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Noel León: My Greatest Influences
Noel León has been a driver in form for Van Amersfoort Racing over the last few weeks, with three podium finishes in the last three rounds.
But as we get to the end of his rookie Formula 3 campaign, he has been looking back on his career so far and the people that have helped him get to this point, which include an F1 race winner.
FATHER
“My dad introduced me to racing, so it’s thanks to him I am here. I started to race around five years-old, because as a gift on my birthday he gave me a go kart, so I started racing.
“Unfortunately, he cannot come to the races now because he has a racing team so he is racing every week in a different place in Mexico, so he needs to work. But for sure he is watching m races. There are times he sends me texts at like 3am from Mexico, ‘I am watching the race’. It's really nice.
He always says good luck, even before I jump into the car he is always there, saying ‘Good luck, I am watching the race,’ so I like that he is always watching the races. But between the both of us I am better, he was a good teacher but I am the better driver.”
MOTHER
“I could say my whole family to be honest, my mum, my dad, my brothers, they've been supporting me my whole career. Without their support I would not be racing here, because my dad needed to sacrifice a lot with my family and they accepted it for my dreams, so that's great, I really appreciate it and they are my main supporters.
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“But my mum, she doesn't watch all the races because she gets quite nervous but at the end of the day sometimes, she watches and she is quite happy. She gives me advice, but like she told me already, ‘You're doing great, I don't need to text you too much’, so she just wishes me good luck.
“This year she has been watching more of the races than in the past. In the past she was not watching any, now she watches because my dad sometimes wakes up at 3am, so she wakes up also. She's never been to an F3 race but hopefully soon she will be here.”
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“My dad has been working with some great drivers that have made it to the highest level. Daniel Suarez, Patricio O'Ward, he has also worked a little bit with Sergio Perez in the past. So, all these guys, when he told me that he was working with them, and he showed me pictures and everything, I was really looking into their careers, so I support them a lot and I look up to them a lot.
“I've met them, we train normally during the off-season, like in December, we go karting a lot, with my dad and the karting team. They are great people, really professional, they give me some tips because they have made it already to the highest levels, so they taught me that it was not going to be easy, and for sure it's not easy.
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“One of the best pieces of advice that I got was from Daniel Suárez which has helped me a lot in my career. He said don't try and make more than what you have. Sometimes trying to make more of what you have, if you make a mistake, it's your fault. I was doing a lot of that in the past, sometimes I didn't have the pace to be battling with the top guys and I was trying to do more and more and more, I then made a mistake and at the end of the day I was the guy that did the mistake and it was my fault. That advice for me was really good.
“They have a really busy calendar so it's difficult to always talk to them but normally we speak three times per year, we go karting sometimes, so it's fun to talk with them, and to sometimes get tips from them.”