Press releases tend to sound like something only factory teams and big-budget outfits bother with. They’re not. A junior driver with a genuine story, a first win, a new partnership, a step up a category, has just as much reason to send one, and it’s one of the few pieces of marketing that works completely independently of social media algorithms.
What a press release is
A press release is a short, factual write-up of something newsworthy, written the way a journalist would report it rather than the way you’d caption an Instagram post. It states who, what, when, where and why in the first couple of sentences, adds a bit of context and a quote from you, and ends with a short standard paragraph about who you are, your racing history and how to get in touch. No hype, no exclamation marks, no “amazing news.” Local and motorsport journalists get sent a lot of these, and the plain, factual ones are the ones that get used.
When to send one
Not every race weekend deserves a press release, that’s what your social content is for. Save it for genuine milestones: your first win or podium in a category, moving up to a new series, securing a new sponsor or partner, a notable comeback drive, or a significant personal milestone like your first season racing internationally. If you’re unsure whether something’s worth a release, a useful test is whether a local newspaper would run it as a short news item. If yes, it’s worth writing up.
How to write one
Keep it to half a page. Start with a headline stating the fact plainly, “Hakeem Bhatt secures maiden podium at [circuit],” not “Incredible weekend for rising star.” Follow with a short paragraph covering the result and where it happened, a quote from you about how it felt or what led to it, a line of context about the category or your season so far, and a closing paragraph, the same one every time, giving your racing background and how to contact you or your team.
Where it goes
Send it to local press who cover your area, since local papers are often looking for exactly this kind of story about a young person doing something notable. Send it to relevant motorsport media and the championship’s own press office, who often reshare driver news. And put it on your own website too, on a simple press page alongside a couple of high-resolution photos journalists can use. That page becomes useful in its own right over time: it’s evidence, in one place, that you’ve built a real track record, which matters when a sponsor or a bigger team is looking you up for the first time.
What a good one reads like
Worth seeing this in practice rather than just in theory. This local paper’s writeup of a young Grantham kart racer’s European results is a plain, factual example of exactly the kind of coverage a well-timed release can lead to, results-led, no hype, written the way local press wants it. This BTCC announcement of a 17-year-old’s championship debut shows the other common shape, a signing or category-step announcement built around quotes from the driver and the team. Both are worth reading as templates for tone before you write your own.
Writing one up properly every time a milestone happens is easy to let slip once the season’s in full swing. It’s one of the things included in our Full Digital Management retainer, so a release goes out whenever there’s genuinely something to say, not just when someone remembers.
Next in this series: essential phone camera settings for filming your own race content.
