Is It Fast Interview With Samantha Tan

Samantha Tan is a racing driver on the rise. The Ontario-born Canadian has been competing for a number of years now, having first felt the need for speed thanks to a Ferrari Driving Experience in Quebec when she was a teenager.

Having to then scale back to simpler cars, she learnt her racecraft and has been coming on in leaps and bounds in recent years, with 2023 showcasing a tantalising glimpse of what she’s capable of.

This year, Samantha has competed across America and Europe as she continues on her march to the top of motorsport. In the latter, she became Nurburgring certified before racing there with Rinaldi Racing, as well as in France, Belgium and Spain as part of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe. Finishing in P2 at the 1,000km of Paul Ricard was an incredibly strong start to the season while her team’s DNF in the 24 Hours of Spa didn’t even remotely reflect what the team was capable of here. Having driven solidly as a team until this point, the car sustained damage as it avoided another incident. Initially, it appeared that these injuries had been remedied but as racing resumed, it became clear that they were in fact more critical than first thought.

Photo Credit – Halston Pitman, George Bucur, and SRO Motorsports

Of the races she did finish in Europe, Samantha didn’t once finish outside of the top five – a feat that was almost replicated in America too where her worst finishing result was a P6 in Indianapolis. The Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya was Samantha’s best outing in Europe where she secured Pole Position and the Win, ending the year in glorious style.

This put Samantha Tan Racing into P3 in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup Pro-Am Teams’ standings in the teams’ maiden season. If it wasn’t for the gut wrenching early exit from the season opener at Monza, ST Racing with Rinaldi could have been title contenders, having only missed out on it by just 4 points.

Back in the United States, Samantha was on the podium five times across the six rounds of racing with Road America being her most successful track where she secured a P2 in Race I and a win in Race II.

Come the end of the season, Samantha and the team found themselves in a very respectable P4 overall in the Championship – just five points away from P3. What’s more is that they were only eighty seven points away from the title. When you consider the three DNFs and the DSQ that they notched up, it’s not actually as far away as it may seem from first glance and leaves a mouth watering question of ‘What If?’ hanging in the air.

Photo Credit – Halston Pitman, George Bucur, and SRO Motorsports

I spoke to Samantha for Is It Fast? just after she came back from attending the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November, which you can listen to in full through below:

Here though, you can read the answers to a couple of the fun, non-motorsport-related questions that I asked Samantha that didn’t make it into the final cut of the audio interview.

If you could be a new species of animal, what would it be broadly speaking?

If I could be a new species of animal, it would be one of those tiny predator cats that look cute but are deadly, haha!

If you could travel back and live in any period of history, where and when would you go and why?

I would go back to the 1980s just so I could see Ayrton Senna race again!

This year has highlighted that, both on and off the track, Samantha is quite possibly the next big star of motorsport.

Now it’s important to make a distinction here. When the phrase “next big star of motorsport” is brought into the conversation, it can have different interpretations. Sometimes, it means that the individual in question is almost unrivalled on track. Sometimes it means that while they’re talented on track, they have a more powerful presence off track which takes them to dizzying heights of popularity that can at times be tricky to fully understand. Other times, it’s a combination of the two.

Samantha (so far) comes under this latter interpretation. Without question, she’s tremendous on track in her own right, as 2023 has shown, but off it, she’s also incredibly popular both with the general audience and with a very dedicated following.

Photo Credit – Halston Pitman, George Bucur, and SRO Motorsports

These days, more and more seems to be expected from drivers and talent isn’t a sure fire way of guaranteeing anything – even if most certainly does help. Samantha has proven time and again that she has what it takes to compete at increasingly higher levels of racing while keeping everyone happy away from the track due to her sheer ability to be, if nothing else, immensely likeable.

When we spoke, we got on straight away and had a rapport that you couldn’t be sure of having with many other people upon first meeting them. It’s an underrated ability but one that Samantha is using to great effect. When you take that in the same stride as her racing talent, you can’t help but look forward with eager anticipation to see what she’s going to do next. Bring on 2024.

Thank You again to Samantha for taking the time to chat and best of luck for everything in 2024.

Author: Thiemo Albers-Daly