Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography

After competing for a majority of the season in the Ligier JS F4 Series, Texan teenager Jake Pollack will debut in the Formula Regional Americas Championship next month at the Circuit of the Americas.

Pollack has driven for JENSEN in Ligier JS F4 for his first year racing cars and will remain with the team as he makes the jump to FR Americas. So far, he has delivered results for the team as he has scored 65.5 of the 114.5 points the team has scored across five drivers and has landed on two podiums, in May at Road America and the month after at Mid-Ohio.

Despite the success, Pollack anticipates the challenges that jumping up to FR Americas will present him.

“I have a lot of confidence going into my debut,” Pollack said. “I feel very comfortable driving the car. I don’t know where we’ll stack up, but I have a ton of confidence that I’ll do well.”

With the exception of the last race weekend at New Jersey where Pollack said his team suffered issues with their engine, he has shown lots of consistency, finishing within the top seven in each of the past seven races before the series reached the Garden State.

With those results against some of the top young drivers in the country, it may be difficult to believe that Pollack is in only his first year racing cars and has ascended to a level where he is top-10 in the championship and in the spot for a FR Americas seat this rapidly.

After growing up around a father who was a lifelong Formula 1 fan, Pollack got used to racing at the club level at Hill Country Kart Club in New Braunfels, a Texan city located between Austin and San Antonio. After competing for three years by the end of 2023 at the local level, Pollack made an unconventional decision to forego national-level karting to head straight into car racing.

“I just thought it would progress me the most,” Pollack said. “I like karting, it’s good, but I just wanted to make the jump into cars.”

It’s a decision Pollack said has paid off.

Last December, he spent time emailing teams about driving in 2024 and got a response from Eric Jensen, owner of an eponymous racing team that has competed in Formula 4 and FR Americas since 2019 after having operated teams in series ranging from the long-running Atlantic Championship to what is now Indy NXT.

Suffice to say, Pollack found himself working around a very experienced driver coach by the time the holidays worked around who Pollack said worked hard to get him ready to compete in the 2024 season throughout the winter.

“He’s very tough to work with, in the sense that he expects a lot from you,” Pollack said. “It’s good. It’s one of the reasons I’ve progressed so quickly, is just that the way he teaches, he really ingrains how to drive the car into your head. A very unique style of teaching, but it works extremely well.”

His first podium at Road America came less than six months after the first sessions Pollack had with Jensen, and in even less time, Pollack is now preparing to be able to compete in FR Americas against tough competition.

Among the drivers he’ll line up against include Formula 4 United States champion Patrick Woods-Toth, who has already locked up another title this season in FR Americas.

This will be the first time that JENSEN has fielded a car in FR Americas since Danish driver Theodor Jensen – Who, in case you are curious, has no relation to the team owner – landed on the podium at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this past June.

Theodor Jensen followed in the footsteps of fellow Scandinavian Oliver Westling, who picked up JENSEN’s last race win in the series at the Circuit of the Americas last year.

This year, they’ll be returning to the same track with a driver who has developed with the team throughout the ranks and has already landed some impressive results. One who said he is confident, poised and ready to not only debut in FR Americas, but keep his quickly-developing racing career going.

“I love racing and driving but I also just love the mental aspect of it,” Pollack said. “Thinking through problems. And when you have a problem, you got to think through for a solution.”