Max Stallone joins PT Autosport’s Toyota GR Cup effort at VIR Next Weekend

The third-place finisher in the 2024 PT Autosport Aspiring Driver Shootout will contest the remainder of the GR Cup season
MILLVILLE, NJ (11 July 2025) – PT Autosport with Copeland Motorsports has signed Austin, Texas native Max Stallone to compete in the remainder of the Toyota GR Cup season behind the wheel of the No. 88 PT Autosport/Race Brew 0.0% by Momentum Brewery Toyota GR86 Cup Car.

Stallone, 19, impressed the judges at last year’s PT Autosport Aspiring Driver Shootout, finishing a very close third – and his performance in two tests at New Jersey Motorsports Park this season earned him a chance behind the wheel of the Toyota GR86 for the final eight races/four weekends of the season.

No one in Stallone’s family had any motorsports experience, but the racing bug bit him at a young age, beginning with birthday parties at the local indoor karting track. He could be counted on to drive the golf cart on family vacations, and that love of driving took hold at age 15, when he began sim racing. With “more time on my hands” during COVID, Stallone pursued sim racing in earnest and discovered both a love and a talent for the sport. In late 2023, he and his father bought a modified Spec Miata, with the younger Stallone running several Champ Car endurance races (winning at VIR in 2024) as well as NASA and SCCA events.

Excited about the opportunity, Stallone will also attempt to temper both his expectations and the amount of pressure he will experience.

“This is such a great opportunity, I’m super thankful to everyone at PT Autosport,” said Stallone. “You work so hard at this, with all the sim time and the workouts, all the time in the car, and you don’t know if it’s ever going to go anywhere. Now I have a shot, in front of all the right people. There’s definitely pressure, which is something I’m going to have to learn to navigate, but I feel like I have the talent – and now I have a chance to show it, so I just have to put it all together. I’m super excited.”

Stallone heads into the weekend with a solid plan: to put his Spec Miata experience to work and to focus on improvement rather than simply results.

“I’ve learned good car control from Spec Miata, like how to handle it when you carry a little too much speed into a corner and you have to catch the slide a little bit,” said Stallone. “In the test, I felt a similar situation in the GR86. The GR86 has a lot more going on, like ABS and traction control, so you have to learn how to use those.

“But as cliche as it sounds, I’m trying to just stay away from setting specific goals, like qualifying or finishing positions,” said Stallone.  “Of course I want to podium. But I’m trying not to focus on that. I’m going to focus on learning everything I can, putting in all the effort and doing all the little things to help myself get the results I would want, but not wasting energy thinking about or dwelling on it if those results don’t come right away. My priority will be on learning from my inevitable mistakes and just getting better.”

PT Autosport team principal Jason Myers expressed much of the same sentiments from the team side – going into the weekend with realistic goals in mind.

“I am really excited to get back to racing and see what Max will do in the GR Cup car at the upcoming VIR SRO race weekend,” said Myers. “He showed some real potential during the Shootout this past November, and has some great experience at VIR in a rear-wheel drive car already from his Spec Miata experience. He has a very humble and tempered approach: of course, the goals are set to do well and learn the car, but no real expectations or pressure on unrealistic finishing or qualifying positions – which is great maturity to see from a young man his age. We are hopeful that Max proves us wrong for only giving him P3 in last year’s Shootout!”

Next weekend,  Toyota GR Cup series will contest two 45-minute races at VIRginia International Raceway – race one will take the green flag Saturday (July 19) at 2:05 p.m. ET, with race two Sunday at 12:45 p.m. Both races will be broadcast live at www.grcup.com.