Roberto Gonzalez: Growing up with endurance racing in Mexico
Roberto Gonzalez is a student of the sport of endurance racing, and his life has been immersed in its culture since an early age. Even when he was not competing himself, he was joining his family watching his FIA WEC forbearers.
“You know I think Mexicans love motorsport and endurance racing so much,” says Gonzalez. “Obviously, there is a lot of tradition. It started with the Rodríguez brothers, especially Pedro. Then there was a huge gap until the 80s and again the 90s when we had the Group C cars. I remember going to that race and watching Michael Schumacher racing against the Jaguars and those events were huge.
“I went with Ricardo [his brother, promoter of the 6 Hours of Mexico] to see it all happen. I am only a year and a half older than him so we started racing when I was 11 or 12 and he was around 10 or 11 and we have always raced together, we have always done everything together. “
As per the Mexican way, the patriarch in the family, Roberto González Snr, was instrumental in igniting the Gonzalez brothers’ passion for racing. But it was the matriarch who took no nonsense!
“Dad was the one who taught us how to drive, as there are no driving schools or anything like that. It was my Dad who took us to the track, and my mother would be there with a stopwatch and a little board that she wrote everything down on. If we did something stupid she would hit us over the head with the board. Seriously, she would whack us right on the helmet!”
Gonzalez also acknowledges the importance of racing in Mexico City where the automotive industry is one of the leading employers and businesses of interest in the whole county.
“Mexico is a very important market for manufacturers and big sponsors,” he states. “There is a lot of production here and for auto parts Mexico is one of the top producers in the world, but many other companies have factories in Mexico and some of these are sponsors, so it is a very big market.”
