The shining moment of Max Taylor’s USF Juniors season in 2023 was his lone victory at Road America. 

Taylor, 16, entered the race on Aug. 13 bouncing between results throughout the season that included one podium and six top-10 finishes across twelve races.

Battling at the front during the first nine laps of the race, Taylor made an overtake that put him in the race lead that eventually secured him a race win after yellow flags flew and halted his battle with eventual champion Nicolas Giaffone.

“Getting that win gave me a big boost of confidence,” Taylor said. “Showing myself and everyone else that I can do this and I’m meant to be here. I came into (the Circuit of the Americas) with a totally different attitude.”

That mentality adjustment allowed for Taylor to pull out a second-place finish in the very next race. Back-to-back, Taylor had his two highest finishes of the entire season.

The 2023 season ended up with a sixth-place finish in the championship for Taylor. The next step for the New Jersey-native was to move up the USF Pro Championships ladder one step to race in USF2000 in 2024.

“I think my raw speed was really good last year,” Taylor said. “It’s all about just putting it together and coming back to that confidence.”

Taylor is sticking with VRD Racing, the same team that he drove for in 2023. Earlier today, VRD Racing announced that Nico Christodoulou would be one of Taylor’s teammates in USF2000. Christodoulou won a race last season when USF2000 went to compete in his home country’s race at Toronto.

Combining that experience with the youngest USF Pro 2000 winner, Nikita Johnson, on their team, VRD Racing has quickly developed one of the strongest driver lineups in the entirety of the USF Pro Championships. Taylor, Christodoulou and Johnson are drivers who have combined to have won at each step of the ladder.

“(VRD is) really nitty gritty but we also like to have a lot of fun,” Taylor said. “The main thing is that we like to win. Our whole slogan is ‘winners win’ and it is true.”

Taylor also praised British team owner Dan Mitchell. Mitchell is a long-time race engineer and driver coach who founded VRD in 2018. He has slowly amassed an impressive lineup of race wins and drivers since the team began. 

The mentality that Mitchell brings from his experience overseas and the knowledge gained team’s partnership with British team Arden Motorsport are other factors that Taylor said he believes makes VRD successful.

Long before he was on one of the top teams in the U.S. junior series system, Taylor was first hopping into a go kart and learning the ropes in September 2020 when he was 12 years old.

Taylor continued to commit more and more attention toward his karting, which he described as originally starting out as a hobby. Taylor ended up entering online school in 2022 to further support his career as he continued to travel to races. 

After meeting USF2000 champion Michael d’Orlando at a Skip Barber three-day school event that year, Taylor was suggested to contact various teams including VRD. Eventually by the time he tested at tracks like Homestead, Sebring and Indianapolis, Taylor said he felt ready for his first season in USF Juniors.

Still, like many other drivers in the series, Taylor was learning more and more about driving race cars as he went along. 

“I think I did succeed in that ‘learning year’ — that first year in cars,” Taylor said. “I think next year, I’ll be a lot better prepared to go and attack it and know what I need to do.”

Some of the challenges that Taylor anticipates in USF2000 include getting comfortable with the new tracks he is driving on and adapting to the tougher competition. 

While he ran a part-time schedule in USF2000 last year that included four top-10 finishes, he has yet to race on tracks like the street courts at Toronto and St. Petersburg and the oval race at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

Despite the changes, he still rides the new-found motivation he got following his Road America win.

“I want to win and now I know I can win,” Taylor said. “I have the confidence and the team behind me and they have put together a program to win the championship.