Paul Pfanner accepts the 2026 Russo-Marvel Founders Award and challenges the journalists who cover motorsports to build the future of their profession in an age of AI.

Paul Pfanner is the 2026 Russo-Marvel Founders Award recipient. He dedicates it to the late Jim Michaelian — and to the reporters and editors who held the standard in the sport he dedicated his life to .

Paul Pfanner spent decades inside motorsport media — and watched the infrastructure around independent journalism quietly thin. In Suzuka last Thursday, Max Verstappen walked through a door that was already open. What fills that space looks like coverage. It isn't.