PREMA Racing officially launched its first NTT INDYCAR SERIES program, for the 2025 season, at a polished, elaborate presentation Friday, Jan. 10 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Drivers Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman were introduced, and the team’s No. 83 and No. 90 Chevrolet-powered entries were unveiled during the event, which took place at General Motors’ Charlotte Technical Center. Team officials, Penske Entertainment Corp. President and CEO Mark Miles, INDYCAR President Jay Frye and GM Motorsports Competition Executive Director Eric Warren also attended the event, hosted by noted motorsports reporter Will Buxton.
Besides the introduction of the drivers and the car unveil, the CEO of PREMA’s INDYCAR operation, Piers Phillips, also said the team has hired NTT INDYCAR SERIES veteran Romain Grosjean as its reserve driver and INDYCAR SERIES race winner and 2012 Indianapolis 500 pole sitter Ryan Briscoe as the team’s sporting advisor.
“We were looking for a new challenge,” PREMA Racing Managing Director Rene Rosin said. “We were always looking for a new adventure for our group. The next step was quite natural, to be one of the most competitive and important championships worldwide, the only championship in which you can race on ovals, street courses and road courses.
“It’s a challenge that will bring us to another level, grow us to another level, to cross the ocean – and here we are.”
Founded in 1983 by Angelo Rosin, PREMA produced talents like Formula One World Champion and Indy 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve and INDYCAR SERIES racers like Briscoe, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Armstrong and Ilott.
PREMA has experienced an uninterrupted rise, progressively increasing its footprint and winning 80 championship titles. PREMA also was home to nine of the 2024 Formula One drivers, including Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly. The team is the partner of choice for every Formula One driver development program.
Starting from Formula 3, PREMA has launched teams from karting all the way to Formula 2, the last step before Formula One.
“The biggest challenge has been starting from zero,” Rosin said. “We started a bit less than a year ago with the selection of the factory base. From there on, the movement into this new organization, we wanted it to be the right environment, the right blend between the European and American mentality, and always focusing on performance and the results, but keeping a family environment and a patient environment. For us, this is very important.”
PREMA’s addition increases the NTT INDYCAR SERIES grid to 11 full-time teams in 2025, the most since 2018. PREMA is the fourth team since 2020 to join the series full time, joining Meyer Shank Racing in 2020, and McLaren Racing and Juncos Hollinger Racing in 2021.
“It's huge,” Miles said of PREMA’s decision to join the series. “We are so thrilled to be here today. The whole organization is world class, passionate. We’re so happy to have them in INDYCAR. I think they’re going to continue to raise the bar in so many ways.”
A video showed the evolution of the construction of PREMA’s INDYCAR shop in the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers, Indiana. The impressive facility, which shares design traits with the team’s European base in Italy, measures more than 100,000 square feet and has room for expansion of the program.
“It’s PREMA’s little piece of Italy in Fishers,” Phillips said.
NTT INDYCAR SERIES veteran Ilott admitted the blueprints for the team’s headquarters and seeing its construction last summer and fall were strong factors in convincing him to join PREMA as a driver.
“The first big statement thing for me was to see the shop,” Ilott said. “It was incredible in terms of the size and what was going to be put there. I think that was kind of the first step as to how big and how much effort was going to go into this.”
While Ilott has 38 NTT INDYCAR SERIES starts over four seasons under his seat belts, Shwartzman is a rookie coming from Formula 2, Formula E and the World Endurance Championship. But much like new team sporting advisor Briscoe, Shwartzman is part of the PREMA family, winning the FIA Formula 3 Championship with the team in 2019.
“I chose INDYCAR for mainly two reasons,” Shwartzman said. “One is a team that I have won with and I know them, and so I trust them. Second thing is the series that has the best racing at this stage. I have the fire to bring in and have some more fun.”
Said Ilott, who won six FIA Formula 3 races for PREMA in 2017: “It made sense to reconnect (with PREMA) and start something new. I think there are a lot of things that PREMA does so well with a race team that I think will translate so into the U.S. and INDYCAR. There’s still a lot I have to offer and want to show in the U.S., so it was kind of a natural fit.”
The 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season opens Sunday, March 2 on the Streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, for the 21st Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding (live, FOX, INDYCAR Radio Network).