Noel Miller’s ‘Hot Laps’ Roars onto YouTube: More Than Just Laughs with F1 Star Daniel Ricciardo

If you were expecting a basic middle-of-the-road interview show when hearing about Hot Laps, you probably don’t know too much about Noel Miller. 

In the maiden episode, Miller teams up with Formula 1 legend, Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull’s Showrun on the streets of Nashville, TN. The 32-time podium accomplished star dished out on everything from heart-pounding thrills beyond the racetrack, to deep existential musings and insecurities.

Fans of Miller’s podcast TMG were not disappointed to see that the comedian also asked the important questions on ‘code browns’ during races, and the infamous ‘excitement dribble’ when nature calls on the track- This mix of curious sincerity and laugh inducing questions is why people have geared-up to tune into this monthly genre bending talk-show on Miller’s YouTube channel.

The Hot Laps Desk Car- A beast in its own right, is a first-of-its-kind marvel that boasts a live differential, independent rear suspension, drift mode, and the ability to set a legitimate lap time while casually sporting two fig trees and a pot of coffee. 

Ricciardo’s reactions, expressed through screams of “Holy sh**t!!” and bewildered questions like “Are you able to concentrate?”—paint the perfect picture of the adrenaline-fueled mayhem we can expect from the next few episodes of the show.

This, just another example of Noel showing fans he isn’t just limited to straight punchlines. His knowledge of motorsport, combined with bold humor, is set to redefine the auto and talk show space. Buckle up folks; Hot Laps is about to take us on a ride like no other.

Read our full conversation with Noel Miller below. 

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I spoke to you when the special came out, How’d it feel to get that debut hour out to the masses?

NM: It was good. Weirdly, as soon as I put it out, I just wanted to start working on the next one, which sounds like a really corny thing to say. But it was interesting. Putting out the special was such a long process that I had so much time to think about it that. 

By the time it released, I was already kind of thinking about how I move onto the next thing but trying to stop and smell the roses a little bit. It was awesome. It was great to put a real piece of me out there. I think it’s pretty great to be able to put something out that I can always look back at you know? Just like a little window into who I was at that time.

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Moving onto HotLaps, I know the idea for the show came from you thinking it’d be really funny if I made a talk show desk into a vehicle.’ “ And spiraling out from that premise. Was that you wanting to do an interview show first and figuring out how to change the format, or was it just a “damn that’d be funny” moment of inspiration that you followed?

NM: I think it’s more of a “damn, that’d be funny”. And now, I think what it’s evolving into is, I’m kind of striking the balance between interview and a little bit of a loose flowing podcast. Because I think what I want to try to maintain as we kind of developed the show, I really want the desk to be a way for people to kind of tap into a little bit of that adrenaline. I think after it spikes, shaking off some of those nerves and just speaking candidly about something and having a moment to just be a human rather than just fully being “on”.

I think there’s something interesting about the car itself, kind of getting rid of those nerves and then allowing you to just, I don’t know, be open and it doesn’t have to be something that’s necessarily deep. I think that’s kind of the direction I’m going. I don’t want it to just be kind of really rigid interviews. I really want to try to draw those human aspects out of people.

Since you have your hand in so many things too, how do you know what format suits the idea best? For example, an idea for stage vs something to bring up on the pod vs a sketch or a repeat show like HotLaps.

NM: I try to separate things between like, “is this more of a fleeting thought or is this something that could be relevant in a year from now?” And if it’s something that feels like it could be more relevant long term, then I’ll kind of park it and maybe work that into something long term in a stand-up set or something like Hot Laps, by way of a sketch, or commentary or whatever.

And if it’s fleeting, I think I’ll put that stuff on the more kind of day to day, whether it’s like my story or podcast mainly. A tweet or whatever. But yeah, I think definitely, it’s tough sometimes to determine what the point of view I want to hold on to is. It gets hard.

How does inspiration work for you? I feel like once Noel Miller gets interested in something, it’s very hard to stop you from finding your place in that field. 

NM: Yeah 100%. Weirdly, I think a lot of inspiration just comes from self reflection. And I think just trying to piece out what is like, a distraction to me. I think if I’m hiding from something within my own personality, then I kind of push forward on that. 

I think greater than the point of hot laps on the surface- which is like, there’s this really great piece of engineering and it’s a really fun premise. I think what’s kind of motivating me there is to meet people that are sort of outside of my normal way of thinking. 

And I want to try to meet and connect with a variety of people and kind of have a more mature worldview. So I think Hot Laps is a great avenue for that. And whether it’s celebrities, pro drivers, whoever- I think that’s my main motivation is I really just kind of wanna have honest, fun conversations with people that just are not in my day to day life.

This season’s of HotLaps is a whole lot different to the last one in many ways, namely a huge star in Daniel and a massive audience of his fans watching in real-time.

What was going through your mind when starting that interview?

NM: This is not something that I’ve even really gotten a chance to detail. But the overall pressure on that day was really high, because Danny’s time is very, very specific. And that’s why you’ll see him in sort of glancing moments where he does like a 10-minute interview after a race or a five minutes spot after qualifying or a 20-minute deal on race day. 

So we’re already feeling pressure in that regard. This is our first time transporting the vehicle, this is our first time running the vehicle in a production setting with talent. We are kind of like a ragtag group, you know? The total crew size was only eight, me included and that was everyone working on it.

We’re having to do this on this course in Nashville, where it’s in front of a bunch of strangers and we weren’t anticipating a crowd. We thought we were just gonna get an hour with him, which we learned also was like a great amount of time. So one hour to nail it and there are all these unknowns.

You didn’t know prior to getting there that it would be in front of a crowd?

NM: Yeah, so the phrasing was always that we spoke of it on a “track”. And it’s like, “you’ll have an hour on the track in the morning before the event”, that’s kind of how it was spoken about. And so we’re thinking great, well, I have an hour with Danny in a private setting. 

Not only that, but it’s Nashville and it’s Broadway [street]. So all the bars are open at 9am and we didn’t know that. So people were kind of questioning the stationary aspect of this interview. When we were driving, there are people shouting, and then there’s music louder in some areas than others, and then there’s like PA systems hanging over the actual track. So where I could physically talk to Danny, and he could hear me and I can actually get a response was really selective.

All this is kind of going through my mind in real time as I’m trying to speak to him. And so in the moment, I kind of just like blacked out, and I’m just sticking to the plan and trying to make sure we get it all and trying to be conscious of “are all the cameras running”, “let me park it in front of a camera that works”, so on and so forth. 

So in the moment, it was really, really high pressure. I think this first episode beyond anything is really rewarding because there were so many firsts that we tackled in this episode, and we learned so much. Going into the second episode, the second episode is visually incredible. It’s such a step above what we were able to do in just that one hour in Nashville. So even when we have two or three hours, what we can accomplish is amazing. 

Arguably the biggest F1 driver in the world right now seems like it would be the white whale for a show like this but you started the season with that. Who’s a guest that you’d love to have on the show sometime down the line? Is there a white whale for you?

NM: Yeah, you know, he is white! Nicolas Cage- I’d love to have Nick Cage on at some point. I was actually thinking last night, weirdly of a great way we could do an episode with Offset. 

When I think of white whales and prospective guests, I really kind of want to build through lines and try to really develop a show where we can have great guests on but I think it’d be fun to like, try to leverage a mention from somewhere and then try to continue a story. 

In the upcoming episode we have with James Pumphrey from Donut, he mentioned something really interesting about his path crossing with Lizzy Caplan. And so I thought it’d be really funny to reference that moment and actually interview Lizzie to kind of get her take and her experience on their shared experience and then kind of bridge from that.

So as as much as we have prospective guests, I guess my mind is always prone to whatever guest I think is the white whale now could always change because I just am always getting new ideas. But for now, I think I would want it to be Nic Cage.

To quote a comment on episode 1 from Skry2764, “Noel’s production is so amazing. Shows he really loves doing this. All starting from some vines way back.” Seeing the credits section of episode one alone, the projects you work on now have teams of ten -fifteen plus people working on them.

This past year especially, you seem to have an unrelenting gas-tank that’s helped create some hugely ambitious pieces of work. What do you attribute that ability to grind to?

NM: I’m very fortunate to say that in the realm of online media, I’ve been successful. And I think there’s a massive temptation to just kind of rest on what works and just keep collecting the money. I kind of hit a point where I said, “what am I really going to be proud of? continuing to just kind of make money or do I take these resources and attempt to do things that try to push the boundary a little bit?”, or just things I would just personally be proud to say that I attempted. 

Everything I’ve done up until this point, I’ve offered something that people were really excited about and that they felt was valuable to them. 

I think above all, I want to show people that- not only am I grateful for it, but that’s kind of what makes me a person is I just kind of want to continue to strive to do those things that are either creative, or just kind of wild. Just trying to make stuff that people people feel can be important to them. 

Working with Gary Castillo, your lead engineer on the desk-car, I’m sure you got into the intricacies of it all a little bit more. I’ve heard you say you’d like to have a home-shop to work on a project car before. Did the desk scratch that itch for you or did it make it stronger?

NM: It made it stronger. Working on the desk is really interesting in that it’s sort of uncharted and we lean into Gary’s experience as an engineer, and his experience really running various types of cars. He’s worked on all kinds of drag cars, time attack cars, etc. 

So it’s interesting how we’ll kind of borrow from what Gary knows about automotive engineering, but then how that plays into segments and the experience itself. I’m always kind of throwing questions at Gary that make him go, “I’d have to think on that one”. That’s kind of why he loves the project, because I’m always posing him with questions that he would not otherwise have to answer. 

In that way, it kind of scratches the itch on building something, but with a track car and a home shop, I think the thing that I’m really itching for is something where I’m frequently getting to mess with it. 

I think the desk is eventually going to be there- where I can freely change the suspension and tweak it and change the types of brakes and try different tires. It’s technically already there, but I’m still kind of spending time sending the desk back to Gary to do custom machining and stuff like that. 

I think very rapidly The desk will become that “project car”, but I still think I want to build like a straight up project car after the desk for sure.

What car would you work on building if given the chance?

NM: I kept my Honda Civic from college and forever, I’ve talked about doing what’s called a K swap- there’s a series of motors called the K series motor made by Honda. But the K series stopped production many years ago, and they’re not going to make any more of those. So these engineers that build Hondas, they figured out something which they refer to as the LS swap and it uses a newer line of Honda motors that are currently in production and will be in production. 

And they can be turbocharged, I believe. The chassis I have is actually more accommodating to this newer style of engine and the builds have been done before. So when I was talking with a friend when we found out about this, it prompted me to want to do this to my civic. So that is something that is actually at the very front of my mind these days.

Since college, I’ve always told my friends growing up that if I blow up, I want to swap an engine into this Civic. It was always kind of a just a running joke, you know? “Maybe one day, that’d be cool.”

Maybe one day, and now I feel I have the resources to do it. So I’m trying to bring that one day to life.

Catch Noel Miller on his New Supply Tour in a city near you at noelmillerlive.com.