Ramírez was born in Mexico City and is the third of eight children. He studied mechanical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) but dropped out in 1960 to move to Europe with his friend Ricardo Rodríguez. Ramírez began his career as an apprentice mechanic for Scuderia Ferrari for two years. Following Rodríguez's death in the 1962 Mexican Grand Prix, Ramírez took a position at Maserati and later at Lamborghini, working as a mechanic on their new high-performance road cars. In 1964, he relocated to England to work for Ford on the GT40 project. In 1966, he joined Dan Gurney's All American Racers team.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Ramírez contributed to several Formula One teams, including Dan Gurney's Eagle, Tyrrell, and the Fittipaldi Copersucar team, working with Wilson and Emerson Fittipaldi. In December 1983, Ramírez joined the McLaren Formula One operation as Team Coordinator. During his tenure, he developed close friendships with drivers such as Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, David Coulthard, and Mika Häkkinen. The team experienced significant success during this period, including the notable Prost–Senna rivalry of the late 1980s.
In 2001, after more than 40 years in the sport, Ramírez retired from Formula One. His final race was the 2001 United States Grand Prix, which also marked Mika Häkkinen's last Formula One race win. As a farewell gift, David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen presented him with a Harley-Davidson Road King at the 2001 Hungarian Grand Prix.
In 2005, Ramírez published his autobiography, Jo Ramirez: Memoirs of a racing man. He is fluent in Spanish, English, Italian, and Portuguese and has written forewords for books such as Los Hermanos Rodríguez and La Carrera Panamericana: "The World's Greatest Road Race!". Ramírez also maintains a column in the Mexican newspaper Reforma during Formula One seasons and has been a supporter of Mexican racing talents like Adrián Fernández, Salvador Durán, Sergio Pérez, and Esteban Gutiérrez. He is recognized as a member of the Scuderia Rodríguez, Mexico's racing Legion of Honor, and has been inducted into its Hall of Fame of Mexican Motorsport.
After retiring from Formula One, Ramírez has competed in the Carrera Panamericana. In the 2010 edition, he secured fourth place in the A+ Historic category driving a Volvo. In the 2012 Carrera Panamericana, Ramírez and co-driver Alberto "Beto" Cruz achieved a third-place finish in the A+ Historic 2,000 cc category, driving a Volvo P-1800 and completing the race in 5 hours, 55 minutes, and 3.1 seconds.
Ramírez participated in 479 Formula One Grands Prix. The teams he worked with achieved 116 victories in Formula One Grands Prix. He was associated with five Formula One World Champions: Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, and Mika Häkkinen. His teams secured 10 Formula One Drivers' World Championships in the years 1973, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998, and 1999. Additionally, his teams won 7 Formula One Constructors' World Championships in 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1998. He also had a sports car championship in 1971.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.