Most drivers don't get caught out by the question. They get caught out by the pause, and by what they do with their hands while they're thinking.

You've seen it. A competitor who talks quickly and says nothing. Three bland crutch words before the actual answer. Telltale body movements they don’t even realise are happening. It isn't a personality problem, and it isn't something that needs two full days in a studio at premium rates to sort out.

That's the gap Podium Ready was built to fill.

It gives drivers a proper way to prepare for media interviews without having to find hundreds of pounds for traditional media training.

Same core skills, same understanding of what a journalist or broadcaster actually needs from you, without the large invoice that comes with a formal course.

The questions Podium Ready asks aren't generated at random and they aren't a generic AI guessing at what an interviewer might say. They come from a career spent on the other side of the notepad, camera and microphone.

I spent years working as a newspaper reporter and in PR agencies before moving into motorsport, where I worked in WRC, European Le Mans Series, BTCC, British GT, Superbikes and many more series at national level.

I’ve interviewed drivers on stage and sat in press conferences and media rooms in paddocks and service parks across the world. I know the questions that get asked, the follow-ups that catch people out, and the reasons a journalist asks what they do.

Podium Ready doesn't just interview you. It grills you the way I would, and that’s why it’s designed to push your buttons and test you.

Podium Ready is an AI coach that runs the interview a professional media coach like myself would run, and writes down what it hears.

You turn up, stand up, and answer out loud. It asks the questions a journalist would ask, pushing where a real interview pushes. When you fill a silence with "obviously" or "yeah, no", it stops you, makes you take the gap and go again.

It deliberately challenges you on purpose. A former journalist knows which questions will stretch you, so they come before anything else.

That means when the actual interview turns out easier than the practice, the confidence you get show is real rather than performed.

At the end of a session you get a Readiness Report with your name on it, written in your own words and quoting what you actually said.

Ten sections, including the three to five questions that will test you, your way back to safe ground on each of them, one physical reset technique, and three key lines you can hold in your head without a script.

It gives you an honest ‘ready / nearly / not yet’ score - along with advice on what will change the rating. After all a report that always says you're ready would be worthless.

There's also a section written for your manager or sponsor to read. It says what's fixed and what still needs worked on so you can share your progress with them and that you’re all on the same page with the key messages.

Experienced competitors can use it too. If there's a major sponsor announcement, a championship decider, a live radio / tv slot or a launch event on the horizon, a brush-up beforehand is worth the half hour with Podium Ready.

You know your driving approach inside out, the bit that often slips when not on circuit or the stages is the delivery under pressure when in front of the media - and that's exactly why it’s worth rehearsing.

Podium Ready runs on a phone or a laptop. It works in the team truck between sessions, in a hotel room the night before a stage, or in the back of a service van when the schedule has already gone sideways.

No booking, no travel, no waiting for a course date that clashes with your calendar. Your report gets updated every time you come back, so you build one online document you can take with you across a season instead of a pile of scribbled notes.

Two modules sit alongside the rehearsal itself. The Podium Ready Method, which explains what the AI is listening for, why nothing here is scripted, and the experience the whole approach is built on. And the Readiness Report module, including a case study showing a real rehearsal turn by turn, and the finished report that came out of it. Every lesson is yours to read, copy and download.

Not a script. Not a media training video you watch and forget. Not a chatbot that tells you your answers were great. I firmly believe scripts produce dull answers and everyone can hear when a competitor is reciting one. You get to sharpen three quotable lines you can hold in your head, not a page to memorise.

Podium Ready is £49, but with code PR26 it's only £1 until Sunday 11 October so you can trial the beta version and let us know what works and if anything can be improved - Podium Ready by Motorized

That’s a full media rehearsal banked for less than the price of a coffee so you can see for yourself whether it's worth your time before a media day, a sponsor announcement or a big race weekend.

If you've got something coming up and you're not sure a rehearsal is worth it, get in touch via [email protected] and I'll help you to work out the best approach.

Graeme Cleland