1
Motor racing is the ultimate meritocracy.
You do well, you get seen more,
you're at the sharp end of the field.
But to do that requires dedication.
All the technology in the world
will not help you.
It's about the human interest
at the end of it.
Endurance sportscar racing
is populated by manufacturers
spending hundreds of millions of euros,
dollars or yen to be here.
You are looking, quite simply,
at the most technologically advanced
racing cars in the world.
These cars go around corners as fast
or faster than a Formula 1 car.
But, ultimately, the piece of humanity
that you plug into all of that technology
does make the difference,
and that's why this is such a great sport.
At Le Mans, in terms of competitive hours,
there's more competitive driving
at a higher average speed
than the whole Formula 1 season
put together.
And yet, we still have
the gentleman driver competing.
Ninety-eight Aston Martin,
what a job they've done.
Leading their class,
and Paul Dalla Lana,
not one of the pro drivers,
given the honor of bringing it home.
We accept that
the pro drivers are of such a great level
that they almost cancel each other out.
So the difference between winning
and losing is your gentleman driver,
which I find fascinating.
Dalla Lana in the #98 car,
leading at Le Mans.
This is what people dream about!
Great job, buddy. Great job.
Five more perfect laps, OK? Five more.
There's an Aston off.
It's the #98!
That's the class leader, Dalla Lana!
Disaster!
Tiny mistake, huge consequences,
and the whole of the #98 team's hopes
are smashed.
Got to feel for Paul Dalla Lana.
A victory within his grasp,
and it's all over in the blink of an eye.
We had a two-lap lead and I was
tasked with something pretty simple -
bringing the car home.
I think mentally I was there.
Unfortunately,
physically I didn't get the job done,
and it's a high price to pay.
Given how competitive this
championship is,
we haven't been able to recover.
Gentleman drivers are drivers
that are not professional, that are rich.
They have lots of money.
More money than sense.
Mike Conway
coming up to pass an Aston Martin.
Oh, no! It's gone wrong!
While there is good talent in the field,
there is also questionable talent,
questionable moves
that happened during the race.
A little touch
on the Toyota. Gets through.
Doesn't get through!
Some of them are better than others
from what I can see.
I've read it does cause a little bit of...
consternation with some of
the more professional drivers sometimes.
The LMP3 car
clatters into the AF Corse Ferrari
and earns a drive-through.
A gentleman driver
is somebody that pays for their drive
rather than somebody paying them.
I wish I was rich enough to be one,
too, but I'm not.
I believe that gentleman drivers
are part of the living tradition
of this whole racing.
They're flamboyant.
They're not quite as programmed.
They still do things wrong.
The crowd loves people who screw up
and spin the cars, just occasionally.
Thank God we have
a few gentleman drivers to do that for us.
Gentleman drivers, for many years,
the lifeblood of motorsport.
As Henry Ford would tell you,
the first motor race
was when the second car was built.
And quite often the guys
who could afford cars were quite wealthy,
so the original racing drivers,
ultimately, were all gentleman drivers.
There were no pros in those days.
That's kind of disappeared now,
so the last great bastion
of gentleman drivers
is in sportscar racing,
right up to and including
World Championship level.
They are a big part of the sport
because they bring money into the sport,
but secondly,
they also represent all of us, the fans.
Because if you have the wherewithal,
you could buy a baseball team,
you could buy an NFL franchise,
but can you go out
and quarterback it on a Sunday?
Of course you can't.
It would be ridiculous.
Well, in this form of motor racing,
you can do exactly that.
If you dedicate yourself
to get to a decent level,
you can race with the giants of the sport.
Now, as the cars have become
more sophisticated, quicker,
the role of the gentleman driver
has become more difficult.
Rich businessmen just doing it for fun
at the weekends, it's hard to do that now.
In fact, it may be impossible.
And if you look down the years at people
like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman,
they took time out from their acting jobs
to come and race.
Patrick Dempsey now is a full-time driver
and works once in a while as an actor.
He's had to make that change
to make his performance level appropriate
to the World Championship.
Definitely racing is an addiction.
You are taking risks,
you're working off hours,
you're travelling.
It's not easy. It's not easy.
So if you want to be there
and you want to be good at it,
it has to be passion.
I hate the term "gentleman driver."
We're all drivers
and we're all passionate about it.
Some guys just started
when they were six years old,
and some of us picked it up later in life,
but I've always wanted to be the best
at whatever I've tried to do.
If you're not trying to win
every time you're out there,
then you probably need
to go find something else to do.
As an entrepreneur,
and certainly now in the racing world,
you know, it's a pretty demanding
audience of one, frankly.
You have to look in the mirror
at the end of the day
and say, "Did I get it done or not?"
That's what motivates me,
and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Racing is what gets me up
in the morning.
I think I'm motivated and I push hard,
but when I hear
other people speak about me,
they seem to think I push
to the point of just insanity.
But I just think it's normal.
For me, it's just what you have to do.
I think to be successful
in anything, sport or business,
there has to be a part of your brain
that says, "I can do this better."
"Better than him, her, them.
Better than I just did it."
And the quest for perfection
is something that motor racing
is pretty much all about.
We were here two years ago,
and we did very, very well.
We have all this data from two years ago,
and then my data from this last Friday.
So what you do is you overlay it.
My steering traces,
my brake pressures and my throttle,
turn one, all the way through turn 20.
This data is absolutely imperative.
You're talking a tenth of a second here,
a tenth of a second there.
Twenty laps, or 20 corners,
one tenth of a second
is two seconds, right?
It's all data-driven - everything.
Business is and this is.
I got my profit-and-loss statements in
via email last night,
so I'm forecasting taxes.
That's what I was doing in my room.
I thought I was taking time off,
but I really was doing analysis
on my accounting.
Now, as of this morning,
I turned that all off,
and now I'm on data here.
So my life goes from one to the next.
It just never stops. Never stops.
You've got to understand
that gentleman drivers
are an integral part of the sport.
Without the injection of finance
that they bring,
some of the teams simply
wouldn't be able to exist and go racing.
And so it's being recognized,
because there is a class,
both in GT and in the prototype classes,
where you must have -
you are mandated to have -
a non-professional driver in the car.
I think that gives something to the sport.
It doesn't take something away, it adds.
And I think that's what brings in
some of the fans,
because they look at that and think,
"If only I had the money,
I would be doing exactly the same thing."
None of these corners
are really late apexes, Ricky.
What's your braking point?
It's seventy five.
It's deep.
You kind of brake-release,
carrying speed into the apex,
looking for the apex.
This extra speed at the rear
will help you turn the car.
It's a ritual to do a track walk
before each event.
To take the gentleman driver
to a track walk is really important,
because we, as pro drivers,
help explain to them
how to take each corner.
You know,
they look at corners like racing drivers,
but sometimes they also look at corners
as businessmen.
He's actually showing me
on the computer where to brake.
I don't know if he's right or not.
We'll see tomorrow.
Ultimately, the car
and the stopwatch doesn't know
whether it's a gentleman driver
in that car or someone who's a superstar.
Once the helmet's on,
it makes no difference.
And so part of the pro driver's job
when they are teamed up
with someone who is a non-pro driver
is to give them help, advice,
and to make them quicker
and more consistent.
As a race-car driver
sent off down the pit lane,
you might have 20 seconds
to get yourself sorted out,
then off with the pit-lane speed limiter
and everything's going to happen
at 100% straight away,
because if it's not,
you're losing time to your competitors.
Now, the pro drivers do that
as a matter of course.
The best amateur drivers build up to that.
In WEC, we're racing with top teams,
so there's a lot to be learned,
and I think it would be an error
not to be like a sponge.
It's a team,
and at the end, if one wins, we all win.
I don't remember this being so downhill.
You don't feel it in the car.
Downhill is great for you,
because the more weight,
the faster you go.
The first time I'll be faster than you.
Human beings are a competitive species -
we cooperate in teams,
but we have always competed
against the other.
Now,
an entrepreneur
is in a very competitive environment,
because in order to succeed,
they actually have to allow their company
to do better than everybody else.
And I think
when you've had success at that,
when you've had success at competition,
then you actually like to bring that out
in other facets of your life.
When you extend yourself in a new area,
it actually feeds back
on what you do professionally,
because you realize,
"Hey, I was able to acquire
this new skill,
so why can't I solve some big problem
that I'm facing in the workplace?
I know I can do it, because
I'm able to do it in these other areas."
I think what joins racing
and business for me is...
being able to take that pressure,
and then perform the same.
I started racing go-karts
when I was ten years old,
and got hooked,
and then started the whole ladder.
I raced up until 2001.
That's when life said, "No more."
No more sponsorship,
there's no more support.
I had two kids already,
so I had to focus back on work.
And I decided to start from scratch,
with support from nobody.
It definitely was not easy,
but I was sure I could do it.
In order to not suffer,
at that point
I didn't even watch racing on TV.
Seven years later,
an opportunity to race came back,
and my business partner sponsored me.
Now I was going back to racing
just to have fun.
And it was after the first or second race
that I realized
I cannot do it just to have fun.
I have to be competitive.
I like to think where I want to be,
what I want to accomplish,
and then understand how I get there.
And sometimes I just drop a lot of ideas.
So, right now I'm working on bringing
the first US university campus to Mexico.
It is a branch of Arkansas State.
A full-blown campus, which includes dorms,
all the fitness and sports areas,
and also the classrooms.
The first time I saw the project,
I was hooked.
I think if you want to really help
and leave something behind for Mexico,
and revolutionize education in Mexico -
which is what Mexico needs right now -
for me,
this was the opportunity to do that.
This is the student union.
We are here.
And in here we have the cafeteria.
All this will be a huge new city.
You become the bridge, basically -
the academic to the corporate side.
Ricardo, this is phenomenal.
I mean, it's unbelievable.
We talked about this maybe 60 days ago.
The progress you've made in 60 days,
incredible. It's incredible.
- Every week it changes.
- That's right.
Some days he's in China,
and when he finishes racing he texts,
"How is everything over there?"
I think he doesn't sleeps.
There are a lot of connections
between racing and business.
When I was 17, I moved up to Formula 3.
There's a whole team behind you,
there's people working for you,
there's a contract.
Being under that pressure at that age,
it definitely starts to prepare you.
By the time
I sat for the first time at a desk
to do a contract for my company,
I had a lot of experience
in dealing with a negotiation.
I don't know if I was better, but at least
it made me feel more comfortable.
I've been working
with Ricardo Gonzalez for six years now.
I'm his driver manager,
so I manage his racing life while
he's worrying about his business life.
The racing world, it's a small circle.
Basically, everybody knows each other.
One big circus
that travels around the world together.
Being around the racing business
has given me the opportunity
to meet guys like Ed Brown,
Paul Dalla Lana,
Mike Guasch.
Even though we're different teams
and competing against each other,
one year you'll be with one team,
another year you'll be with another team,
so you become friends with the people
you were racing against the year before.
It's long-term relationships, for sure.
For me,
the thing that racing has provided,
which is a weird thing,
is... sort of an escape, almost, right?
It's provided a mental shift.
So, it's taken me a number of years
to be able to go there
and just completely forget
everything else.
I don't know when you started
if you felt that?
You would come to the track,
doing your business, in the middle of...
That's what I loved about it, though,
because if I wanted to play golf,
or did whatever,
somebody could email me,
text me, or call me.
In the race car they can't do that,
so it was the biggest release I ever had.
People don't understand. I'm more relaxed
in the race car than when I'm not.
For me, also, I will leave my cell phone
for three or four hours.
Going to races, it's a shift,
completely, everything.
What's been good for me
in racing in Europe
is that the time...
We're so far ahead.
Basically, when the day's over,
the day starts in California.
So I don't have to watch my phone all day.
No one's emailing me
because no one's awake.
So... when I'm over there,
during the day, it's really relaxing.
If I can control the evenings, I'll be OK.
The Lone Star Le Mans at
the Circuit of the Americas this weekend
is the start of the second half
of the season.
It's the time of the season
where the championship run
starts to come together.
Get the results, rack up the points,
and hopefully,
by the time we get to Bahrain,
then you're in a pretty good state
to challenge for the championship.
There's a lot going on here
this weekend.
Ricardo tries to focus on the racing,
but a secret project
that Ricardo and I have been working on
is to bring a WEC event to Mexico,
which would be huge.
Mexico's a huge market for racing
and for all the manufacturers involved.
We're literally here in very last-minute
negotiations with WEC
and with promoters in Mexico
to make that happen.
We're going to have
another meeting right now.
And that's the life of a gentleman driver.
There's a lot that happens at a racetrack
that has nothing to do with racing.
It's all business, and vice versa.
As we wait for the red lights to go out
and the clock to start counting down
from six hours,
we're racing
at the Circuit of the Americas.
The pole-sitting car of Neel Jani
gets the inside line.
Each of the classes battling
for their own podium,
and in LMP2,
keep your eyes on this battle.
The pair of orange and grey G-Drive cars
are being hunted down from behind
by the black and green Tequila Patrn ESM.
This is going to be
a battle royale in LMP2.
It's not just about the glamour boys
in the Hybrids.
This matters as well!
I'm pretty good.
I don't get in for another hour or so.
I stay calm until I get my helmet on,
and then I'll probably get,
you know, a little anxious.
Johannes van Overbeek
in the #31 ESM Patrn LMP2.
It's not been
the smoothest of races for them.
They've had
one or two mechanical problems.
Into the pit lane
for Johannes van Overbeek.
That's on schedule for the #31.
It will be fuel, tires, and a new driver.
Ed Brown will take it into the race.
Now, remember, every driver on the team
has to be in the car
for at least an hour and 15 minutes.
I had no confidence in the car
at the beginning.
Tell Ed if he starts complaining...
It felt like the suspension
fell out of the car sometimes.
- From the fender, came down.
- Oh, no kidding?
- Yeah, huge.
- Yeah.
- So tell Ed he's got to drive through it.
- Drive through it.
Multiclass racing at its best.
GT car on the right.
We're on board with an LMP2 car.
And what's to the left?
There's a LMP1 Hybrid. Marvelous!
A huge off at the final corner!
That was one of the Patrn cars.
It's the #31! It's Ed Brown!
Massive hit!
Looked like a good hit.
- Yeah.
- They're showing it again.
Shit. He doesn't have any brakes?
Oh, my God.
Good thing he didn't roll.
Ed went off in the last corner,
but we don't know why.
He said no brakes.
That's what it looked like on the video,
so we'll see.
I actually was moving good through 19.
You got some serious air.
I mean, that went way up.
I never saw.
The other problem was when I hit,
the steering wheel flew off
and hit me in the chest.
- The steering wheel?
- It came off.
Holy shit.
We're going to take it down
there and look at it.
- Sure you're OK?
- Yeah.
Halfway through the race.
The sun is going down in Texas,
but the racing is heating up.
So, it's halfway through the race.
About three hours left.
Ricardo just finished his stint,
so he's done for the day.
Ricardo was in fourth place
when he came in.
Right now I think we're in sixth place,
but it's hard to tell
because people have to pit still.
In 30 minutes,
we'll know exactly where we are.
I'm not sure what happened to Ed.
The way he crashed was pretty extreme.
Usually, when you see that, it means
there's some kind of mechanical problem.
So, you know, it sucks for them.
But their other car's running pretty good,
so at least Patrn will be happy.
You know,
racing's a miserable sport sometimes.
But I've crashed before
where it's my fault and you feel worse.
When it's a mechanical failure like that,
you know, it's part of racing,
and you just hope
that we can find the issue that happened,
and hopefully never let it happen again.
No scratches, no bumps, so all's good.
I'm drinking Patrn and relaxing,
taking a little of the bruising away.
Almost at the end
of the 6 Hours of the Americas,
but still battling going on
in the darkness.
G-Drive goes around the outside.
That's a pass for position in LMP2!
What drama in the closing minutes!
Careful through traffic.
Porsche being lapped. Almost a touch!
My goodness, that was close!
At the end of the 6 Hours of the Americas,
LMP2 goes to G-Drive.
KCMG #47 is in second.
And then the second of the G-Drive cars
onto the podium
for Gustavo Yacamn,
Pipo Derani and Ricardo Gonzalez.
At the end, very good for the team.
We have been struggling lately.
For us to be one and three,
I think it's very good news for the team.
Winning is important to me,
and definitely that's why I'm here -
I like to win.
So you take that back to the office.
And it's not that you're going
to go and get that podium
or that trophy at the end of the day,
but you get a longer version of it, so...
Anything you do in the business world,
and how you develop yourself,
will stay with you
for the rest of your life.
Holy shit!
Oh, my God!
I think every human being would hope
that they never have failure in life.
I always tell my employees, "In really
good times you learn absolutely nothing.
It all went right,
so what did you have to learn?"
It's in the hard times when you fail
that you learn the most.
Whether it's failure to run a lap time
that I wanted to run
or a brand that didn't do as well
as I thought it would, I learn,
and I learn every single day
at everything that I do.
So that's important.
Without failure, you can't have success.
We are trained to minimize
the number of mistakes we make in life.
And that may help you
to succeed in school,
but it doesn't really help you
to succeed in life,
because success in life
isn't about never making mistakes,
it's about recovering from
the mistakes that you make.
People who succeed over and over again
in different areas aren't just lucky.
They're good at making mistakes,
sometimes even failing,
and then learning from those failures
and using that knowledge
to help them move forward.
Do you think trial eight
in a higher proof,
with more bite and nose might...?
I haven't done eight.
I'm going to eight now.
It doesn't have much of a smoke at all.
Not much smoke on the nose, no.
That's always the question
we've had internally -
how much smoke
we're going to put in there.
I think the taste, for me,
it's a little soft.
Yeah, it's soft.
I just don't know if it's a big enough
difference to go ask for $30
or $20 a bottle more.
- What's the proof on that?
- That's 80 proof, right?
- Yes.
- Forty percent, right?
- Yes.
- I think a little hotter.
An 85 would be... a full brand.
Let's taste a range of... Let's...
A percentage of 40-45. Fifty...
Forty, 41, 42, 43, 44...
Hey, I like 50s,
but I don't want to go back to the days
when kids were falling off of barstools.
I'm passionate, and I'm...
uber competitive, you know.
And I think that's kind of
what's always driven me.
My father was in
the beverage-alcohol business.
I was trying to play golf
for a living, actually.
I called him and said,
"I guess I need to get a real job."
I'm thinking
he'll give me a nice, cushy route
and it will have good accounts.
My dad gave me the worst territory
known to man in Colorado,
and I was making, I think, $15,000 a year.
I'm like, "Dad, I can't survive on this."
So... after about six months
I was working for him,
a company called Seagram's came knocking
and said, "Hey, you want to work for us?"
They're going to pay me $22,500.
"That's a deal. I'm out of here."
And they gave me a van,
so I didn't have to have a car.
So I went to work for Seagram's.
I felt like if I wasn't getting promoted
every year, something was wrong,
and I was aggressive,
and I moved 13 times
in a ten-year career with them.
So all that set me up
to really do what I thought
I was going to be really good at,
and that's not really
having to work for somebody,
and, you know, using all that I hope I've
learned over the years to build something.
So, John Paul DeJoria
and Martin Crowley came to me
and asked me if I wanted
to work for Patrn.
They basically made me a deal
I couldn't refuse.
And... in the early days of Patrn,
we were selling maybe 5,000 cases,
and it was just
this little boutique-ish brand,
and we didn't produce our own tequila.
We were a third-party manufacturer,
and I knew that was not the thing
that we needed to do,
so that's when I built this Hacienda.
And that really started to be
the game-changer,
because then I could have total control
of what we were doing from a manufacturing
and a marketing side.
I had been in the business a long time
and felt it couldn't just be bottling,
distillation, and stuff like that.
I really wanted to make
a monument to the brand.
In the beverage-alcohol business,
it's very difficult to advertise
because there's regulations about
television and things that we can do.
But I had this idea,
"If I can have a car going around a track
with Patrn all over it,
I'm going to get it on television."
I've tried to build the same culture
on the race team that I have at Patrn.
So, Scott Sharp and I became close
and I started sponsoring him,
and he kept saying,
"You need to get in a race car."
I said, "I don't have time."
A couple of years later he goes,
"I bought you that car."
It was a Mazda MX-5 in black and green,
with Patrn on it.
I'm like, "That's cool, dude. Thanks.
But what will I do with it?"
He said, "This is the best part.
For the next four days, we're going
to teach you how to drive it."
I raced those things for four weeks.
He goes, "You've got to get into
bigger horsepower."
And so that was when
Sharp and I decided...
I won't mention names. I've been with
a lot of team owners over the years.
They all lose their stomach
for spending the money,
because racing's expensive.
And so, you know,
Scott and I decided at that time,
"Hey, why don't we start our own team?
We know how much it costs,
what it's going to do,
and we'll be in control
of our own destiny as a race team."
So that's how Extreme Speed Motorsports,
with Scott, started.
But it's always been Sharp
shoving me along.
Racing and running businesses
have a lot of parallels.
You know, the number-one thing
is teamwork, on both sides, right?
My partner John Paul, he has a saying,
"Success unshared is failure."
I've really tried
to live my life that way.
I'm not just talking about charities
and giving money to them,
but I really feel like
it's taking care of my employees,
because they got us here.
A lot of the gentleman drivers
have seen success in their business lives.
They will have seen failure, too.
I think that's quite important,
because when they come to this sport
failure is more likely.
No matter how good you are
behind the wheel of a car,
you are a small cog in a very big team.
If the rest of the team
isn't working for you,
you're not working for them,
you won't win.
- Well, you had good laps going into here.
- Yeah.
I mean, you had a bunch of 57s.
- I just need to get it right.
- Yeah.
When I first started racing
at a high level,
everybody would tiptoe around me.
I'm like, "No, no, no. Please.
I'm just a worker here.
Be brutally honest."
I've been very fortunate that teammates
and engineers, they will call me out.
- That will work out.
- Yeah.
- I can run 57s.
- I know, they were just saying.
- Just, I can't--
- What's that?
- That's that fast right.
- We're going to get you flat.
- You've just got to suck it.
- I know I was turning in too early.
You've got to go way right
and then come back way left.
A late apex across that hill.
Make yourself believe,
especially if you're on good tires.
Drive all the way down to that sign
before you park it and turn.
- I hate that turn.
- You've got to go to the sign.
- There's no vision there.
- The sign. The sign's the key.
You're not anybody's boss here.
And not only is it just good for you,
generally speaking, as a human being,
to have to be humble
and occasionally embarrassed
because you don't do things
as well as your comrades,
but also you discover
that they have talents you didn't suspect.
And I, for example,
was amazed at how clever my co-drivers
were at handling the media, for example.
I was doing this every day as a CEO,
but these guys had a way
of talking back to the journalists.
I thought, "I've got a lot to learn,
even in things
I thought I knew how to do."
- Get him in the race.
- That's right.
A really great leader isn't someone
who takes all the credit for himself.
The most humble people
tend to be the most confident.
The people who are able to say,
"You know what? In this situation
you have more expertise than I do,
so please tell me what to do,
or give me some advice
so that I can do what I'm doing better,"
they're the ones who have
the most confidence in their ability
because by giving you
the opportunity to instruct them,
they don't feel like they are being seen
as a lesser individual.
And that's what makes people successful
across a whole range
of different endeavors.
I mean, I blew the esses twice.
I came in way too hot.
And then...
Then I started getting
a bit of pace, but...
You picked it up better through the esses.
Right, well,
I need a little help sometimes,
and it's nice to hear
where I'm blowing it, so...
Honestly, I used to prefer when I did
racing that was just me and the car.
Mm-hmm.
Because, at the end of the day,
if I screwed up, it was all on me.
For me, before getting in a car,
if you ask me, "Do you get nervous?"
I do, but it's because I want to deliver.
I don't want to be the guy
who drops the ball.
- I don't want to disappoint my teammates.
- Yeah.
Like when Johannes tells me...
You know, he grabs me
and he'll tell me he's proud of me -
that's greater
than anything I do in business.
- You know?
- No question.
Because here's a guy
that drives for a living
and he was happy with
what I did, you know?
But I think for the gentleman driver,
that's huge pressure -
that when you drive with a pro,
you just don't want to disappoint them,
and you don't want to be the guy
that screws up the race, you know?
We're in Bahrain for the final round of
the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship,
the last 6 Hours of the season,
and all bar two championships
are still up for grabs.
It's been a real return to form for
Aston Martin in the last couple of races,
and here in Bahrain I would think that
Paul will be looking for at least a podium
and possibly even a win.
For Ed Brown,
they've had a difficult year.
Ed, I think, has grown as a driver,
and they will want a strong finish at
the end of six hours for one or both cars.
For Ricardo Gonzalez,
well, his team car
is going for the championship,
so there's a role to play for the #28.
But, of course, they will want to get
a good result here as well.
This is actually
probably our busiest weekend,
as far as business goes,
outside the racetrack.
I'm here trying to put together
Ricardo's team for next year,
and my main focus right now
is how I can get the best combination
of Ricardo as a gentleman driver
and our pro drivers.
It's a big puzzle
you have to put together.
We're also finalizing the deal
for the WEC race in Mexico next year,
so it's coming down to the wire.
Every time we get a few free minutes,
we're talking to people
or negotiating deals.
So, I'll try to manage
as much of that as possible,
and then once Ricardo's done driving
I can tell him about it.
You either drive or focus on business.
You can't do both at the same time.
The red lights are about
to go out, as we start the last 6 Hours.
We're racing!
The two Porsches get a decent start.
Fssler in the #7 Audi,
very racey early on.
Down the inside, into second place,
as they go towards the first corner.
No! Dumas has claimed back
that second position.
All kinds of bumping in the LMP2 field.
GTs still trying to sort themselves out.
This is magnificent stuff in the early
opening laps of the 6 Hours of Bahrain.
This, for me, is when it's the toughest.
You know, the butterflies are up,
I'm really not sure how those
first couple of laps are going to be,
so just trying to calm down a little bit.
It's super close, so it makes me nervous
but excited at the same time.
I'm going to be the second driver.
I asked the team's permission
to arrive late.
I missed the autograph session
and missed driver-change practice.
I received a call at 1:00 a.m.
to review a contract.
So, we found a couple of mistakes
in the contract.
We were doing emails through the night,
sending corrections,
and at 8:00 a.m.
I received a final copy of the contract,
signed it and went to bed.
We've had a set of pit stops,
but the battle at the head of LMP2
continues
between the two teams
who have been at it all season.
KCMG, the #47 car,
going ahead of the #26 machine.
"I'll have that position.
Thank you very much indeed."
You're going to be in for just over
your minimum hour and 20,
so those tires are going to have to last.
- Easy on them the first couple of laps.
- OK.
Bring them in, just don't slide them.
They don't have to last forever.
Thirty-one ESM Patrn into the pits,
and it looks like
Ed Brown is going to get in.
In GTE-Am,
it's been another good run for
Paul Dalla Lana and the rest of his team.
Mathias Lauda still to drive that car.
Would you believe it?
The #31 car with more mechanical issues.
Left-rear suspension
will bring that car into the pit lane.
They have just had a rotten season.
Ed Brown and ESM will be glad
when this season's over.
We have an hour and 17 minutes left.
One of the suspension members
in the left-rear broke on both cars,
so we need to investigate
why that happened
and make sure it doesn't happen again.
I didn't love a whole lot about racing
this past year, but...
after the season, I started to analyze
what I need to do as a driver
to go now to the next couple of levels.
And that's where
the competitiveness comes in me.
I could sit there and say,
"It's fun. We drive around. Who cares?"
But I really don't want to do it
if I can't win.
Paul Dalla Lana in the #98 Aston
has kept that car in contention
for the win here in Bahrain.
Very strong run indeed from the Canadian.
He's done a sterling job
in the middle of the race.
We're in P1 right now.
I don't know, it's going to be tough.
I think the #88 who's in second
has a really strong finishing driver.
So an outside chance at a win,
but more than likely a podium
and third overall
in the championship this year.
So, not unhappy with that, but...
you know, a year of something
could have been better.
It goes back to Le Mans.
When I got out of the car,
I thought the team was going to say
you didn't do good.
When I got out of the car they said,
"Hey, you were...
hauling ass."
The Aston and the Porsche 911
are neck and neck going into the chicane.
The #98 Aston has the better line.
That's a pass for position.
Second place. Marvelous work.
We are at risk of missing that flight.
But is the airport closer to here
or closer to the hotel?
There's no debate.
You are going on the podium as well.
- No, no, no.
- You absolutely are!
Listen, we've sent one of the boys,
and they will meet you at the airport.
Or we just go there and...
- Just risk it. Just risk it.
- Yeah.
The option is that we have to go
to the 2:05 flight or whatever.
- Risk it. It doesn't happen very often.
- OK.
- That's true.
- You know what to do, the procedure.
We give you a little top.
Everyone's happy.
- Are you happy with it?
- Let's see. Let's see.
A late overtake by the #98 Aston Martin
has put them into first position.
Into the final corner of the season,
and it's going to be a win.
The disappointment of Le Mans
now behind them.
And that will give them third
in the GT Championship for the season.
Let's go.
Thank you.
It was a fun moment on the podium,
you know, despite the time pressure
to make a flight.
It's one of the challenges for me
in terms of racing.
Being home and being available
on a Monday morning is a huge priority.
And the winners...
#98, Aston Martin Racing!
My raison d'tre for racing
is really simple.
I wanted to achieve two things.
One was to push myself to the limit
and find out, you know,
if I could do the sport at a high level.
The second thing, of course, is winning.
Not so much the glory -
although it's nice to be acknowledged -
but I get more satisfaction
out of my competitors acknowledging
that here's this person
that was a late starter,
maybe in some ways shouldn't even be here,
and yet is up on the podium celebrating
and achieving these results.
There's a spectrum of behaviors
that is called "Imposter Syndrome,"
and it's the idea
that you've risen to a particular level,
but if people really knew who you were,
they might realize
that you don't deserve that.
And so one of those markers,
one of those choice points
in people's lives is,
"How do I deal with that sensation
that I may not yet deserve
to be where I am?
Do I let that sensation guide my actions
and keep me from success?
Or do I actually use that
as a motivation to continue working
and try and achieve that success?"
And for people who are in that situation,
it's actually rarer for someone
to work hard and succeed
than it is for people to give in to that.
It's much easier to give in.
I started NorthWest about 25 years ago,
just recently out of college
and a brief career on Wall Street,
and I realized pretty early
that I liked real estate,
and really started looking
for the opportunity
to buy and invest
in various types of real estate.
And more recently,
probably in the last ten years,
we've come to focus almost exclusively
on healthcare real estate.
Which is a bit strange, because in Canada
we have a public health system,
and the provincial governments own the
vast majority of healthcare real estate -
you know, hospitals and the like.
But we found a pretty interesting niche,
and it's one that's really playing out
around the world.
So, over the last ten years,
we've really become a very significant
owner of healthcare real estate
in Europe, Australia, New Zealand,
South America, and, of course, in Canada.
Clearly, completing the merger
with NorthWest International
was the biggest thing
we've been able to accomplish.
I mean, I think that leaves us
in a great position,
but how do we make it even better?
What do we think about
further down the line?
So, you know, maybe thinking past 2016
and the big opportunities
for the business.
Yeah.
I started NorthWest with one property,
and really running it by myself
with a cell phone and no office,
to now, you know, having hundreds
of people working for the company
and hundreds of properties.
So it's been an incredible journey,
and I think as a public company now,
as an entrepreneur,
and in particular as a person in charge
of the strategy for the business,
I find myself wearing two hats every day
coming in here.
"Are we on plan and are we capable of
both hitting our quarters and our year?"
And at the same time
being the chief disruptor,
coming in and saying, "Let's think about
what we could do totally differently.
How could this be 10X?"
So it's a very interesting tension,
and I find that to be really rewarding.
Learning by doing
seems to be a common theme for me.
It's the way that it happened
at the start of my business career,
and I think racing's
similar to that for me.
It's been
a very interesting journey in racing.
I would say
I'm an accidental gentleman driver,
in that although I have enjoyed
racing over the years,
and I can remember
even meeting my wife at a Formula 1 event,
my journey into the sport happened
quite recently.
That was, you know,
going to a track day with a friend,
having never driven a car on a racetrack,
never done go-karting.
I showed up as green as you can be,
and I think after the first lap I knew
that it was something that I wanted to do,
and enrolled the next week
in racing school,
and started the week after that.
I think I always considered myself a good
driver and somebody that appreciated cars,
and I very quickly found out that
I didn't know the first thing about it.
So it was a real eye-opener
that I had a whole lot to learn.
So, in addition to racing and business,
recently I find myself involved
in another new initiative,
which is philanthropy.
And I've become affiliated with
the University of Toronto
School of Public Health.
- Howard, nice to see you. Thanks.
- Paul, great to see you.
The Dalla Lana School of Public Health
is one of the world's leading institutions
for training and research
in population health.
It's about looking at millions of people
and figuring out how we can prevent
disease from happening,
rather than simply spending the dollars
on treating disease.
It's early days, but I'm really
enjoying helping the university
tackle some of the most difficult problems
that exist in the world.
What's important for me
is to get the contracts done now.
Yes.
We need to focus on selling sponsorships.
The way we did it in Austin
is you create, basically, a base package.
You take that and say,
"Here's what we're putting together.
We're still working out the final details,
but you need to have this in your budget.
The estimated cost
will be US$300,000." Right?
So they take that 300,000, that becomes
a placeholder in their budget for 2016.
So it's like,
"Here are the contemplated assets,
here's the price,
and we'll have the final packages to you
by March 31st."
Yeah, and what we can say
is that whoever buys those
is going to be in it for three years...
- It's a three year deal.
- If you want to be in, it's now or...
But the sales hook is saying that there
are only so many packages, right?
You know, there's one title sponsor,
and that's sold.
There's one presenting sponsor,
and there are, you know,
five or six of these.
I don't want anything under 300,000.
There's appetite, so we don't want
to be selling for less than that.
Right.
And what happens
if we run out of packages?
- You add more.
- What?
- You add more.
- If you sell out... we can always...
- That's a good problem to have.
- We can...
It's going to happen.
You guys are all
high-profile business guys, right?
Is it different now than
when it was a start-up - the drive of it?
So, here's me - I'm competitive.
And...
So I sit there and I'm like,
"Wow, Patrn's worth X amount of billions.
That's awesome.
But how did this guy
with a stupid little Internet company...
He's worth 40 billion?"
And it... motivates me, and it drives me,
and it drives me crazy.
So it pushes me to continue to say,
"OK, I've got to keep pushing."
To me, it's not about the money.
It's more about winning or losing.
It's like,
whether it's racing or business,
or whatever, I want to win.
The business is business.
It's kind of just...
For me, it's more about...
It's the means to an end, you know?
It's basically just a tool so I get to do
all the things I really want to do.
You said that when you retired,
you sold your company...
Yeah, I sold my company,
and then I started racing.
What are you going to do, right?
Sit around and garden? No way.
I loved the early days of Patrn.
I don't get to do the things
I loved to do,
like working in the bars
and showing people why it was better
and stuff like that,
but that's what happens.
Would you give up the money,
go back and do that?
- Probably not.
- Yeah.
Silverstone in the center of the UK
is the traditional start
of the European Le Mans Series.
Traditional weather as well
greeting the teams and drivers.
United Autosports, one of the favorites,
they've got a new driver this year,
Mike Guasch.
It's raining.
We've got all this new kit, right?
We're going to get it all soaking wet,
muddy and crappy. It is what it is.
This is our first race.
It's very important.
Obviously we need it
as an establishing point.
We've got an all-new driver lineup.
It's important, because we've got
potential sponsors coming,
we have lots of customers coming,
so we need to show well.
This is a little bit
of an unusual weekend,
as far as automobile racing is concerned.
Two big series racing separately
on the same weekend, at the same circuit.
The World Endurance Championship
6 Hours of Silverstone is tomorrow.
Teams are already
in the main paddock preparing for that.
Maybe the weather might improve by then,
but that's not the case today
for the European Le Mans Series
4 Hours of Silverstone.
Lots of rain should make
for a very interesting race indeed.
Coming to the rolling start.
About to get underway.
It's slippery.
There's a spinner in the background!
And that's Lo Roussel into the wall
in the Pegasus LMP2!
What an astonishing start
here at Silverstone!
There's lock-ups into the first corner!
Cars going off the circuit wide!
Right in the middle of the shot,
just going to the right,
that's the LMP3 leader Alex Brundle
for United Autosports.
That's a brand-new team to this
championship in their first race.
So far...
less than 25 minutes in,
we're running first and second.
It doesn't get better than that.
LMP3 leader from United Autosports,
the #2 car in the pits.
Alex Brundle, he's done a great job
on a very difficult day.
He's getting out. Mike Guasch
getting in for his first stint.
It was sketchy
through the first couple of corners.
There were a couple of shunts we dodged.
Then, luckily,
I was able to get up into P1...
and then pulled a little gap.
So all is going well so far,
but it's only one hour of the race gone,
and there's a long way to go.
So we'll... wait and see.
Last year, I was only a driver.
I got to have a lot of fun
with my teammates.
Very young teammates, actually -
21 and 25 years old.
And... So, just having fun.
But now, this year, things have changed.
The team looks up to me more as the boss
or the leader of the team,
so I think I have to behave
a little bit more.
Yeah, and not being happy with
the extra work of team owner,
I'm now the promoter for the Mexico race,
and that's very exciting.
Being able, if we win,
to win with the Mexican anthem,
I think that's going to be
very important for our country.
LMP3 leader
United Autosports in the pit lane.
They've done a cracking job
with both cars.
I haven't driven this car
on this track at all, so...
I'll just take it easy, because you see
all the yellow and red flags.
Everyone's going off. If you try to be
a hero, it's not going to do you any good.
So it's just all about
being really cautious.
Go as fast as you can,
but be really cautious.
It's been a great run
in pace and in strategy
from United Autosports.
Their #2 car is leading,
but it's starting to rain.
That could throw a cat among the pigeons.
We just got a full-course yellow.
We're leading the race.
We still need to get fuel.
One more pit stop,
which is about a 40-second pit stop.
So we're getting it right now,
and under yellow, which is perfect.
So if we get it out here,
we're going to put five gallons in it.
A little splash and go.
There you go, right now.
We've only got a one-minute lead,
so... nail-biter.
So, about half a lap to go
for United Autosports.
Trying to hold onto that position.
A bit of concern in the pit lane.
We know they think they're tight on fuel.
That car is going very, very slow indeed.
It's not up to pace.
It's going to stagger over the line!
It's a win!
It's a win for United Autosports!
Zak Brown and Richard Dean
lead the celebrations in the pit garage.
What a great run!
That was close.
Those fuckers almost caught us.
- They fucked up our fuel! Unbelievable!
- ...next time.
Let's go to the podium,
get some champagne.
The LMP3 podium.
United Autosports, what a win for them!
It's a new day
and a new race at Silverstone.
It's still quite cold,
but the rain has stopped
and the sun's come out
for the start of the 2016
World Endurance Championship season.
The LMP1s at the front of the field
have more technology
than put man on the moon,
and they're nearly as quick
as a Saturn V as well.
The lights are out, six hours are on the
clock, and we're racing at Silverstone!
Audi, Audi, Porsche, Porsche,
Toyota, Toyota
down towards the first right-hander.
Look at the LMP2 battle!
Was there a touch in the midfield?
One, two, three, four wide at one point,
I counted!
New livery for Aston Martin for 2016.
And that dark gray and yellow #98
has not been keeping pace in GTE-Am.
Well, this is interesting.
The red and black car is RGR,
the new team for Ricardo Gonzalez.
Bruno Senna at the wheel.
The orange and black car
that he's about to pass
is the former team that he raced with!
Great move by Senna!
Right now we're second, but Pipo
over there pitted early for some reason,
which is strange,
but I think that's good for us.
Things are looking pretty good.
Ricardo's going to go in now,
and we'll see how he goes.
He's going to do his first stint
as a team owner.
Great LMP2 action.
Very, very close indeed.
Thirty-one ESM car in traffic.
G-Drive coming through as well, then RGR.
It's very tight.
Into the pits for Ed Brown,
who's in the #30
Tequila Patrn ESM car this season.
So far it's not been a great start
to the season for the ESM team.
That seat is so fucking bad.
So fucking bad.
So, I had to lift myself up,
you know,
to pull my butt down in a corner.
It's terrible.
I think that was my worst stint ever,
I've got to tell you.
- I got punted off twice.
- Yeah.
- Then I made a couple of mistakes.
- You were running consistently.
For a bit, and then I just...
It's just frustrating.
I really feel like I left a lot out there,
so... I'd say at least 25 seconds
for mistakes.
Each of the classes
have their own results and own podium,
and in LMP2
there's a big story brewing here.
We've got 18 minutes to go
and we're leading right now.
So it's a little nerve-wracking right now,
but we might start our team with a win
in our first race ever.
Ricardo Gonzalez made
the jump from driver to team manager,
and the fairy-story has come true.
RGR take the victory at Silverstone.
A maiden victory
for Ricardo Gonzalez's team.
Along with Albuquerque and Senna,
it's been a hard-fought victory.
Totally deserved,
and what a way to promote
the 6 Hours of Mexico.
For me, I think humility is everything.
You have to...
give credit to people
when they deserve it.
I love working with the team,
and just getting in the car,
and just trying to do the max
out of what you have...
and then sharing that with teammates -
I think that's what I enjoy.
It's not that much about winning
or not winning.
It's just being there, being part of it.
There's a lot of research
on the relationship between
being an entrepreneur
and what's called your risk tolerance.
And it might look from the outside
like entrepreneurs are willing to be
more risky than most people.
In fact, what they do is learn enough
so they believe
that the thing they're doing
actually isn't that risky.
I think the same thing is true
with racing.
My guess is that
most of these gentleman drivers
don't see what they're doing
as being all that risky.
What they see is that they are engaging
something that would be risky
if they hadn't actually spent a lot
of time learning how to do it properly.
This is my latest company,
Molecule Labs.
We've been around for two years.
What we do here is we make the fluids
and e-liquids for electronic cigarettes.
A lot of people ask me about risk
and all the risks I'm taking
when I start businesses,
and how do I assess risk.
For one thing, I'm not a gambler.
I don't feel like any of this is a gamble.
I look at these
as very intelligent decisions -
just that you need to do these things
to go forward.
It's slightly risky spending millions
of dollars building a new facility
in a new industry
that's not regulated yet,
but I try to look at the future
and make a calculated decision,
and then don't look back.
It's the same thing in a race car.
It's one reason
why endurance racing has done me well,
because you've got to think long-term.
It's not a sprint race.
We have four-hour, six-hour,
12-hour, 24-hour races.
You don't take big risks.
So it's worked out well
for my personality.
Get in there, go 90-95% all the time.
But going 100-105%,
that's risky and not for me.
We're now in charge of the branding
of the new Smith & Baxter line.
We're now on version three.
Once we do the physical mockup,
we have to see if it changes
the look and feel on some of these.
So, the other alternative was just to do
this square block for the flavors.
But I do like the way
we've color-coded the flavors, too.
They're very, very adult, and we don't see
a lot of that in the industry.
I agree. I agree.
I'm happy with this, and I think the next
round would be changing these up,
getting some iterations here,
and I think we're going to be good to go.
Going way back,
my dad had a carpet-cleaning company.
So I grew up in that business,
but after a few years I realized
there's something better for me.
I didn't know what it was,
but I knew that was not my calling.
So I sold all that off and went into
the consulting business to the industry,
and I taught all these cleaning companies
service techniques
and sales techniques,
because I was really good at it.
So that's when I started to get a feel
for the chemical industry,
because I worked for chemical companies
selling into the cleaning industry.
I saw giant manufacturing lines
and giant tanks,
and bottles shooting off lines.
I said, "Oh, my God. This is cool."
I didn't care about the money,
I didn't care about what it was.
I just thought manufacturing something
and shipping it out in volume,
and seeing pallets and trucks of stuff
going out the back door,
that was just, to me, extremely cool.
So I said,
"I want to be in this business."
I ended up making
millions of dollars doing it,
and that allowed me the time
and the ability to go back to racing,
because I had put it on hold for 20 years.
Essentially,
I started racing back when I was a kid.
Well, "kid" - 18 years old.
But at about 25 or 26, after a number
of years of racing different things -
Jet Skis, motorcycles -
doing very well as an amateur,
could turn pro...
it just didn't make sense.
Financially, I would never
make a living out of it,
so I said, "That's not going to work."
I had to quit. From 25 to 45 -
20 years - I didn't get to race.
So I said, "I'll go back to that
and see if there's anything in it for me."
So I started slowly, you know?
I got into go-karts.
Then I said, "I can do this. I'm going
to start a racing team. Great idea."
So I bought race cars and semis,
got a building, and I spent
a million bucks - whatever it was -
and built a whole marketing business
around this race team.
That was a big mistake.
I got my ass kicked.
Flat-out kicked. Embarrassingly kicked.
Last place by, you know, 20 seconds.
Two races of that,
I just pulled off the national scene,
came back to California,
and then ran in the Western United States
for about three years,
perfected my skill,
then went back out to the national scene
and actually won
the National Championship in 2009.
This is my simulator
that I use for practicing
before I go to a racetrack I don't know,
essentially to learn the track,
learn the corners, the braking points.
This is Silverstone,
which we just raced a few weeks ago.
We won, and I think the simulator
is a big part of why,
because I know the track
before I get there.
It's not as easy as it looks.
People have said
it doesn't matter when you start.
Start at five years old,
you're good at 15.
You start at 25, you're good at 35.
It just takes you ten years
to figure it out,
and I didn't start
until I was 45-46 years old.
So now it's starting to work.
I really do need racing
to keep me motivated.
I think I train harder than most.
Physically, hell, I'm older than
everybody, so I've got to make up for it.
But also, even if I wasn't,
I would be training just as hard.
If I'm not training,
someone else is training.
If I'm not practicing,
someone else is practicing.
If they're getting better than I am
at the time, I'm going backwards.
I feel the same way with business.
If we're not pushing all the time, someone
else is, and we're going to get behind.
Have you guys ever decided
to take a big risk
and completely had it go
really wrong in business?
My race team.
Yes, I think you're right.
That's the only way
you can become a millionaire.
You're a billionaire, you open
a race team, then you're a millionaire.
Yeah. You think you know it all
and then you try it. Oh, my God.
Not very profitable,
the race team, so far.
If you're trying to make money
on the race team, stop.
No, no, no.
I know that's not going to make money.
We're getting ready for the 6 Hours
of Mexico, a very special race for us.
Not only because we're
the only Mexican team,
but actually because Ricardo's
the promoter of this race,
which means that he pretty much
made all this happen.
It's sold-out, which is great for us.
It's the first time that WEC has come
here, so the fans are very excited.
They haven't seen
these types of cars ever, basically,
and Ricardo has put in a lot of work.
He's building a university,
he's a team owner,
he runs an insurance company,
and now he is planning an event
for 45,000 people.
I don't know how he does it.
We've had a hell of a year,
but we would love to win here.
This is the birthplace of tequila
and the birthplace of Patrn.
It makes it extra special because I've got
600 employees coming to watch.
For them to come here
and have some cocktails,
it's going to be a day they won't forget.
Bringing the race to Mexico
has been a big challenge,
because it's the first time I've done it.
I don't think the promoting
has taken away the fun part of racing.
I just had very little sleep
the last three or four weeks.
So I'm ready to start changing my hat
into the driver hat.
I think people are pretty impressed
with what we have done,
and this is helping me a lot
to forget my promoter duties.
Ricardo, expecting a huge crowd...
The numbers sound really,
really enthusiastic.
How is that going to lift your team,
carrying the Mexican flag?
It's going to be pressure.
Yeah, we're expecting to have
the track completely full,
so it's going to be nice
to see the start of the race.
I know how Mexicans go wild,
so we're going to enjoy that.
It's Round 5 of the 2016
FIA World Endurance Championship,
and we're at a brand-new venue -
it's Mexico City.
And the man that we have to thank for
bringing us to this cathedral of speed -
we knew him last year as a driver,
now he owns his own team
and he's the promoter of the race -
Ricardo Gonzalez is a busy man.
It's a brand-new venue.
I'm excited. The crowd's excited.
I think the drivers are excited as well.
It's time to go racing in Mexico City.
At altitude, this will be the fastest run
down to the first corner
in the World Championship.
The Audis side-by-side,
then the two Porsches.
Look at the CLM
with the yellow wings coming through.
The privateer cars are very quick.
He's gone wide!
Bruno Senna has cleared off in LMP2.
OK, Bruno, we're P1 by about 20 seconds.
Let's keep increasing that gap, OK?
OK, copy that.
This is the battle
for second. Into the stadium section.
Too wide!
Ren Rast
goes to second position for G-Drive.
Great battles
not just at the lead of classes.
This is sixth on down for LMP2.
Pipo Derani in that green and black car
trying to get a little better exit.
Then Minassian. He does... Great move!
On board with Bruno Senna.
He's our cameraman at about 180 mph there.
Senna still leads in LMP2.
A relatively short circuit here in Mexico
means that traffic management
is always going to be an issue.
All the drivers
have had to really concentrate.
Hasn't been an awful lot of track time.
None of them have raced here before.
Good stint for Bruno Senna.
He's out of the car.
The third driver is the man
who owns the team, Ricardo Gonzalez.
Two blue lights at the side
of the #43 RGR racing car.
That means he's in second.
That's the leader ahead.
Gonzalez chasing him down.
This could be another great story
for the Mexican team on home ground.
OK, Ricky, that's Rusinov
up ahead of you, so be careful.
He can get aggressive.
Gonzalez and Rusinov
together coming into the chicane area.
There was a touch there.
Rusinov spins the Mexican!
And Gonzalez is in trouble now.
He's not facing the right direction.
Not enough room.
He's going to have to find reverse.
Stay calm.
Need to be talking to him on the radio.
Almost reverses out
into the Dempsey-Proton Porsche!
That could have been disaster!
Well, Ricardo Gonzalez
has got the car back on the track.
OK, just stay calm. Just stay calm.
Let's get back up to speed, OK?
Not sure
that Filipe Albuquerque, nearest us,
and Bruno Senna,
who's just behind him - there he is...
Not sure they know if they've...
Well, Filipe thinks they've got a chance
and Bruno doesn't.
They've checked the car over,
given him some more fuel,
and now he has to try
and get his pulse rate down
and focus, focus, focus.
Ricky and Rusinov,
they got in contact.
It's pretty hard to say who was at fault.
Ricardo is very stressed on the radio.
He wants a drive-through for Rusinov.
Our car is fine.
I don't know if Rusinov is fine,
because he just went quiet.
It's racing, but we need to keep it cool.
An Aston in the barriers!
The #98 car, Paul Dalla Lana's gone off!
Yellow flags are out.
Here's another look.
Coming into the stadium section.
Too much curb on the left-hand side
by the Ford,
and Paul Dalla Lana is bumped
unceremoniously off the circuit
and into the barriers.
Let's hope that isn't a repeat of Le Mans.
No, it's not. The car is still running,
and I think he'll get it out of there.
There's damage to the left-front,
but Paul Dalla Lana will get
the Aston back to the pits.
We've had to come in
for some pretty big repairs.
I think we've lost five laps now,
so a very frustrating way to end up.
We were making our way
back through the field.
In any event, it's a tight circuit.
We always knew
there was going to be a chance for this.
Just hoped it wasn't going to be us.
OK, Filipe, we're currently second,
30 seconds behind the G-Drive car.
We've got to push. Let's get them.
We're hearing from race control
they are predicting more bad weather
before the end of the race.
LMP2 leader has just had a problem.
The brake disc has exploded
on the right-front!
My goodness!
That's extraordinary!
Ren Rast brings the car
into the pit lane.
A huge blow to the class leader.
We'll have to see how quickly they can get
that car back onto the track.
And the crowd on the start-finish line
have realized that this means
that the local Mexican team
are going to go through and lead the race!
G-Drive had a problem,
so we're back to first.
Let's do this. Bring it home. Come on.
Shit!
OK, let's keep it tight. Let's go on.
We're in first place. Two minutes left.
It's raining in sections of the track.
A three-second gap,
so it's nerve-wracking right now.
What a story is unfolding here.
The team can barely look,
as we're into the last lap
of the 6 Hours of Mexico.
But you've got to cross the line
to get it.
You've got a three-second gap.
Careful, it's really slippery.
Don't worry.
All under control. Don't worry.
This is one of those moments
that only happens in endurance racing.
The #43 RGR Racing car put together
by the man in the middle there,
Ricardo Gonzalez,
an insurance salesman, turned
racing driver, turned race promoter,
and now turned Mexico race winner!
Come on!
Woo-hoo-hoo!
Filipe Albuquerque
has found a Mexican flag.
Where did he have that? In the glovebox?
And the celebrations will go on
long into the Mexican night here.
This is a moment to savor
for Ricardo Gonzalez.
The gentleman driver
who has put this team together,
and this race together,
is standing on top of the podium
in Mexico City tonight.
He is living the dream.
Nice, huh?
Woo!
Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!
You jumped in big this year.
Going from just racing and being on a team
to having your own team,
you know, that's a big jump.
Yeah, but the event took a toll on me,
physically and time-wise.
You know, we noticed that, because
you won the race and shit like that.
They feel real bad for you.