Despite a promising start to his career in the minor European formulae, the Spaniard chose to race in Japan and was very successful, eventually leading to a chance to test for the Mugen-Honda powered Jordan team during 1998.  He translated that experience into a race drive with the TWR Arrows team in 1999 and 2000 but met with little success. Losing the seat to Enrique Bernoldi for 2001, he sat out the first few races and then jumped to Jaguar to replace Luciano Burti. A few points were scored and he ran the entire season in 2002 but after some modest success in the first three races, the rest of the year was nothing short of a disaster. 

After serving as the McLaren team's test driver for over two seasons, an off-track injury to regular pilot Juan-Pablo Montoya allowed De La Rosa to make his race debut for the team at the 2005 Bahrain GP where he took acquitted himself well, taking fastest lap and finishing a credible 5th place (equaling his best career finish). In 2006 the Spaniard was once again called in to race, this time when Montoya was released from his McLaren drive following the shock announcement that he would drive for Chip Ganassi's NASCAR team in 2007. He collected 19 points in the 8 races left in the season but was passed over for a 2007 race seat in favor of Lewis Hamilton, returning to test driver duties while being linked to various possible drives.

His chance to return to racing came in 2010 when the resurrected Sauber team came looking for an experienced driver to partner young Japanese, Kamui Kobayashi.

Formula One Record

1997 Formula Nippon Champion
1997 All Japan GT Champion
1995 Japanese F3 Champion
1992 European Formula Renault Champion
1992 British Formula Renault Champion
1990 Spanish FF1600 Champion
1989 Spanish Fiat Uno Champion

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