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Last Friday we got our first look at what PREMA will look like on the NTT IndyCar Series grid, when the season starts in less than seven weeks at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. We saw the cars, the No. 83 and the No. 90; which will be driven by rookie Robert Shwartzman and veteran Callum Ilott respectively.

We also learned that Romain Grosjean will serve as PREMA’s Reserve Driver in 2025 – whatever that means. That’s more of a Formula One title, but I guess it translates over here too. Another surprise was that 2012 Indianapolis 500 pole-winner, and eight-time IndyCar race-winner Ryan Briscoe would be joining the team with the title of sporting advisor. That is probably similar to the role given to Tony Kanaan at Arrow McLaren, who has now been elevated all the way to Team Principal. Below is a photo of the two drivers, Grosjean and Briscoe. (Photo: IndyCar.com)

Back in July, I wrote an article wondering why PREMA’s entry into IndyCar was going to be any different from when Carlin began racing in IndyCar at the beginning of the 2018 season. Carlin was a successful team coming over from several lower-level feeder series in Europe, as well as Indy Lights where they won the 2016 championship with Ed Jones. Those in the know said it was a question of when, not if, Carlin would win their first race and compete for the championship.

As we all know, things did not go as expected. Carlin never even sniffed a race win and struggled mightily. By the end of the 2021 season, Carlin was a memory and they sold their existing equipment to Ricardo Juncos.

On the surface, I had no real reason to think PREMA would be any different. The scenario sounded the same – a successful team coming over from several lower-level feeder series in Europe. The only difference seemed to be they had no Indy Lights (NXT) experience and didn’t even have the familiarity with the tracks that Carlin did when they came.

There is one big difference however – resources (translation: money). There is an old saying in racing that goes something like this: How fast do you want to go? How much money do you have? Speed costs money. Carlin did not have the financial backing that PREMA apparently has.

PREMA’s launch took place Friday at the General Motors Technical Center in Charlotte, NC. Not only did we see the livery on the cars, and meet the drivers; we were also introduced to all of the team’s leadership. It was an impressive lineup. Aside from Grosjean and Briscoe; PREMA confirmed that Deborah Mayer of the Iron Dames Sports Car program was co-owner of the IndyCar project with PREMA.

Also confirmed were operations manager Graham Quinn, head of engineering Michael Cannon and technical coordinator Alessandro Vantini. Getting Michael Cannon as the head of engineering is a major coup. He was most recently at AJ Foyt Racing, and is credited with being a major factor in the recent turnaround at Foyt. Prior to that, Cannon also had lengthy stints at Dale Coyne Racing as well as Chip Ganassi Racing.

Former Haas F1 aerodynamicist Joao Ginete will serve as engineer on the No. 83 of Shwartzman, while former Juncos Hollinger engineer Steve Barker who worked with Ilott before, will reunite with Ilott at PREMA. R&D Engineer Robert Gue (Pippa Mann’s husband) comes over from Arrow McLaren and aerodynamicist John McGill were also announced.

That’s an impressive technical staff that PREMA has put together. There is no guarantee they will work in harmony, to produce the desired results. Sometimes, the chemistry is simply not there when assembling something of an all-star staff, but they are miles ahead of where Carlin was when they turned their first wheel.

This could be fun to watch this season. With the charter system now in place, that puts us at twenty-seven fulltime entries – the same as last year. But there are only twenty-five charters. PREMA has none. If a team like Rahal chooses to run an extra car for a Yuri Vips type driver, for a one-off at any race besides the Indianapolis 500 – things could get interesting. Some one between Vips and the two PREMA drivers will be going home.

If this does not come into play, I’ll be curious to see if this group of drivers and engineers can post some decent results in Year One, or will they be struggling near the bottom like most new teams do. I’m not even going to make a guess, because I have no idea. But I think if any new team can make a splash with decent results in their inaugural season, it might be PREMA.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on January 15, 2025 at 4:05 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.