Welcome to FanAmp: Track Talk!

Hey everyone, Kaitlin from FanAmp here with a very exciting announcement!

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Introducing our newest FanAmp Base… Track Talk!!

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I had the pleasure of sitting down with the hilarious and motorsport- loving duo to chat about how they got started in the motorsport world. Emma and Hannah are the motorsport best friends you've been searching for, and are not just F1 connoisseurs but IndyCar as well!

We’re so excited to have Track Talk as part of the FanAmp community, so without further adieu, please give them a warm welcome!

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Q: So I know you guys are not just talking about F1 Online, you're also discussing IndyCar... So why don't you tell me how you got into F1 and IndyCar?

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Hannah- For myself, Season 3 of Drive to Survive came out and that was just before the 2021 F1 season started... which we all know was the craziest F1 season in a long time! So immediately I got hooked.

I met Emma through her online presence. We had been familiar with each other, but when I was at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, she had started following me and responding to my stories. I was friends with her sister as well. So we got acquainted and realized that we were the only two people who knew or talked about F1 in our lives. So we kind of thought... well, let's take this presence online and see if there's anybody else that would want to listen to us!

I'm sure lots of people are in the same boat and it turns out that's very true! Every time someone reaches out to us, they say, "I don't have anyone to talk about F1 with. So I've, you know, started listening to you guys."

Then about a year ago we started watching IndyCar as well. We were both hooked immediately. It was last season. We all know the Max dominance was happening in F1 and as much as we love to continue to watch the series - we were also looking for something additional to kind of add into our repertoire. In F1 there was a similar storyline for the entire season. So, Indy was just that different kind of series for us where you never knew who was going to win. We were learning, we were getting lots of really great insight from other creators. And now, here we are, a year later. Our first episode came out almost exactly a year ago! We've really honed in on the IndyCar side of things while also following Formula One and that's how we got to where we are at now.

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Q: On the IndyCar side of things, obviously this weekend, is going to be the first IndyCar race. We know there's already drama ahead of the race with Callum Illot filling one of the seats with Arrow McLaren. Do you guys have any predictions for the season for IndyCar?

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Emma - The thing with IndyCar is that it's so, it's unpredictable. If you are going into every single race, you'll have an idea of which car might do well. I know the number two car of Josef Newgarden, excels on ovals -or at least they did last year - but it's so hard to tell from testing. You can't just base it off last year's stuff. Whereas I think going into the F1 season this year, we all had a really good idea that Max would be dominant again.

We don't ever know. There's a question mark over Indy. I think I want to be optimistic and I want to say, "Oh, my favorite drivers are going to be on the podium", but truly we don't know. We have no idea. I don't even think I can make a prediction for any race until qualifying.

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Q: Based off of that question, who are your favorite Indy drivers and who are your favorite F1 drivers?

Emma - Oh, it's so hard to just pick ONE. I would say for IndyCar... I'm not going to speak on behalf of Hannah, but we do have a good relationship with the Arrow McLaren team. So we're heavily rooting for Alex Rossi, Pato O'Ward, and David Malukas. But I think for me, when getting into IndyCar, I was really educated and interested in the sport because of the mechanics and the crew members on Josef Newgarden's team. So I'm also really rooting really, really heavily for him. It could be easy to say, "oh, you're just rooting for him because he's one of the best drivers". But, his team is what taught me about the sport, so I'm rooting for them too.  Whereas I think Formula One... not I think, I know... I'm a diehard Lance Stroll fan. He is everything to me. So I live, love Lance. He is who I'm always rooting for in the sport.

Hannah - Yes, she does truly live, love Lance. She's really trying to get me onto that train. I don't actively root against Lance. It's just, it's Emma's thing, you know?

My driver in IndyCar... Arrow McLaren, faithful David, Alex, and Pato. Yes. And now Callum Illot, which is great because last year I was a Callum fan too. He was one of the names that I had known from the Formula Series that kind of helped me get into IndyCar. So to have him back, even if it's for a short time, I'm really excited for that.

And in F1, I've been Charles faithful since day one as well.

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Q: If you could interview anybody in the motorsport world, whether it be F1, Indy, MotoGP, if that tickles your fancy, who would you want to interview and why?

Hannah- I would love Toto Wolf more than anything in the world. Toto and Susie together preferably. I admire both of their individual accolades so much. Susie, especially with the birth of F1 Academy, I think she's such an interesting human. I'd love to interview both of them. For a driver, I mean... I'm Charles Faithful, so I'd love to speak to him.

Emma - I love that you said Toto because my initial thought was Susie. So you can interview Toto, I'll interview Susie, it'll be good!

Yeah, just everything that she's done in motorsports, for females in motorsports specifically. The birth of F1 Academy, helping females in motorsports grow, create their own series, and actually help them succeed. She has created longevity not just, "we'll do this one thing for you and then you're gone". Susie Wolf has definitely started... not started... she's been paving pathways for so long. It'd be great to chat with her and just learn about her and just fan girl over her. Driver wise, I can't answer that. You put me on the spot. We're just gonna go with Susie.

I don't think I could be professional enough to interview Lance. I think any other driver I could probably be chill, but with Lance, I would just pass out.

Hannah - She would freak out.

Q: Both of you brought up F1 Academy. Do you guys intend, on watching this year, and having any episodes dedicated to that?

Emma - Yeah, we wanted to watch last year, but it was so unfortunate that they didn't broadcast it properly. So it was really just highlights on YouTube that we could follow up on. But this year coupled with the fact that they've aligned their calendar with F1's calendar, is so helpful. We would love to do episodes on it, highlight it. Usually during our regular episodes anyway, we talk about other series, just quick updates, this and that. But now being able to watch the races fully is going to be so nice.

And...

There's even more of a reason to get involved this year. The F1 teams now have sponsored liveries. They have drivers in their junior programs and then the Charlotte Tilbury collab - just seeing all these other brands get more and more involved. It just helps not only grow the sport, but helps these women grow as well.

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Q:If you could see one in Indy driver in F1 and one F1 driver in Indy, they don't have to swap at the same time. Which drivers would you choose to switch series?

Hannah - I would love to see Pato finally get his shot in Formula One. I think that's seemingly where his career is headed. I don't know if he would say that at this point. He just signed an extension with Arrow McLaren, but he's so talented and I'd love to see what he can do. We've seen him in testing. I'd love to see him in an actual race to see how he fares. And then I'd love to see Max Verstappen in an Indy car. We've kind of talked about, Alex Palou being the Max Verstappen of IndyCar. And I would love to see those two race against each other - because in IndyCar, the cars are so much more equal than they are in Formula One. To see that equal machinery race, I'd love to see it. We know Max is dominant in F1. I'd love to see him in the IndyCar.

Emma - My answer is exactly the same. Like word for word, I want Pato in F1 and I want to see what Max can do in the IndyCar series. So thanks, Hannah.

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Q: For the 2024 seasons, do you have any plans of one, releasing any new merch this year? And do you have any upcoming events or races that you guys are intending on going to?

Emma - Races, yes! We're planning on doing the Indy 500. I know Hannah's schedule is a little bit busier than mine, but I'm going to head out there for both the qualifying weekend and then the race weekend, just because the Indy 500 is so spread out over the month of May. It'll be nice to get that whole experience. We're planning on Nashville. That's the season finale for IndyCar. Nothing is fully set in stone yet, but I think if we just keep saying it into the universe, it'll happen.

Personally, I'm going to head to Spain to watch the F1 race. I just think that track's incredible. And then I found out that it's being taken off the calendar after 2026. I was like, "well, now I definitely need to go and check it out".

As for merch, we actually haven't talked too much about merch after the first drop with Furious Motorsport, but it would be cool to get more products out there! Some things that we say could be really cute on a t -shirt... like a live LoveLance shirt. That's definitely up for further discussion, but I think just starting the season, we want to focus on putting out the good content, good episodes, and then once we're a bit more established during the IndyCar and F1 season, return to merch.

Hannah - I'd love to put out a hat. From the beginning of our merch talks, I've wanted a hat. If you watch the podcast or have seen our clips, I wear a hat almost every time we record. It's just, it's my comfort blanket when I'm on camera. So, I'd love to put out our own. That's something that I'm hoping we can do in the future.

In addition to the races Emma talked about. I will not be going to Spain, but the Indy car races. I'm also thinking about Portland. I have someone who lives there who I could stay with and I'm thinking I'd love to go to Portland as a city, but also I think that that track would be really cool.

Emma- It's just nice because the IndyCar calendar is so attainable. Going to the races, is more affordable... there's better access, and you can connect easier with other fans. There are so many people who started as an F1 fan and then made the jump to Indy because they're like, "well, this race is so much cheaper, I could just go watch. And then because they had that easy access to a race they just got more into the sport.

For example, I spoke to someone yesterday who's going to St. Pete and she said, "I know nothing about IndyCar, but I couldn't not go to this race because I live an hour away".

Ask us any questions. Like we got you, just go to the race. It's nice that we're going to try and go to more IndyCar races this year. And we encourage everyone to try and do that as well!

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Q: We're here because you guys are going to start a base in FanAmp. So what do you guys want to see from that? Who should join? What kinds of motorsport fans?

Emma - So we have three different channels. There's the F1 one. The Indy one, which is based after our segment called In Case You Miss Indy. And then Crush Tracker. And I feel like, hopefully they're all pretty self explanatory. If you want to just chat F1, we want you to like jump in the F1 zone, whether it's something to do with the race, something we mentioned on the podcast, something that we might have missed on social media.

We want to really separate the two because we know that some of our listeners only watch IndyCar or only watch F1. As much as we want to combine them, we're not going to force that on people. We're just going to give them easier access to learn about each of the sports if they wanted to. So that's why we have the Indy channel. So ideally, because we know that it's still newer for some of our audience, they can ask us questions about the sport. If they're confused about during a race, what the table on the side means or the timing. It is slightly different than F1. We want to be there to answer the questions. And just talk everything Indy.

Then crush tracker. I hope, again, I hope that's self explanatory. If you listen to the podcast, if you watch on YouTube, we do a crush tracker. We haven't done it in the last few episodes, unfortunately, but it's just whatever the drivers post on social media, whether it's cute or funny or hot. It's so open to interpretation. Anything that is just  amazing that they post, we want to see it. And so sometimes we miss stuff. We're not always on social media. So we want that interaction. We know that Crush Tracker is honestly one of, the people's favorites. People will send us stuff on Instagram. So this is just a really good other way for them to communicate. And not only share it with us, but share it with everyone else who's joined. Because I feel like everyone wants to see a picture of Pato, no matter what, you know.

Hannah - Yeah, I think that what we would like to create is exactly what we do on the weekends, which is when we're watching races, we have group chats with our motorsport friends. We text our motorsport friends, people we've met throughout the podcast, and we can help bring everyone together in our base to have everyone meet each other. We've introduced lots of our friends to each other and it's so funny because none of us have ever met in person. If we can just create this little community where everyone interacts with each other, lots of them are also motorsport content creators, so helping each other advance our profiles, advance our content creation, whatever that might be. I'm really excited.

Also, like Emma said, IndyCar is, A: New to us still and B: Really new to a lot of our listeners. So we'd love to continue to help them learn, answer questions. Crush Tracker, of course... let's just talk about it! Let's talk about what we're seeing on social media!

Both - Kachow for now!!

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Join their base here!