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Connor Roberts is making a name for himself on the Formula 4 circuit. The LaGrange Academy graduate and current LaGrange College student enjoyed his first season as a Formula 4 driver this year, finishing third in the final season standings.

Roberts has been racing motorized vehicles in some form or fashion for practically his entire life. His passion for engines and things that go fast can barely be contained.

“And then, yeah, I started in karting when I was six, doing go karts, and then I got my competition license for cars at 14. And so I’ve been racing cars for six and a half years,” Roberts said. “I have a passion for all things with engines, planes, cars, tanks, anything, it doesn’t matter.”

Roberts got used to life at the track at a young age. His father Keith was a driver from the 90s all the way up until 2013 when he began to pass the torch off to his son. 

Now, the younger Roberts is climbing up the professional ladder. His first season in F4 was a big success. 

Roberts got his first podium in his very first race, taking third place at Road America in Wisconsin. 

“It was a sense of relief, because I have not been doing very well in the other open wheel classes, because comfort is a huge thing. You know, if you’re not comfortable, you don’t feel safe in the car, you’re not going to push limits and go fast,” Roberts said. “It was the first race at Road America where I was on the podium, the first race of the season, my first race in the car, and it was a sense of relief.”

The reason Roberts has not always felt comfortable in other open wheel cars is his large frame. He stands well over 6’ tall and has not always been able to fit into the compact open wheel cars.

This changed when he got to the F4 level. Unfortunately, his height will limit how far he can take open wheel racing. Simply put, Roberts will never be able to fit into the highest level of open wheel driving, F1 and Indy Cars. But this does little to slow down the young driver who has his eyes firmly set on pushing racing as far as he can take it.

“My ultimate goal is to do World Endurance, or some sort of endurance racing in a prototype,” Roberts said. 

While he keeps his long-term goals in the back of his mind, Roberts is firmly focused on the present as he gets ready for his second season in F4 that will start in March of next year and last until October. 

Roberts is still processing this past season and his third place finish in the final standings. The lone driver on Team Roberts Racing finished with 10 podiums and one win in 2024. After flirting with a win early in the season, Roberts finally broke through and got a win at the third race at the New Jersey Lottery SpeedTour in late July (the teams have two or three races at each track on a given weekend).

“That was the weekend after the huge crash that I had at Mid Ohio, and we had some remaining issues that were kind of left over from the crash, and so I finished sixth and fourth in the first two races, and then we overhauled the setup for the third race,” he said. “I started from second to last on the grid. So I was sixth at the start, made up two positions into turn one, the leader went off on lap three, and I passed the new leader four laps from the end. 

“It was an awesome experience. To go from the struggle at Mid Ohio and not being able to finish the race to winning was surreal.”

This was the very next set of races after Robert suffered the first major accident of his career. 

“I was going around the outside of somebody, and he slowed down, and my rear wheel went over his front wheel, and so I rolled twice. And so total car rebuild, basically. We took the car down to basically a bare frame and put it back together, and I raced it 23 hours later,” Roberts said. “I totally put it out of my mind when I’m in the car. I still think about it when I’m not in the car, and it’s like, what if this, this or this happened? But when I’m in the car there isn’t room for anything else other than driving.”

“And that was a really big one. The fire extinguisher went off by itself. So they have a system in there that it’ll go off above a certain G amount. So it was over, the accident was over 20 Gs,” he added. “It was scary. I remember just going into the corner, and then next thing I know, I’m upside down, and then I’m standing on my nose, and then I’m standing on the tail, and then I’m sideways laying in the gravel, and I know they always say it happens fast, but it really was in the blink of an eye, really.”

When he is not traveling to races or working on the car, Roberts is using his simulator to practice.

It is often an uphill battle for Roberts, going against much larger teams with more resources. Roberts and his team are unfazed and are already looking for ways to improve heading into the 2025 season, which will feature more tracks across the United States.

“It is a pretty awesome experience getting to do this,” Roberts said. “I’m really excited to see where it goes from here.”