It's the perfect time to talk IndyCar and George Phillips is the guy to talk about it with. He joins us this week to talk all about it!

This weekend's event in Long Beach features IndyCar, IMSA and GT America all on track over three days, get the full schedule here.

And be sure to follow the IndyCar season along with George's site, OilPressure.com. He posts three times per week all year long and just about every day in May. It's a great place to start your IndyCar fandom if you haven't already.

We're going on a bit of a break here at MOTA, it's been a ton of fun putting these eleven episodes together, we've had great guests every time and gotten a wealth of insight into the world of racing. Life gets busy sometimes so we'll be taking a hiatus and will be looking to pick up where we left off later on this summer.

Until then, thanks again for the support and be sure to checkout any of the great interviews we've done you may have missed!

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Before our interview with Jarett, we checked in on our last guest's, Samantha Tan, excellent start to the season in the GT World Challenge America and how Logan Sargeant and Haas faired in the latest F1 Grand Prix in Japan.

Only one link this week to share, so please take a moment and click on over to #Checkit4Andretti to learn more about the organization's dual mission of raising colon cancer awareness and helping people who can't afford a colonoscopy get the potential life saving test. Please consider spreading their message, making a donation and getting tested yourself.

We really appreciate Jarett coming on the show, we mentioned his father, John Andretti, and his book Racer, a thoroughly enjoyable book about John's unique racing career and his battle with cancer. It's a great look into the life of a race car driver, be sure to add it to your reading list!

We'll be back in a few weeks to talk IndyCar as the month of May is right around the corner!

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Samantha talked about her start in racing, the unique circumstance around founding her own team, her success in touring cars, GT4 and GT3 categories. She also discussed how her long association with BMW turned into being a BMW M Motorsport Global Ambassador in 2023 and again in 2024.

Before our interview with Samantha we also checked in on how the racing has been going for our previous driver guests. Victor Gonzalez, Sally Mott and Mac Clark have all been getting at it on track, we’ll see how they are doing so far!

You can follow Samantha and STR’s progress this year on their Instagram and their team site as well.

For more on the SRO GT World Challenge America and how to watch Samantha on track, check the site out here.

We’ll be back in two weeks when we’ll be joined by Jarett Andretti!

Catch up on any of our episodes you missed so far and be sure to subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts from or get them all right here, thanks to Acast.

We’d love to hear your feedback in our Substack chat, so give us a follow and let us know what you think so far!

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We had such a great conversation with Olivia and Sasha that skipped a intro from Thomas and got straight into talking about sponsorship in F1 from cigarettes to crypto, speculated on whether every team on the grid will turn into something like Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, stories about F1 disappearing, the investigation at Red Bull, F1 Academy and the driver's market insanity.

So just a few of the many, many F1 related topics then!

Checkout Olivia's Substack here: Formula Flash

Sasha's here: InBoxBox

And their collaboration here

We'll wrap up quickly on the other side of the chat and talk about Mac Clark's first weekend in USF Pro 2000 and Sally Mott's second weekend competing in the Mazda MX-5 Cup and preview next week's guest, Samantha Tan!

Catch up on any of our episodes you missed so far and be sure to subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts from or get them all right here, thanks to Acast.

We’d love to hear your feedback in our Substack chat, so give us a follow and let us know what you think so far!

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We’ll also review this past weekend’s results in F1 for Haas and Logan Sargeant and touch on how the US drivers competing in F2 and F3 did in their opening weekends as well.

You can checkout all of Aaron’s great insight into F1 on his Substack, The Installation Lap here.

And if this wasn’t enough F1 talk for you, we’ll be back in two weeks with another episode focused on F1 with two more content creators focused on F1, Sasha Rogelberg and Olivia Hicks!

Catch up on any of our episodes you missed so far and be sure to subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts from and join our Substack!

We’d love to hear your feedback in our Substack chat, so give us a follow and let us know what you think so far!

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Follow Mac right here and also on his instagram as well!

We also talked about some news coming out of F1...

F1 testing took place over three days last week in Bahrain. Haas emerged from testing as the top team on the grid..in one particular category anyway. 

Most of Haas’ pre-season talk has been about trying to improve on tire degradation and hoping that leads to better performances in races. Kevin Magnussen spoke positively about how everything is going with Ayao Komatsu and was also honest about their expectations heading into the season.

Logan Sargeant logged laps on day one and two of the pre-season testing for Williams, placing 11th on both days.

Listen in to hear more about Haas and Logan's week in Bahrain.

And we catch up with some exciting news from a guest from earlier this year, Nathan Saxon, who announced today he’s headed to Spain to compete in the final round of the Muhlner Motorsport LMP shootout. He’ll be going over to try and compete for a seat in the Prototype Cup Germany driving an LMP3 car. Best of luck to Nathan! Follow his progress over on his instagram.

Next week we’re kicking off two weeks of F1 coverage with Aaron Guy Leroux, the creator of The Installation Lap, which covers F1 over on Substack. Aaron’s going to talk with us about the where things are at with the Andretti bid to join F1, Haas, Logan Sargeant, probably a little Drive to Survive and more.

Catch up on any of our episodes you missed so far and be sure to subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts from and join our Substack!

We’d love to hear your feedback in our Substack chat, so give us a follow and let us know what you think so far! And we've added an instagram as well, so give that a follow too @motorsportamericas

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Off in the Esses has a ton of great content to check out if our chat peaks your interest in IMSA.

This is a great video to start out with: The Ultimate Guide to IMSA in 2024

The next race weekend is March 14-16th and has the Porsche Supercup, MX-5 Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and Michelin Pilot Challenge supporting the 12 Hours of Sebring. Sally Mott will be competing in her second race weekend in the MX-5 Cup and Victor Gonzalez Racing will be back at it in the Pilot Challenge.

Before then, it’s almost time for F1 to get started, testing in Bahrain is this week from February 21 to the 23. You can watch testing on F1 TV. Then the Bahrain Grand Prix is the weekend of Saturday March 2nd. F2 and F3 will also be running that weekend, DAMS will be running two American drivers in F2, Jak Crawford and Juan Manuel Correa and in F3 there will be another American, Max Esterson.

We’ll keep track of all four US drivers involved across F1, 2 and 3 all season.

Next week we welcome our first open wheel driver as Canadian, Mac Clark, joins the pod to talk about his upcoming season in USF Pro 2000 and how he’s quickly climbing the open wheel ranks on his own personal road to Indy.

Until then be sure to subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts from, check out our Substack and catch up on all our previous episodes if you haven't already!

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News

The world of Formula 1 was stunned last week by Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari but just before that, the biggest development in F1 was the news that Andretti Global was denied a spot on the grid by Formula One Management. Thomas talks about his disappointment that the Andrettis have been denied a return to F1.

And that means Haas will continue on as the only Americanish based F1 team as they possibly set the record for the fastest deflation of preseason optimism in the history of sports with some quotes from their new team principal.

No show next week, in the meantime, catch up on any of our episodes you missed so far, check out Ian Lacy Racing’s site and socials and be sure to subscribe to the pod and join our Substack!

We’d love to hear your feedback in our Substack chat, so give us a follow and let us know what you think so far.

When we come back we’ll have a new round of interviews to roll out, starting off with Stu from Off in the Esses, the go to Youtube channel for anyone interested in IMSA.

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We’ll also be looking to meet up with Nathan later on this summer at some local tracks in New England to see him racing and coaching in action.

Until then, keep up with Nathan on his site and find out more about Racing Prodigy as well. 

Recent Guests go racing in Daytona...

Before the IMSA WeatherTech Championship kicked off it’s season with the 24 at Daytona, our two previous guests started their 2024 racing campaigns as well. Victor Gonzalez and VGRT’s two Hyundai Elantras in the TCR class competed in a four hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race on Friday afternoon and Sally Mott took to the Daytona road course on Thursday and Friday in a pair of 45 minute races in the Mazda MX-5 Cup. We'll let you know how they did in the pod!

You can get Sally’s thoughts on her weekend here, on her instagram.

Next week we’ll get another perspective on motorsport from Ian Lacy, Ian’s been at it since 1993 and we’ll catch up with him next week as he enters his fourth decade of racing.

You can follow us on our Substack and subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts from, thanks to our podcast host, Acast.

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We also touch on some news…

IMSA’s Roar Before the 24 took place last weekend with WeatherTech Championship qualifying for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, along with practice sessions for several of the series running next weekend.

IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona Weekend Schedule

The VP Racing Sportscar Challenge had its first two 45 minute races of the season as part of the Roar. 

The Challenge features LMP3 prototypes and IMSA’s GSX class, which are GT4 machinery. Steve Aghakhani won both races in the LMP3 class for MLT Motorsports. The new GT4 Mustang won in the GSX class in both races with Luca Mars driving for KohR Motorsports.

Two NASCAR drivers will make their series debut in the Michelin Pilot Cup driving in the four endurance race at Daytona on Friday for Smooge Racing in a Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO.

Catch them and last week’s guest, Victor Gonzalez Jr.’s, two car entry at 1:45pm eastern on Friday.

Sally Mott’s MX-5 Cup season kicks off on Thursday and Friday on IMSA TV, Thursday’s race is at 4:10pm eastern and Friday morning at 10:10am eastern.

You can follow Sally at her site SallyMottRacing.com and you can find all her socials there as well.

What to learn more about the MX-5 Cup? Look no further than Off in the Esses explainer video.

And you can follow us on our Substack and subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts from or get it right here, thanks to Acast.com.

Next week we’ll talk with Nathan Saxon, a driver with experience in Miatas, Radicals and Formula 4 cars, simracing and driver coaching. See you back here next week!

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Motorsport of the Americas kicks off 2024 with a great interview with Victor Gonzalez Jr. who's team will be competing with a two car lineup in the Michelin Pilot Challenge. Victor talked about his hectic 2023 season, his team's plans for 2024, his own career as a race car driver and adding being a team owner to that and the opportunities he provides to Hispanics aspiring to get involved with motorsports.

We also talk quickly about Guenther Steiner's exit from the Haas F1 team and what will this mean for Haas going in the 2024 season.

Checkout this interview with Steiner from Sky Sports F1

Links:

Victor Gonzalez Jr:

X/Twitter

Instagram

Michelin Pilot Challenge

Off in the Esses:

Michelin Pilot Challenge Explained

And follow us on Substack where we will keep you updated on how all the drivers we talk to this season are doing!

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