IndyCar News: PREMA team unveiled, sign Grosjean as reserve driver

PREMA Racing officially launched its INDYCAR program Friday with a successful live event in Charlotte.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

PREMA Launch with drivers Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman

The event was hosted at the GM Charlotte Technical Center, a state-of-the-art setting where media, partners and industry leaders gathered to learn more about PREMA’s history, its path towards INDYCAR, the team that will compete in the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES and the plans for this season and the future.

Team Owners Deborah Mayer and Rene Rosin introduced the program, providing insight into its inception and development. While Mayer outlined the vision for the team for the present and future, Rosin highlighted the successful path and background that led PREMA to its new INDYCAR challenge.

Key Team Members

Piers Phillips – IndyCar team CEO
Michael Cannon – head of engineering
Graham Quinn – operations manager
Alessandro Vantini – technical coordinator
Ryan Briscoe – Sporting advisor
Joao Ginete – race engineer for Shwartzman
Steve Barker – race engineer for Illott
Robert Gue – R&D engineer
John McGill – aero leader

PREMA Racing INDYCAR Team CEO Piers Phillips provided an overview of the preparation process that shaped up the team’s structure and personnel, and the organizational milestones achieved. The team also introduced its technical and engineering group, led by Technical Director Guillaume Capietto and featuring a number of highly talented and experienced professionals including the decorated Michael Cannon as Head of Engineering.

PREMA’s Piers Phillips and Romain Grosjean

The event provided a perfect frame to introduce the team’s full-time driver lineup of Robert Shwartzman and Callum Ilott, who will be driving the #83 and #90 cars respectively. They were joined by Swiss-French racer Romain Grosjean, who was presented as the team’s reserve driver. The Chevrolet-powered Dallara racecars were part of the setting too, sporting their official liveries.

Welcoming PREMA to North America’s premier open-wheel championship, Mark Miles – President and CEO of Penske Entertainment Corp. – underlined the significance of the team’s arrival in the series, and the importance for its global ambitions, while GM Motorsports Competition Executive Director Eric Warren spoke about the company’s collaboration with PREMA and the preparation path done so far.

Rene Rosin – Team Owner, PREMA Racing

“While we are proud to have joined a new world for us in INDYCAR, we are delighted to have shared our vision with many new people. Our history and heritage have defined what we are today and still define the goals we are looking to achieve. We were looking forward to communicating that and we hope everyone enjoyed getting to know more about us as much as we did so far in our first INDYCAR experience.”

Piers Phillips – PREMA Racing INDYCAR Team CEO

“Today marked a key step for us as we showcased what our group worked on and accomplished since the start of this new endeavor. We put together a state-of-the-art building and filled it with some of the best talent in business, and we are now ready to hit the track with our cars for the first time. We are hitting a turning point. We started from a clean sheet of paper, built ourselves, and we are about to go.”