PREMA Racing fired the Chevrolet engines in the back of its new and untested cars just days before sending its trucks to California for Tuesday’s test at The Thermal Club and Thursday’s upcoming visit to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
The late start to the new IndyCar Series team’s on-track program was far from optimal, but the extra time spent preparing itself was worth it as the European team’s first foray into American open-wheel racing was relatively smooth, and significant pace was shown.
PREMA’s Robert Shwartzman, an early frontrunner for Rookie of The Year honors, visited the top of Thermal’s running order on two occasions and ended the day third-fastest, just 0.175s behind Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson, who led the six drivers in attendance. Callum Ilott dealt with new-car gremlins for most of the morning, but rallied in the afternoon to run fourth, 0.247s shy of Ericsson.
It was Ilott’s second first-day in IndyCar, having welcomed the renamed Juncos Hollinger Racing back to the series in 2021 and now PREMA on its maiden outing in 2025.
“For a first day, it’s probably one of the best first days you can get, even with that stuff in the morning,” the Briton told RACER. “The team’s happy, and we’ve got a lot of things to work on and improve, but that’s that part of the checklist. But you know, the first thing being car speed; you don’t normally unlock that very, very quickly. And being out first test, there’s areas that we should work on and can improve pretty easily. It was pretty impressive to be close like that.”
PREMA encountered the expected gremlins that come with a first shakedown, but wasted little time in unlocking some decent speed. Image by PREMA
Ilott returns to PREMA after finding great success with the team on the ladder to Formula 1. The blend of team veterans from Europe and IndyCar veterans who joined during the ramp-up process, including Ilott’s former and now current race engineer Steve Barker from Juncos Hollinger, has given the program a head start on its new American adventure.
“We’ve got some people from all different backgrounds, and we’ve obviously got the core PREMA people helping to direct things,” Ilott said. “And there’s a lot of different voices and different ideas, but at the same time, that’s great when you can put it together. Obviously, Steve was my race engineer before, so there’s a lot of familiarity there. And I think that that that helps massively just to get working together, and there’s less new stuff that you need to establish, right?
“But this team has such a pedigree in Europe, and it’s also an adventure for them, because it’s probably one of the more technologically advanced cars – even though it’s an older chassis, there’s more development that you can do compared to what they’ve run. And PREMA have a great history of rocking up with new equipment (to them) and doing a good job.
“But like I said, there’s still a lot of work to do. This was a good first day. We’ve got a very good core engineering group. The only thing we’re missing is time.”
