Ricardo Rosset

Nationality:	Brazilian	Races Entered:	33
Date of Birth:	27 July, 1968	DNQ/DNPQ:	6
Teams:	Footwork (1996) Lola (1997) Tyrrell (1998)	Best Result:	8th, Hungary, 1996 / Canada, 1998

BIOGRAPHY

Before Formula One

Some F1 rejects are obscure before they get to F1; some fall into the depths of obscurity after F1. But Brazilian Ricardo Rosset, from São Paulo in Brazil, just like both Ayrton Senna and close friend Rubens Barrichello, has the distinction of being obscure even when he was in F1. So obscure, in fact, that it's easy to forget that prior to Tarso Marques' DNQ at the British GP in 2001, he was the last man to fall foul of the 107% qualifying rule. Heir to a successful female underwear and bikini business, he was definitely moneyed, but truthfully Rosset seemed to be no slouch in junior categories. A late starter in karts at the age of 21, in 1989 and 1990 he raced karts in Brazil, once coming 4th in the title. In 1991 he moved up to Brazilian Formula Ford 1600, where he finished 5th, taking 3 wins along the way. Moving to Europe in 1992, joining the Peter Thompson Motorsport team, he had little joy in the Formula Opel Euroseries, only managing 10th overall.

But picked up by Alan Docking Racing for British F3 in 1993, he finished joint 6th with 18 points, equal with Pedro de la Rosa. He drove a Ralt Mugen RT37 for the first 8 races before switching to a Dallara 393 Mugen for the rest of the season. He was immediately running in the upper midfield, and apart from those races in which he failed to finish, he never once came outside the top ten. This impressively consistent run culminated in a fine 2nd place at Silverstone. Driving a Dallara F394 with a Mugen engine for Team AJS in the same series in 1994, a year dominated by Jan Magnussen, Rosset was 5th with 132 points, consistency once again his key. His highlight was at Snetterton, where he took pole, recorded fastest lap and won handsomely. This was the start of a great late-season charge, which saw him take 4th at Pembrey, 3rd at Pembrey, Silverstone and Thruxton, and 2nd at Silverstone again. He ended up only 1 point behind 4th-placed Dario Franchitti.

At the end of the year, he also took part in the Macau F3 race, but only came 8th. But by this stage he was already looking for an F3000 drive for 1995, and tested for Super Nova, Vortex and Paul Stewart Racing. He ended up joining David Sears' Super Nova team to drive their Reynard 95D Cosworth. Rosset then stunned the establishment by qualifying on pole for his first race at Silverstone, and then going on to take the win, becoming the first to win on his F3000 debut. 2nd at Barcelona behind team-mate Vincenzo Sospiri proved that he was indeed a star in the making (so it seemed), and after a poor 9th at Pau, he won again at Enna, setting the fastest lap in the process. 9th at Hockenheim plus fastest lap was followed by 4th at Spa and 5th at Estoril, before a crash at Magny-Cours. It was not enough to sustain a title challenge, as Sospiri finally became F3000 champion, but 2nd overall with 29 points had impressed sufficiently to earn Ricardo an F1 berth.

Formula One

Despite what looked like real talent, one of Rosset's primary assets was that he had money, and it was for this that cash-strapped Jackie Oliver signed him for the Arrows team in 1996, to drive the FA17 chassis with a Hart engine, as team-mate to Jos Verstappen. But instead of continuing to make an impression, it turned out to be an extremely difficult season for a number of reasons. Verstappen was simply faster, and at the start of the season was at the crest of his wave. On the other hand, Rosset hardly ever tested. Tom Walkinshaw also bought the team a few races in, and, preferring to concentrate on the 1997 car, paid little attention to Arrows' 1996 efforts, and as a result the Footwork chassis gradually fell back down the grid, taking both drivers down with it.

Rosset's first race in Melbourne, though, would have probably shocked him a little bit when he found himself dicing with David Coulthard's problematic McLaren. He eventually finished a creditable 9th out of 11 on his debut, but in Brazil found himself crashing back down to earth, quite literally, hitting the pit wall in the rain after qualifying 17th, his joint best that season. Argentina was another reality check when he had trouble passing the cumbersome Fortis, which had passed him at the start when he didn't see the lights properly. He was finally sidelined with fuel pump problems. 11th at the Nurburgring (he actually came 13th but was bumped up courtesy of the disqualified Tyrrells) was followed by an unfortunate retirement at Imola. In pulling away from his stop too early Verstappen pulled the fuel hose out of the rig, causing fuel to spill dangerously all over the pit lane.

The Arrows garage in a mess, Rosset couldn't make his stop and was forced to quit. This was then followed by a glorious string of three accidents in a row, in the Monaco mayhem, the rain in Spain and the Canadian kinks, where he collided with Ukyo Katayama. Staying on the black stuff in France he finished 12th out of 15, and he was 11th in Germany and 8th in Hungary after a DNF in Britain. Despite a steering arm failure in Italy, he also made it home in Belgium (9th), Portugal (14th) and Japan (13th). His last race with Arrows at Suzuka was marred by a stop-go penalty for blocking the leaders, which he maintained he did not do. Perhaps this was the only way he could attract attention. After all, his car had not given him an opportunity to shine all season, and despite being fairly reliable behind the wheel, he had caught no-one's eye.

For 1997, with Damon Hill and Pedro Diniz moving into the Arrows team, Rosset found himself another drive, teaming up with Sospiri once again as Eric Broadley tried to bring the Lola marque back into F1, using customer Cosworth engines in the T97/30 chassis and with massive sponsorship backing from MasterCard. However, the cars were totally under-prepared, having never seen a wind-tunnel, and the whole effort was a shambles. In Melbourne neither driver qualified to no-one's surprise, both being 5 seconds slower than Pedro Diniz, the last qualifier, and way over 10 seconds slower than the pole time. Missing the 107% cut by miles, Rosset was over a second slower than Sospiri, and nearly 13 seconds off the pace. In short, a total embarrassment for all concerned.

Looking forward to Brazil, Rosset said: "I know that we will be expected to do better for the next race and I do need to show the many race fans at home that we are progressing as a new team." Sadly, he never got a chance to do that, as the team licked its Melbourne wounds and closed shop having accumulated massive debts in a ridiculously short space of time. It left the Brazilian twiddling his thumbs for the rest of the year, apart from a 7th place finish in the Porsche Supercup race at Monaco. His lack of race practice would then come to cost him dearly when 1998 came around.

That year, he was back in F1, once again because of his money more than anything else. Verstappen had driven for the Tyrrell team in 1997, and despite the underpowered car he had impressed team boss Ken Tyrrell enough for the veteran to want to retain the Dutchman's services alongside Toranosuke Takagi for 1998. With the BAR consortium having bought the team already, Tyrrell was hoping to go out on a high. Unfortunately, for a long time F1 had been a financial struggle for Tyrrell, and 1998 was no exception. Verstappen brought little money to the team, whereas Rosset offered riches by comparison. In the end, expediency won the day and Rosset was brought it to replace Verstappen. Ken Tyrrell bitterly opposed his decision, so much so that he left the team before the season even started.

Without the team's founder, and with an underpowered Ford Zetec-R engine, the signs were ominous right from the start for the 026 chassis, which was a good-looking chassis except for the awful mirror-wings the team employed for the first few races before they were banned. Rosset qualified 19th in Australia whilst Takagi was 13th, and then found himself stuck in gear when he came in for another stop-go penalty, this time for speeding in the pits. Unable to ever qualify outside the bottom four, Brazil and San Marino brought gearbox and engine problems, while he struggled home 14th in Argentina. But then in Spain he missed the 107% cut by 0.06 of a second, when he was a whole 1.2 seconds behind even Takagi. He was even further from making it at Monaco, where he was an appalling 1.7 seconds slower than Esteban Tuero's Minardi.

At one point, he spun at the swimming pool, and in attempting to spin-turn his car, Rosset succeeded in driving head-first into the armco barrier. It prompted Murray Walker to point out that a lot of people were debating Rosset's credibility as an F1 driver, to which Martin Brundle dead-panned, "Well, it's a fairly short debate, Murray." Seemingly, all Ricardo's good work in lower categories was being undone. Conversely, Canada saw him achieve his joint-best ever F1 finish in 8th having started last on the grid. Retirements in France and Britain, both with engine problems, were followed by a 12th place finish in Austria, although there too he had qualified last and he was two laps down on winner Mika Hakkinen.

At Hockenheim he crashed heavily on Saturday free practice, and was forbidden from participating in qualifying by Professor Syd Watkins after injuring his wrist, and officials as a result forbade him from starting. Perhaps still feeling the effects of that prang he DNQed in Hungary as well, 1.4 seconds behind Tuero and 6.2 behind polesitter Hakkinen. Belgium saw him caught up spectacularly in the huge first-start pile up. His was the car smashing head-first into the other wrecks last, at pretty much top speed. Although admittedly visability must have been less than zero, one does wonder if Ricardo ever saw the mayhem in front of him and even attempted to brake. His impersonation of a battering ram was the icing on the cake of Pandemonium, to be somewhat less than poetic! With only one spare Tyrrell for Takagi, Rosset did not make the restart.

He finished 12th at Monza having qualified 18th, and had an engine failure at the Nurburgring, before ending the season nicely with another DNQ in Japan, right in front of Tyrrell's sponsors PIAA (which would have impressed them no-end), a whole 7 seconds behind pole man Michael Schumacher. Having spent another season largely unnoticed, or being noticed for all the wrong reasons, Rosset was not picked by any team for 1999, although, as we are told by Tom Prankerd, he harboured hopes of driving for Williams, BAR, Sauber or Stewart. The last three teams maybe, but how on earth did he get the impression that he was in the running for a Williams drive? It turned out to be nothing but misplaced optimism, and it was curtains for his F1 career.

After Formula One

Obscure in F1, and obscure after it as well. We have no record of Rosset in any motor racing activity from 1999 onward, although he may have competed in some sports car events. We do know, thanks to Pablo Vargas, that he was offered drives in CART and the IRL, but declined, saying the cars were too dangerous. Or maybe, having seen his career start promising and end up in tatters, he was simply too disappointed to bother.

We have heard that he returned to the family business back in his native Brazil, perhaps running a sports store in an enterprise linked with Lycra, but we are not sure of this. What we do know is that he is married to Michelle, and currently lives in his birthplace, São Paulo. He is 1.74 metres tall and weighs in at 66 kg. He enjoys jogging, cycling, tennis and water-skiing; hates getting up too early in the morning, and once had as his ambition to race for Ferrari!

CAREER SUMMARY

Before Formula One
1989	• Competed in karts in Brazil.
1990	• Competed in karts in Brazil.
1991	• Brazilian Formula Ford 1600 Championship, 5th overall, 3 wins.
1992	• Formula Opel Euroseries, 10th overall, for Peter Thompson Motorsport.
1993	• British F3, =6th overall, 18 points in an Alan Docking Racing Ralt RT37 and Dallara 393 Mugen.
1994	• British F3, 5th overall, 132 points, 1 win in a Team AJS Dallara F394 Mugen. • Macau F3 event, 8th place.
1995	• F3000, 2nd overall, 29 points, 2 wins in a Super Nova Reynard 95D Cosworth.
Formula One
1996	• Footwork Arrows FA17 Hart V8, 16 entries.
1997	• Lola T97/30 Ford Zetec R V8, 1 entry, 1 DNQ. • Porsche Supercup, 1 start.
1998	• Tyrrell 026 Ford Zetec R V10, 16 entries, 5 DNQs.

Back to Career Summary
Back to Full Biography
Back to Picture Index

http://www.f1rejects.com
email@f1rejects.com