Jason Pribyl: America’s future endurance star?

Since moving to the UK almost two years ago, Jason Pribyl has rapidly risen the British single-seater ladder, with his next step being a campaign in the GB3 Championship with Nitrous Competitions ADM Racing. Last October, I spoke with the American driver at GB4’s Donington Park finale to learn about his career so far.

The 20-year-old from Chicago, Illinois began his racing journey in 2012 when his father Steve first took him karting.

“He found a track that was nearby to us,” he said. “Nearby being American nearby, it was two hours away! They had a kart track there, so [we] reached out to some people asking if they would lend us a kart and we kickstarted it from there.”

In 2020, Pribyl began competing in various Sports Car Club of America-sanctioned championships, his first being the F1600 Championship Series, a Formula Ford championship. He also competed in Formula Enterprises 2, which uses Mazda-powered Van Diemen DP06 chassis, and won the Northern US Major championship in 2021.

This earned him a seat with IGY6 Motorsports for USF Juniors’ inaugural season in 2022 alongside Bianca Bustamante and Jacob Bolen. Pribyl, however, withdrew ahead of the opening round at Ozarks International Raceway and moved back to SCCA competition.

After competing in the Spec MX-5 Challenge that year, Pribyl finished runner-up in the 2023 Spec Racer Ford 3 Northern Conference Majors, along with appearances in Formula Race Promotions’ F1600 series. He also tested USF2000 machinery in the 2022 and 2023 post-season Combine Tests at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, driving with Turn 3 Motorsport and Pabst Racing respectively.

Pribyl moved to the UK in early 2024 to compete in United Formula Ford with PWR1 Racing, his first international campaign. That spring was also when he first met former Arden Motorsport British F4 & GB3 team manager Gary Ward.

“I learnt that he was a driver manager [who] managed people in F3 and LMP2 and things like that,” Pribyl said. “And it sort of seemed like the right decision because when I landed in the UK for the very first time, I knew one single person. So to try and make things go as fast as possible for me and develop my name in this country, I figured that having a manager was the right move.”

The former British F3 driver became Pribyl’s manager in May and the American went on to finish runner-up in United Formula Ford with 171 points. He took five podiums during the season, including winning the first race of the year at Silverstone and race two at Lydden Hill.

“From there, at the end of last season we were trying to figure out the next move for me,” he continued, “And he’s wanted to get back to being a team principal and working on cars. So we just decided we’d be able to do it the best ourselves, we knew what we were capable of, and figured we could develop from there.”

ADM was officially announced to be joining GB4 on November 28th 2024, with Pribyl himself being announced two weeks later. The team was originally set to run two cars for 2025 but ultimately only ran as a one-car operation, which came at a disadvantage for much of the season.

“These three-car teams, everything that happens happens three times faster for them because they’ve got three drivers,” he explained. “They can go out and try three different setups and that costs them one session versus I want to try three different setups, it costs me a full day.

“It’s definitely been a challenge in that regard. Developing our knowledge of the car, our knowledge of the championship and the tyres all comes a bit slower. But I’m happy with the team this year and they’ve done a great job in accelerating that process.”

Pribyl finished 17th in the drivers’ standings with 124 points. ADM finished ninth in the teams’ standings, second-to-last of the full season entrants and one point ahead of Fox Motorsport.

“It’s been a lot of ups-and-downs,” he said about his season. “I think I learned a lot about myself. I know that I’m a capable driver, but I think the mental side of things was the toughest to surmount this season.

“Feeling the pressure of being in a championship like this, having all these spectators here with the British GT support, it took a lot for me to develop mentally and realise the pressure. I still haven’t quite gotten that down, but it’s definitely an improvement.”

Pribyl’s definitive highlight of the season was his podium finish in the first Silverstone round of the year. By virtue of qualifying P11, which sets the grid for all three races of a GB4 weekend, he started second for the final race, which reverses the top 12. He quickly dispatched polesitter Callum Baxter into Copse and fended off Dan Guinchard in the opening laps, until a loose exit out of Club on Lap 4 allowed the Polish driver to take the lead and the eventual race win ahead of Pribyl in P2.

“Obviously, it didn’t go perfectly, but I held my own and that was where my pace really shone through,” he said.

In the first of four races at Donington Park, Pribyl was running P5 after starting P12 when his gear actuator failed and kept his car stuck in fourth gear, forcing him to retire. On Sunday, he finished P9 on the road in race two and was promoted to as high as P2 when a plethora of post-race track limits penalties hit the field. In the end, he himself was given a 10-second penalty after being deemed to have unsafely rejoined the track, demoting him to P7.

Pribyl started on pole position for race three and stayed near the front in the opening stages. On Lap 3, a three-way battle into the final hairpin between himself, Alex O’Grady and Jack Taylor saw him spin out Taylor and drop back to P18. He eventually recovered to finish P14.

For the final race of the season, which was the rescheduled reverse-grid Brands Hatch race, Pribyl started P13 and finished P7.

“We’ve been really really unlucky,” he said. “But sometimes that’s just how it goes, and you have to look back at the pace and the performances that we’ve done, and just acknowledge the fact that even though luck wasn’t on our side and the results aren’t on paper, we knew what we were capable of this weekend.”

Where does Jason Pribyl see himself in five years time? To that, he answered the world of endurance racing, which in recent years has seen a global surge in interest from manufacturers, drivers and the wider motorsport community.

“It has kind of been my dream since I started cars to really find my way into WEC or IMSA,” he said, “As much as I love the formula car ladder, I have no illusions of making it to Formula 1. I’m not the son of a billionaire and I’m not part of a junior programme, and I’m a bit too old to join one by now.

“I think the right path for me is endurance racing and to make a future out of motorsport so I can make sure everything that my family has put in so far has paid off.”