As the Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain, the FIA World Endurance Championship’s (WEC) season-ending round, gets underway today at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC), all eyes will be on a teenager, touted as a future world champion, who has already created history this year by becoming the youngest-ever driver to compete in the historic 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France.
Josh Pierson, who turned 16 just last February, has already made a name for himself in his first year with United Autosports, co-owned by McLaren Formula One chief executive Zak Brown, which competes in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) cars in the WEC.
In his first championship for United, Josh aced the Asian Le Mans Series in Abu Dhabi, driving to two consecutive wins with teammate Paul Di Resta.
Less than a month later, the teenager astounded even his more experienced co-drivers as he drove his team to a fluent victory on his debut in the 1,000 Miles of Sebring, the first race of the 2022 WEC season.
Now, with United in second place behind leaders Jota Sport on the championship table as they head into the sixth and final WEC race of the year, Josh is only focused on one thing: winning the race.
“I’m not thinking about the championship at this point,” he told the GDN at the United Autosports ‘villa’ in the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC). “To win the competition, we’d need to beat them by six spots. There’s no way we can guarantee that but we ‘can’ win the race if we drive well.”
Josh’s pragmatism is well-placed – Jota Sport lead United by 28 points (114 to 86) so it might take a Herculean effort to dislodge them from the top spot. But it is also par-for-the-course for the young driver, who displayed his maturity by shrugging off any notions that all the talk about him being so young might serve to distract, or put extra pressure on, him.
“I know that some people said, when I signed on with United, that I was too young,” Josh said, matter-of-factly. “Some, I believe, still say that. But, as young as I am, I’ve already done a lot of racing. I was competing in karting for ten years before I graduated to this level.”
Like a number of F1 drivers, who started with karting at the age of seven or eight, Josh also started competing in national championships when he was seven years old. By the time he was 12, he had started racing internationally and his talent was obvious to everyone.
But it all started for him at the age of two.
“Believe it or not, it did!” Greg Pierson, Josh’s father, told the GDN.
The elder Pierson, 54, a tech entrepreneur who chaperones his son to competitions around the world, used to race amateur sports cars and once took his then two-year-old son to a race track.
“I think it all sort of started for him from there,” Pierson Sr. said. “I put him in a mini go-kart and was amazed that he seemed to understand what it was.”
Now heralded as the great young hope of endurance racing – and, possibly, even F1 at some stage – Josh credits his current coach Stephen Simpson, an accomplished driver himself, for pushing him to compete in the format.
“Two years ago, Stephen suggested that I should try endurance racing,” he said. “I wasn’t too sure but he was pretty persuasive so I did a test in an LMP2 car. And, soon, I don’t know how, Zak came calling.”
Josh was called to Austria by Brown and tested out a second time in the Red Bull Ring, where he left everyone astonished by setting faster times than vastly more experienced – and much older – drivers.
“I’ve always been, kind of, thrown in at the deep end,” he explained. “So I usually know what to do because I’m always open to progressing. I can also be quite hard on myself – it helps to be self-critical – but when I race, it is always with an open mindset.”
Having sat through the interview with a smile constantly on his face, Josh laughed outright when the inevitable question about his education came up.
“I’m doing it all online,” he said. “I travel so much that when I log in for my compulsory attendance, I’m always in a different location. I do plan to go on for a college degree after I finish high school, but it might be after a while because, right now, my focus is on motorsport, my team and my teammates.”
His father also had some thoughts on the subject.
“His mother is a retired school-teacher,” he said, smiling. “His grandmother is also a retired school-teacher. So he’s not going to get out of that!”
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