Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa has signed a deal with Ferrari, to become their development driver.
The former HRT driver, who until today was unemployed when the Spanish team folded last year, will take on the role as development driver for the Italian marquee, the team said Wednesday. Pedr de la Rosa has had a long career as test and reserve driver, starting at Jordan in 1998, then went to Arrows for 1999 and scored his first championship point in the Australian Grand Prix that year. For 2001 de la Rosa signed a three year deal with Jaguar, but the effort ended with a goodbye a year earlier, as the results didn´t show. Between 2003 and 2009, Pedro de la Rosa was working with McLaren, both as test and reserve driver, but also as race driver. Juan Pablo Montoya injured his shoulder and de la Rosa took over the car, leading to a fifth place in the Bahrain GP.
From 2010 to 2011, de la Rosa was hired by BMW Sauber/Sauber and drove 14 races for the swiss team, was dropped in favour of Nick Heidfeld, a move that was seen as not tought through by Sauber. De la Rosa then replaced Heidfeld as test driver for Pirelli, but was soon back in action when Sergio Perez got injured during the Monaco GP, so the Spaniard raced the Canadian GP, eventually finishing 12th after torrential downpour had red-flagged the race.
Pedro de la Rosa returned to McLaren as test driver for 2011, and for 2012 it was announced that he would form one half of the driver line-up at HRT, the team that never really got the hang of things. As the HRT team folded last year, de la Rosa was without a job, until Ferrari picked him up.
The team also announced that they will reveal their 2013 challenger on February 1, at Maranello, the same day Force India reveals their car.
