing only who sits in the second car. Ferrari 2010 goes from winnin…
- 8 min readHow much is the car worth, and how much the driver? 600 simulated seasonsWe put Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton and Verstappen in the worst car on their own grid, and the slowest driver in the best one. 11,400 races later:…