BMW M MOTORSPORT WELCOMES SAMANTHA TAN AS NEW BRAND AMBASSADOR
Samantha Tan Racing is thrilled to announce that team founder and co-owner Samantha Tan has been selected as the newest brand ambassador for BMW M Motorsport.
A long-time champion of BMW M Motorsport, Samantha’s welcome new role will see the Ontario native represent the Bavarian brand both on-track and off it across Canada and the United States in a bid to further promote the positive attitude and fighting spirit indicative of BMW. Concepts that are of enormous significance to Samantha as well, whose racing career continues to showcase the pressures and challenges faced by women in motorsport today.
Samantha Tan, 2023 BMW M Motorsport brand ambassador: “I simply do not have the words to describe how excited I am and how much this means to me. As a lifelong fan of BMW, becoming an official brand ambassador for BMW M Motorsport is an absolute dream come true. To now have the opportunity to represent BMW, share my passion, and connect with BMW enthusiasts all over the world is incredible. Thank you to Sven, Victor, Dan, and Andreas for your faith in me, everyone on my team who has lifted me up, and my family for their unending support. In short, I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the BMW M Motorsport family as a brand ambassador and I cannot wait to see where this extraordinary journey takes me.”
Samantha’s on-track responsibilities as the newest BMW M Motorsport brand ambassador begin in earnest at this weekend’s opening round of the 2023 SRO GT World Challenge America at Sonoma, for which ST Racing has already confirmed a full-season entry. Samantha will be joined aboard the team’s #38 BMW M4 GT3 by BMW works driver John Edwards.
Since 2017, BMW M Motorsport has been as fundamental to ST Racing’s identity as the Maple Leaf. So ingrained is the German carmaker with the Tan family, a young Samantha regularly rode to school in her father’s BMW E36 M3, while her first official driving lesson at age 15 was behind the wheel of a stick-shift BMW 1M. Which remained Samantha’s daily driver a full decade later!
After a promising start to her motor racing career in the National Auto Sport Association, Samantha, a graduate of the Jim Russell Racing School at Mont-Tremblant, began her on-track affiliation with the BMW Group in 2014 at the wheel of a MINI Cooper S JCW in the Canadian Touring Car Championship. Claiming Rookie of the Year honours and 5th overall in the combative ‘Touring’ category was a pretty good start too!
One year on from the competitive debut of ‘Samantha Tan Racing,’ and now competing in the Pirelli World Challenge, the team’s matriarch finally made her first official start with BMW M Motorsport in 2017. This formative year aboard one of her team’s two BMW M235iRs would ultimately throw the metaphorical floodgates wide open.
In 2018, and now aboard a BMW M4 GT4 that suited her driving style almost perfectly, Samantha took her first Pirelli World Challenge podium first time out in the fiercely competitive GTS class. One year later, Samantha Tan Racing took six class wins and a further 10 class podiums en-route to 1st and 2nd in the Pirelli GT4 America’s West Pro-Am Cup division, sealing its first championship in the process.
More silverware would follow. In 2020, now in the GT4 America’s SprintX Cup, ST Racing secured its second teams’ title – again with the BMW M4 – and in 2021, the Canadian outfit made it three-for-three by winning the Overall GT Teams’ title on its first season of European endurance racing in the 24H SERIES, Samantha proving her ever-growing proficiency on-track by securing the Overall GT Drivers’ championship in addition to four other championship titles.
Six years on from the official start of her BMW M journey, Samantha’s relationship with the Bavarian brand continues to go from strength-to-strength. In March 2022 for example, ST Racing, with Samantha once again at the wheel, took the first-ever victory for BMW’s new M4 GT3 flagship at the Autodromo Nazionale del Mugello. Later that year, ST Racing’s sister operation STR38 Motorsports made a noteworthy debut during the 2022 Indianapolis 8 Hours weekend, taking a class pole position and a category podium in TC America and GT4 America respectively with its M2 CS R and M4 GT4 line-up respectively.
Just a few examples of the dedication, passion and hard work to-date that ST Racing will carry forward into this year’s SRO GT World Challenge America.
Samantha Tan, 2023 BMW M Motorsport brand ambassador: “I’m looking forward to driving with BMW M Motorsport Works driver John Edwards this season in our BMW M4 GT3 and proudly representing the brand on and off the track!”