A Spanish racing driver once seen as a potential Formula One star has described the moment he fatally stabbed his father while awaiting trial in prison.
Antolin Gonzalez set a course record the first time he drove a go-kart at eight and made racing history five years later by becoming the youngest driver to compete in an F3 car.
By the age of 15, he was being hailed as Spain’s next Fernando Alonso, with the wealth and glamour of Formula One seemingly within reach.
Instead, the 24-year-old is now confined to a small Spanish prison cell after being arrested over the death of his 56-year-old father, the businessman who first took him to a racetrack.
Gonzalez has admitted stabbing his father in the neck and chest at the family warehouse in Aranda de Duero, his home city about two hours north of Madrid, on July 5 last year.
He made the admission during a closed court hearing last October. His lawyer said at the time that Gonzalez claimed his father had picked up a machete during an argument.
Spanish racing driver Antolin Gonzalez is awaiting trial over the death of his 56-year-old father
Gonzalez has admitted stabbing his father in the neck and chest at the family warehouse last year
The former child racing prodigy has now broken his public silence over the killing, telling a Spanish newspaper: “This has marked me and it is going to be something that will haunt me forever.” He also recalled the moment he killed his father, who was also named Antolin.
Their relationship had deteriorated significantly after the divorce of Gonzalez’s parents.
In an emotional interview published today by El Mundo, Antolin said: “Unfortunately, I remember it as if it were yesterday.
“I arrived at the warehouse and my father was very surprised to see me.
“He aggressively asked what I was doing there and approached me in a violent manner.
“I began talking about the divorce agreement, but he responded very rudely, saying there was nothing to discuss and that everything belonged to him.
“Trying to ease the tension, I asked him to calm down. I also said I had come to collect some belongings from the gym that I had left there a long time earlier and that he had repeatedly urged me to pick up.
“I went farther into the warehouse because the items were at the back. When I turned around, I saw him holding a knife.
“I asked him what he was doing and told him to calm down because this was not normal. That was when he came towards me, completely aggressive and out of control.
“I pushed him, trying to take the knife from him, but I could not.
“I became very frightened, and we began struggling.
“I remember trying to take the knife away. He cut himself, and I do not know how, but instinctively I ended up striking him several times.”
‘I only vaguely remember images and flashes with the knife, and my father approaching me. I know I punched him, but he had the knife in his hand and I don’t know what could have happened, but I ended up killing him.’
Asked if his dad was still alive when he left the warehouse, Antolin replied: ‘At no point was I aware of what was happening.
‘I remember seeing him staggering and clutching his neck, and when he fell at the door of the warehouse I was inside, completely in shock.
‘I went out to see him, saw blood, it shocked me terribly and I tried to cover the wound on his neck, very quickly. At that moment several cars went by and stopped to look, and I got so scared that I fled.’
Antolin admitted to El Mundo he had thrown the knife into the nearby Banuelos River, which was never recovered despite a police search.
He was arrested by police in the small village of Sinovas a short drive from Aranda de Duero after calling his mum.
Gonzalez was dubbed the next Fernando Alonso and was hoping for a career in Formule One
Explaining his decision to confess to his crime at a court hearing last October, confirmed at the time by his defence lawyer Jose Luis Vegas, Antolin told El Mundo: ‘From the moment everything happened I suffered a very severe shock, I wasn’t aware of what had happened.
‘When they took me to give a statement for the first time I didn’t even know where I was, I felt very dazed.
‘I only followed the advice of my lawyer at the time, who recommended that I only answer his questions.
‘It was later, when I began to become aware of everything that had happened, that the world came crashing down on me and I wanted to confess.
‘And I told my lawyers so, and that is why I asked to give another statement. And I confessed.
‘I never imagined, first of all, having to find myself in a situation like this. What happened was something completely unforeseen for me, I don’t even know how I really reacted.
‘I was completely blocked and scared, I wasn’t really myself, because of the shock I was in.’
Asked what he would say to his father now if he could talk to him, Antolin said: ‘Many things. But, to begin with, and above all, that he can’t imagine how much I regret it and what I would give to turn back time and have none of this happen.
‘This has marked me, and it is going to be something that will haunt me forever.
‘Of course I feel guilty. It is something that should never have happened. I regret it every day. And I always will.’
Antolin is currently being held at Burgos Prison in Spain’s northern Castile and Leon region, where he said he was doing sport every day as well as courses including painting in an attempt to ‘distract himself’.
He described his parents’ divorce as ‘long and complicated’ but insisted he had tried to stay out of things and said he attempted to act as a mediator and keep his parents away from lawyers so they could resolve their differences ‘more peacefully’.
In December last year Antolin’s lawyer said he was trying to negotiate a deal with public prosecutors which would see his client receive a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence for killing his dad.
He revealed he was putting forward the racing driver’s ‘overwhelming fear’ as a mitigating factor.
It is not yet clear whether state prosecutors will agree to negotiate a plea bargain deal ahead of trial.
In a worst-case scenario, if Antolin’s attempts to secure a deal and a reduced prison sentence in return for his pre-trial confession fail, the motorsport record breaker could be a couple of years shy of 40 when he leaves jail.
Either way his dreams of following in the footsteps of the likes of Lewis Hamilton and two-time F1 world champion Alonso are over.
The astonishing turnaround in the life story of the racing driver once regarded as one of Spain’s most promising talents sent shockwaves through the world of sport.
His mum Raquel Carreras revealed in an old interview they let Antolin do a few laps of their local go-kart circuit in a ‘spur-of-the-moment’ decision as they returned from a Christmas shopping trip.
The pint-sized youngster ended up breaking the lap record and spurring the circuit owner to persuade his parents he had a gift that had to be exploited.
Raquel, whose surname translates into English as ‘Races’, told a local TV station when Antolin was just 10: ‘We started in this by chance. As a result of him doing a lap record we’ve been competing for two years and he’s done things really well because he’s obviously got talent.’
Antolin is currently being held at Burgos Prison in Spain’s northern Castile and Leon region
By then Antolin had already trialled in the UK for Lewis Hamilton’s childhood team, with only an 11th-hour change in regulations preventing youngsters his age competing outside of their homeland, frustrating a move to Britain.
His local paper proclaimed: ‘A star has been born’ when he was 15 and piloting an F3 with auto racing team Drivex and ex F1 driver Pedro Martinez de la Rosa as his ‘godfather’.
It reported at the time: ‘The jump to F1 is near and his age – he has to be 18 – and money are the only obstacles right now.’
Antolin’s dreams of sharing a podium alongside the likes of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris began to hit the skids when sponsorship dried up despite him finishing runner-up in the 2018 Asian Formula Renault championship.
His middle-class family had spoken openly up until then about the financial toll supporting their son’s dreams of F1 stardom took on them, with his mum explaining early on in his career when he was already a champion go-karter: ‘Races are very expensive. We can’t pay for both training and races and so he only competes at the moment which is more important.
‘But even with that we’re getting the results because of his natural talent.’
Sources close to the former racing champ have hinted at the extra emotional baggage that came with watching his parents’ marriage disintegrate.
The tragedy of his departure from the sport he loved played itself out on his social media – his second-to-last post on his X account AntolinPilotoF3 being a February 2018 thank you to a Spanish journalist describing him in a comment article as the ‘future Fernando Alonso’ who already holds ‘several records that are difficult to beat’.
His dad already had two restraining orders out against him preventing him from going near Antolin’s mum when he was killed following a messy divorce local sources say he had never accepted.
Antolin’s defence lawyer, echoing the sentiments of relatives who have previously appeared to point towards the breakdown of his parents’ relationship affecting his F1 dreams, said last October after confirming his client had confessed to killing his dad at a closed court hearing: ‘His father was his greatest supporter throughout his sporting career.’
Madrid-based Mr Vegas told respected Spanish website El Espanol at the time: ‘My defence will not go along the lines Antolin acted in self-defence.
‘My client doesn’t remember everything that happened in that warehouse. He suffered a psychotic episode when he saw his father with the machete.
‘He had been estranged from his dad for a year because of the divorce.
‘Antolin went to speak to his father because he was tired of him arguing with his mum and just wanted to fix things.
‘His father reacted by telling him to collect his things, a rucksack he had in the warehouse, and leave.
‘They began to row and the father ended up threatening Antolin with a machete he tried to attack him with.’
Antolin’s mum, an amateur handball player, is still understood to be supporting her son with a family spokesman admitting after her ex was killed they feared she and not the father could have been the stab victim because she was receiving daily threats.
Antolin ‘left everything to be near his mum’ when his racing career was about to take off, the spokesman told Spanish news website Articulo 14 after the racing prodigy’s arrest the day of his father’s death.
He added: ‘His ultimate aim was that his mum was alone and unprotected the least amount of time possible.’
