F1 General | Joe Unplugged | 193 | What Do Parents Most Misjudge About Supporting a Young Racer?

Does growing up on your family's own racetrack make the climb to Formula One any easier? Dick and Sabrina sit down with Truly Adams, whose family owns and operates Adams Motorsports Park in California, and who was literally sitting on his dad's lap on track before he could walk. They get into what changed technically in the jump from a KZ shifter kart to a Formula 4 car, how Truly thinks about return on investment for the sponsors backing him, and the daily reality of a fourteen-year-ol...

Listener Jake, a newer fan, asked why it seemed like Formula 1 teams didn't want Andretti entering the sport, and whether there's history behind it. Joe Saward lays out what actually happened: Michael Andretti's attempt to buy an existing team, the FIA's approval of a new entry over the objections of Formula One's commercial rights holder, and a legal fight from a rejected rival bidder that eventually exposed bias in the process. Dick brings the American perspective on the Andretti name...

Max Verstappen finally won the Singapore Grand Prix, from pole, at the one race that had always gotten away from him. Charles Leclerc finished second. Kimi Antonelli finished third. For long stretches, that was about all there was to say. So Dick, Joe Saward, and Sabrina spend this race review on a harder question: can a race be dull and still be Formula 1? Joe has covered decades of races where nothing happened. Dick knows what a real pass takes from behind the wheel. Sabrina keeps coming ba...

This conversation wasn't on the agenda. After Dick and Sabrina wrapped a conversation with Joe Saward about parents supporting young racers, Joe made an offhand comment that turned into its own episode: what drivers, and their parents, actually need to understand about the press. Joe describes the driver-media relationship as exactly that, a relationship, not a transaction, and walks through what separates the drivers the press trusts from the ones they don't. He talks about the British...

What does it take to go from a public rental kart at K1 Speed to a racing program that includes a weekly meeting with a sports psychologist? Sabrina and Dick sit down with Daniel Ramirez, a thirteen-year-old racer out of California who has built a self-review process most adults would envy. They get into how Daniel and two separate coaches, one in the US, one based in Europe, break down his race footage every week and land on the same conclusions about what worked and what didn't. They also t...