Anyone who has ever been to the Mexican Grand Prix or the Carrera Panamericana will be steeped in the country’s passion for motorsport. Former McLaren International Team Coordinator Joaquin ‘Jo’ Ramirez dropped out of college in Mexico City to follow friend Ricardo Rodriguez to Europe, where he started as an apprentice mechanic at Scuderia Ferrari in 1962. When Rodriguez was killed in the Mexican Grand Prix, he switched to Maserati and Lamborghini and came to England in 1964 to work on the Ford GT40 project before joining Dan Gurney’s All American Racers team as Dan’s mechanic on the Eagle-Weslake.
In the 1960s and 70s at Copersucar, he worked with Ken Tyrrell, John Wyer, Shadow, ATS, Theodore and the Fittipaldi brothers before joining McLaren in 1984, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard through some of the toughest Formula 1 rivalries.
From his house on a hill near Malaga, he tells us about living with some of the sport’s biggest names.
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