From 185km/h on gravel roads to the ice of Sweden, rally driver Max Smart carves a new path in world rallying

South African rally driver Max Smart won Africa’s place in the FIA Rally Star Programme, where he raced for three years, and went on to the Junior World Rally Championship. Now competing in Spain, he leads the Spanish Gravel Rally Championship for PCR Sport by a single point going into the final round in Granada. In an interview with BizNews, Smart talks about winning a stage on ice in Sweden having never seen snow, and how he has come up with a way to finance the R600,000 a rally cost of competing, which includes his 20 Club sponsorship programme and learning the skills of a mechanic in his team’s workshop. And where did it all start? With a video game, and a momager who helps him keep it going. As a young driver going it alone, he is still building the partnerships that will keep his Ford Fiesta Rally2, “an absolute monster” of a car, on the road.

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Edited transcript of the interview

Linda van Tilburg 00:00 - Max Smart is the South African rally driver who's flying the flag for the country in international races. Well, after winning Africa's place in the FIA Rally Star Programme, he progressed to the Junior World Rally Championships, and he has joined me in the studio to tell us what he is doing now. Hi Max, so nice to see you.

Max Smart 00:18 - Hello Linda. Thank you so much for having me on your show. It's an honour to be here.

Linda van Tilburg 00:23 - So, let's just backtrack a bit. You had this junior racing career and now you are a full grown-up.

Max Smart 00:32 - Yeah, exactly. So, where I am in my career right now is my first year, in 2026, rallying as a privateer, which means you're finding all of the partners and the sponsors yourself. Whereas, as you mentioned, for the last three years I was part of this amazing FIA Rally Star programme, which was a programme with factory backing. It was a worldwide young driver talent search where the FIA, the world governing body for motorsport, was just looking for raw talent and picking one driver from each continent of the world. 

I ended up winning the African seat, and it was a complete raw talent search. I was a motocross racer before, and I only knew rally from simulators, but I had the natural knack when it came to this competition, and winning it changed my life. I got a full sponsorship in Europe with everything covered going for a training season where we were rallying in Italy, Austria, Estonia, Spain, Germany. It was my first year ever competing, and I had so much to learn, you know. 

With that came lots of ups and downs, especially in the beginning, with these learning mistakes. But then I got picked up by an incredible coach who saw talent in me, and I ended up being one of the four drivers selected for the World Championship the following year.

I then had a really strong debut season there, got a podium in Italy and came top ten out of twenty-one drivers in the season, and got another seat in the juniors. But now, as I say, it's the first year where I'm actually on my own feet, and also in a new-gen Rally2 car, which is a step up from the Junior World Championship. And yeah, so far, it's been incredible.

Linda van Tilburg 02:32 - Well, I looked at one of your races, and you won a stage on ice in Sweden. How does it go from a South African gravel road, a “grondpad”, to ice? How do you adapt?

Max Smart 02:43 - Yeah, that was quite amazing, you know. The first time I did Rally Sweden, coming into the event I'd never seen snow before. I set multiple top three stage times in my first year in Sweden, and then in the second year I was able to get a stage win on ice. It is quite crazy because, as you say, being from South Africa, it's something we never experience. I think the way I did it is that I can build a really good feeling with the machine, and with the amount of grip the car has on the road. Working on ice, we actually have studded tyres that dig into the bed of ice, so you actually have a lot of grips. I was able to really learn where the limit was and get a stage win there, which is really cool.

Linda van Tilburg 03:34 - Where did the interest in rally driving come from?

Max Smart 03:36 - So, growing up I was always a motocross racer. My dad had a big passion for motorsport, and he got me into riding bikes. From the age of around two years old, so basically, as soon as I could walk, I was riding bikes. Then for rally, the interest came through, believe it or not, a video game. 

Back in 2009 there was this really cool video game called Colin McRae: DiRT 2. I just remember playing this game as a kid and absolutely loving the adventure of rally. Every time you're in the car, you're driving on a different road in different conditions. You drive rain or shine, night or day. Through this I eventually upgraded from the controller to a simulator. Me and my dad built our own racing simulator out of wood and got a seat from a scrapyard, and I ended up playing a lot of it because I was passionate.

The only time I was ever able to step into a real car was after entering the Rally Star talent search programme, qualifying via the simulator, and then competing in a cross kart in the final to win the championship. Before this, rally is a really expensive sport. You need to have some amazing sponsors or a lot of funds behind you to be able to compete, and I hadn't had this before. This opportunity basically gave me a chance to show that I do have a skill, and I just kept building on this.

Linda van Tilburg 05:15 - Before we started this interview, you told me you're actually in a workshop, so what is that all about?

Max Smart 05:22 - Yeah, so this year I'm competing in Spain. I am doing the Spanish Gravel Rally Championship, which consists of six rounds all around Spain. It's solely focused on gravel, which is probably one of my stronger surfaces, or my strongest surface. This year started off with a big hustle to find some backing and some sponsors, because coming into 2026 I didn't have a team or any sponsors. I was able to get going thanks to some amazing people who have believed in me and backed me, and it's been a real success so far this year. After the first four rounds of the championship, I'm provisionally, or virtually, leading the championship by one point, going into the final round in Granada, which is at the end of this month.

I've got two wins this year in the championship, and they were my first two overall rally victories, and two more podiums in the Spanish championship. So, it's been a really strong year. The mere fact that I'm in a workshop now is because, as I started this season, I was telling the team I worked with in the first rally, guys, I've just booked a one-way ticket to Spain. We had a really strong first rally and I was like, I'm just going to have to hustle and find a job this side, some work, because I want to learn more about the mechanics of the cars. Basically, my team, PCR Sport, took me under their wing. I'm actually living with them in their house, the owners, Pep and Christina, and every day I'm working in the workshop learning something new.

Linda van Tilburg 07:09 - Wow, so you actually know how to work on cars and everything.

Max Smart 07:14 - Yes, yes. It's a really good skill to have, because before this stay here in Catalonia I had good mechanical knowledge from the bikes, but from the cars there was still so much to learn. It's also not something you can learn in a day. I've been working here for probably four months this year in total, and that's when you really start to pick up the knowledge. The more time you spend, and you've got to be doing something every day, the more you learn.

Linda van Tilburg 07:50 - So how big is rally as a sport in South Africa? Because I looked a little bit at history. The last South African competing at Junior World Rally Championship level like you were, was back in 2012. Why did it take so long from then to you to break through?

Max Smart 08:02 - Well, I think a big factor about rally is the cost of the sport. It really is a super expensive sport. To get the backing to get to Europe and compete in these really massive rallies, where if you really want to be competing you've got to have new tyres every rally, the car's got to be spick and span and current spec, it's really tricky to find this budget, honestly, in terms of sponsorship. I was just able to make a break with this Rally Star programme, and then through hard work and a lot of networking, meeting some amazing people, I've been able to stay here in Europe and keep competing.

Now after this year, if all goes well, I'm charging for the Spanish title, which I believe I can win at the end of this month. I think all these little things add up. It shows that I'm here in Europe, representing the green and the gold, but I'm also able to win this side and show some really strong performances. I think this all helps in finding more backing and more sponsors to come on the journey, you know.

Linda van Tilburg 09:21 - So, you're looking for a sponsor to keep this dream alive?

Max Smart 09:28 - Hundred percent, you know. All of us athletes are in the same boat really, even in Europe. Sponsorship is basically the blood of the sport.

Linda van Tilburg 09:34 - So, do you live and breathe rally? Because I actually know somebody who knew Sarel van der Merwe, I mean that's way back. Supervan, he was called. He was a huge name in South African rally. And I once heard a story that his partner came home and found a car engine in the bath. So, are you that passionate about what you're doing?

Max Smart 10:00 - Definitely. If the engine were put in the bath I would have it there too. No, it really is amazing, you know, and I am living and breathing it. This year I've been putting in so much, and for the last three years, for four years now, it's been the same thing. The level of competition here in Europe is super, super high. It's really incredible. In order to be able to perform, you have to really be living and breathing it, as you say. The amount of work that goes into each rally is hours and hours for a few weeks before, and I'm always on for this, you know. It's my life really.

Linda van Tilburg 10:46 - When you watch Dakar and all the big rallies, you see people bouncing off in the desert or having really bad crashes. Has anything happened to you?

Max Smart 10:55 - Yeah, I actually have had two big crashes, right at the start of my career. They were both due to beginner mistakes. Looking back at the onboard cameras, I'm like, I should have come on the throttle here to save it, I should have been in this line here and this wouldn't have happened. So, I guess crashes are a part of motorsport. It's something every driver is working to avoid, and if you don't avoid it, you try and learn from it as much as you can. I think this can be related to life as well. Any setback, if you can analyse it and work through it, then you know not to make the same mistake again in the future. It also clears your mind on why that went wrong. It wasn't just a random thing that happened. There was a reason behind it, and I think that's important to do, you know.

Linda van Tilburg 11:55 - What kind of lessons have you learned? Does it take a lot of vasbyt to do what you're doing?

Max Smart 12:05 - Yeah, for sure, hey. It's incredible. Rally is a sport that really rewards hard work, and also mental grit and determination, especially coming from the World Championship, when you're rallying for four days at a time. Some days are massive [Haylinder?], like in Portugal. On the Friday of Rally de Portugal, we were in the rally car for around eighteen hours that day. It was a massive day, and the day after it's pretty much the same thing. You get a few hours of sleep that night while checking over the videos for the next day's stages, because every road you drive is new and different.

It's another sport where teamwork is a massive part of it, because I'm not in the car alone. I've got a co-driver with me. This year I've got a guy named Alejandro Lopez, and he's telling me where to go in super precise language called pace notes. We can't remember 360 Ks of roads in a weekend, so we have to write down these very specific notes using numbers and keywords, like "six right over crest, fifty, two right in". To a normal person it sounds like gibberish, but to us it describes the road with perfect precision, and we can attack it at full speed.

Linda van Tilburg 13:33 - What kind of support do you get from back home?

Max Smart 113:36 - From back home. So, this year I have been running a sponsorship programme called the 20 Club. Each rally costs around R600,000, so the numbers, like I say, are really incredible. Instead of looking for huge lump sums, let's say R200,000 or R300,000 partners, or one big R600,000 partner, I've been running this programme where I'm looking to find twenty partners at €1,000 each, so about R20,000. So far this has been pretty good. I've had some returning brands and also some brands that signed up for the whole year. On top of this, a safari company recently came on board with a bigger sum. And what actually kickstarted the season was one of my small sponsors linking me up to a high-net-worth individual who backed me for the majority of this year. So, it's been a big mix of all sorts of ways of raising cash, and I've had to get really creative with it.

Linda van Tilburg 14:57 - Do friends and family back home support what you do?

Max Smart 15:00 - Yeah, a hundred percent. My mom and dad are fully behind me, you know. My mom is actually what we call my "momager", like my manager. She helps me a lot with the sponsorship deals, finding potential partners and reaching out to them. My main sponsor also helps me a lot with this, and I've got a great coach from Scotland. My dad is always there as well to support me, so it really has become a full-on family venture. It's changed all of our lives. Before I won Rally Star, we had never done an overseas trip, and then next thing you know I've been able to have my parents supporting me at a few rallies in the World Championship. Now they are going to be coming to Granada at the end of the month. It's really special for all of us, and we are all putting into it and working towards it.

Linda van Tilburg 16:06 - Well yeah, maybe you should take us for a spin around the workshop so we can see what you are doing. 

Max Smart 16:11 - Awesome. This is the PCR Sport workshop that I'm going to take you around now. The first thing I'll show you is the car that I'm competing in this season. It's a Ford Fiesta Rally2 car. So, this is the car here. It's four-wheel drive, it's got a five-speed sequential gearbox, and it's got an insane anti-lag, which is basically when the engine has mini explosions to keep the turbo spinning. It really is such a state-of-the-art machine. I'll show you the wheel here. It's built by M-Sport, which is a company in the UK where you are now. It's an absolute monster. We rally this car at 185 k an hour on gravel roads.

This is the rest of the workshop. We've got many, many different rally cars. Outside now, we're busy prepping for a big tarmac event called Rally RACC. It's the biggest rally here in Catalonia. These are some of the cars we will be running this weekend. There's our PCR truck. And yeah, I've been learning so much here. You can see the tyres that we use on these gravel roads. They've got proper knobblies, and they can withstand some big rocks as well. It's quite incredible, the setup, and all the spares. These are all spare bumpers in case you damage them in a stage, and then the team will fix it in between your loops

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