McLaren Extreme E Team’s Tanner Foust on Bringing Fans Into A More Sustainable and Diverse Race Series
McLaren Racing has announced the launch of a multi-year partnership with ICE for the McLaren MX Extreme E Team. The Official Partnership of the two data and technology brands was marked as the Number 58 McLaren Extreme E race car was presented in front of the New York Stock Exchange just last week. The all-electric rally race car stood just a few feet away from the Fearless Girl statue, which represents the role of women in leadership. Feels appropriate as Extreme E race series rules call for one male race driver and one female race driver in each team.
As the partnership comes to life, our Editor-in-Chief, Atif Kazmi, sat down with McLaren MX Extreme E driver Tanner Foust to chat through his journey and what needs to be done to pull fans into a brand new race series that’s bringing electric mobility with motorsport and having one heck of a time doing it.
Tanner on his journey and how he landed on the McLaren MX Extreme E team
I went to school to be a doctor and was lucky enough to get a job with an inventor who invented amusement rides and kind of showed me sort of the entrepreneurial do-what-is-most-fun-for-a-living kind of mentality. I got into racing though rally racing, which is racing through forests and is not that popular in the US. But from there got into drifting and rally cross and have been lucky enough to race now for 25 years doing lots of events like Pikes Peak Hill Climb and BAJA 1000. I sampled a lot of different forms of motorsport. Extreme E is sort of a mix of all of those. It’s also new in that it’s electric, gender-neutral, carbon-neutral. But the driving discipline is similar to rally racing combined with rally cross combined with drifting.
And the way I landed with McLaren was a phone call from Zak [Brown]. I had been racing with Michael Andretti for 6 or 7 years in rally cross. We had won every championship we entered, and Zak and Michael have a relationship, so I think Zak asked Michael who would be somebody good to drive an Extreme E car, luckily put my name forward and here we are.
Tanner on McLaren Racing taking the all-electric leap from F1 to Extreme E instead of taking on Formula E
I love racing, I love motorsport as a marketing tool and as a tool for innovating the machines that we drive everyday. I think it’s done us all good for a long time. Any way you can implement the future of what we will be driving on the road, which is inevitably electric, into people’s lives and showcase it in an exciting way like Extreme E does — But at the same time, do it in a responsible way which I think Extreme E does better than any other series in the world — then it’s a win. For me, I want to see motorsport continue. It’s a strange time. Manufacturers really make the motorsport world go round. They can choose to just make videos rather than go race on a track and they’ll get a lot people watching the videos and they’ll never lose. But we’d lose the innovation and technology push that competition provides. So I’m a big proponent in making competition-based marketing and Extreme E does it in such a radical way that’s exciting to watch that I think the fan base will continue to grow at a crazy rate like it has.
I can’t speak for McLaren but all of the motorsports that McLaren is involved in are moving towards more neutral and responsible stance when compared to motorsport of the distant past. Extreme E just skips ahead to basically being a very forward thinking version of motorsport.
Tanner on pulling fans into a new series like Extreme E
I think first of all the racing has to be exciting to watch, the product is the competition. The risk is certainly there. But then it’s also the players involved. When you have a name like McLaren, they bring a huge amount clout and demographic with them. When you have owners like [Nico] Rosberg and Lew Hamilton, drivers like Sebastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz, they bring with them so many fans. That’s the fast forward way to do it. But the way to making the racing last is to have great motorsport: Close finishes, a clear to understand competition format, and make the sport something people look at and think, “Wow, I wish i could do that.”
Tanner on keeping the passion for driving alive
A lot of my mantra in motorsport has changed as my daughter has gotten older. She’s now 16 and I notice that i can’t help but be drawn to things that promote human mobility. Taking yourself from A to B. Not sitting on a screen or staying at home, but literally taking yourself out there and exercising your human potential physically to go some place. I got a pilot’s license for that reason, it’s one of the things I love about motorsport. And promoting the craft and skillset of driving, so people can take pride in their skills. I think that helps make you be a safer driver on the road but also empowers you to literally take yourself from A to B.
I think it’s a great time to be alive. Machines are as safe as ever and transport is as safe as ever but we still get the responsibility to turn the wheel and push the pedals ourselves. In the future, that may go away but right now it’s a skill and it’s a worthwhile pursuit to push people to continue to be mobile.
Tanner on the destination and elements in the Extreme E season that he looks forward to the mostI
I like driving on the sand and in Saudi Arabia, that was very fun. I love driving on the ice and snow and I’m not sure if we are going to see much of that but frankly i am all about the variety. In Sardenia, I think the roads are quite rough but they’re actual roads. Who knows what’s going to be in Chile, I have no idea what’s going to be in Uruguay. Finding the fastest line through just that unknown chaos for me is kinda the fun part. If we were racing on a frozen lake bed, yes I’d have a ton of fun, but it is really about the variety.
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Starting with the Saudi Arabia leg of the 2022 Extreme E season, the McLaren MX Extreme will sport the ICE logo on the chassis side and the roof, as well as on the racing overalls and helmets of Tanner and his teammate Emma Gilmour.
