Rebaque Sr dies in Mexico.

Hector Alonso Rebaque, father of the Mexican Formula One driver of the same name, died on Friday 13 January in Mexico.

Rebaque Sr proved to be a very good driver in his own right, long before his son hit the big time in F1 and CART. Competing on both tracks and rallies in the Fifties and Sixties, he won the 24 Hours Rally in Mexico prior to the peak of his career running for the North American Racing Team in 1967 at the Sebring 12 Hours in a Ferrari 275GTB/C. The car was partially sponsored on that occasion by Pedro Rodriguez, who was a close friend and rival.

Rebaque was an Alfa Romeo fan and tried to run their cars in Mexican races and rallies. When he retired in the late Sixties, he formed the famous Team Rebaque which was used to further his son's career. It used Porsche's 911 Carrera and soon both team and son became Mexican champions, as well as becoming one of the best teams in America with epic battles against the Brumos team at Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen. Later, the team formed by Rebaque Jr, Freddy van Beuren and Memo Rojas - also known as the RVR team - went on to finish ninth in the Austria 1000K and also ran at Le Mans.

Rebaque Sr also formed his own F1 team with rented Lotus 78s and 79s, with which his son scored in 1978, and, by the end of 1979, had a new Rebaque HR100 chassis running in the last races of the F1 season - the first Mexican car in Formula One.

Rebaque was always at the helm of the team and when Hector Jr got a seat in the Brabham team for 1980, he was there to offer support and sponsorship obtained form Pemex, the Mexican oil company.

When his son retired from F1 at the end of 1981, Rebaque reformed the family team and ran it in CART where, in 1982, Hector Jr achieved the first Mexican victory in the series, at Road America.

Sadly it proved to be the swansong of the team because junior decided to retire at the end of the year and not even trying the Brabham BMW turbo in early 1983 convinced him otherwise. His father supported his decision and that was the end of the famous Team Rebaque.

Rebaque Sr returned to his construction company and was seldom seen at the tracks, although he was in Mexico for the return of the F1 championship in 1986. He was suffering an undisclosed sickness recently and died 13 days into the new millennium.

We extend our condolences to Hector Jr and the rest of the Rebaque family.