IndyCar: Content Day 2 – Afternoon Overview

The final six drivers from the NTT INDYCAR Series will speak to the media during Content Days this afternoon about their upcoming season.

Marcus Armstrong, Meyer Shank Racing #66

Marcus Armstrong will start his third season with a new team, Meyer Shank Racing.  But the team does not feel that new. The technical alliance with Ganassi Racing and MSR means there will not be many changes.

“Looking forward to getting on track a lot, to be honest. It has been a good off-season. It’s been productive in many ways. A lot of time in the gym and a bit of time at home with family.”

“It doesn’t really feel like a transition to a new team honestly. I stay with the majority of my engineers, so my lead engineer and the assistant engineers I’ve worked with previously at Ganassi. I know everyone very well, and obviously in theory it’s the same car.”

“Obviously prepared by Meyer Shank Racing, but from a technical point of view, it’s fundamentally the same as last year.”

“It’s quite helpful to have that continuity because learning the references of a new race engineer and assistant engineers and understanding the way that everyone works, it does take time.”

“I think we worked really well together last year. We delivered some decent results. But I would say that in a general sense, we had the potential and speed to do some really good things.”

“I think that it’s really cool, and I’m grateful that Chip and Mike Hull saw the potential in our No. 11 unit and sort of gave us another chance to work all together again.”

“I’m hoping that there’s a good form of continuity involved and we can hit the ground running in St. Pete.”

Armstrong was asked what it was like to work with Mike (Shank) and Jim (Meyer).

“I’ve enjoyed it so far. Mike and also Jim have welcomed me into the team with open arms. Mike is a proper racer. Like he kind of strikes me as a driver if I didn’t know any better. He’s really got the bit between his teeth to have success, and that’s what I really like about him.”

“It’s racing and performance first; that’s the priority. So far, so good. We’re going to work together really closely. In fact, I’m going to go see him later in the week, as well, just to chat through things and try and speed up that learning process.”

 

Callum Ilott, Prema Racing #90 

Callum Ilott will be starting his fifth season with a new team, Prema Racing.  Not a stranger to the European team, Ilott drove for them in 2017.

Autoracing1 asked the British driver how he felt when he was asked to drive for the Italian team.

“I was in touch with René, who was my contact for all the years I was in Europe, big boss, and I’d been asking him, so are you going to be doing INDYCAR?”

“I knew end of 2023 that they were going to be doing this, and he’s like, shh, not yet. I’m like, okay, we should be in contact. He’s like, definitely, definitely. Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then I was very close to continuing in European WEC, and then suddenly for no reason, he’s like, yeah, let’s do it. I’m like, if you could have told me a couple of weeks in advance that would have been great.”

“But yeah, once i was called — it was a project that I was very interested in and wanted to be a part of because I knew the way that they were going to do it and are going to do it is hopefully going to be another level.”

“But it will take time. I’m super excited to be a part of it. So as soon as we got the ball rolling it was pretty easy. Just had to wait a bit. Had to wait for the factory to be ready because we were running out of a small shop the end of last season. That’s where I did the seat fit. ”

“We obviously got some testing coming up. Still a bit fluid with the plan. But it’s a lot of work. It’s not easy for the whole crew. Yeah, it’s definitely a lot more work starting from scratch than all the other teams have from the end of last season.”

“But it’s part of it. It’s what we’ve committed to. Yeah, I’m really happy with how it’s going. The launch was amazing. Cars look great.”

“Hopefully they’re as fast as they look, but we’ll find out soon.”

Louis Foster, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing #45

Louis Foster won the 2024 Indy NXT by Firestone Championship with an impressive  eight wins and six poles.  His rookie season in the NTT INDYCAR Series will be driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan with a multi-year deal.

“It’s going to be a lot of new experiences. It’s kind of a weird thing to go from reigning champion to complete rookie, so it’s a very stark difference.”

“But I think the same approach in every championship I’ve taken is the same one I’m going to take for INDYCAR. Obviously it’s going to be a much bigger step than I’ve ever had before in terms of competition.”

“But we’ve worked really hard, the team, myself, learning each other, getting to know each other, me trying to get the ball rolling immediately with the new things for myself that isn’t in INDY NXT, like fuel saving, pit stops, hybrid, all that stuff.”

“Also just race distances, as well, how long it is compared to INDY NXT. There’s a lot of new things, but I feel like we’ve kind of hit the marks we wanted to hit at this point already and there’s still one more test to go.”

“I need to work on fuel saving. That’s kind of the biggest one right now. Definitely starting to work on some pit stops, as well, do a few more live pit stops.”

“Just the things that would catch me out in the race. Being a rookie obviously it’s a year that I can probably afford to make a few more mistakes than I obviously would. But the goal is to be able to go into the season and people think this guy is a rookie, really? We want to limit those mistakes and make sure that we’ve kind of got everything nailed down.”

Foster was reminded that IndyCar is the most competitive series and that he won’t be moving up and winning races like in the Indy NXT series.

“I’ve had this discussion a lot recently in the sense that I think it’s the same for most drivers that get to INDYCAR. You spend your entire junior career winning everything or being up at the front all the time because to get to INDYCAR you’ve got to be a good driver, and if you’re a driver you tend to win.”

“Then when you get to INDYCAR, depending on the weekend, the team, how it’s going, it’s just so competitive that a good day could be 10th, which I would — a 10th last year I would have put my head in the sand and cried.”

“It’s definitely a weird way to look at things for sure. I want to be able to be on the podium next year. If we could win a race, that would be great. But realistically I know that we’re not going to come out aiming for a pole at St. Pete. We’ll try our best, but the chances are we probably won’t be.”

 

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske #2

Josef Newgarden will be starting his 13th season, the ninth with Team Penske.  The big talking point was the FOX commercial that was shown during lasts Sunday’s football games featuring Newgarden.

“I do think 2024 was a dynamic year, is maybe the way to put it. It was a year of great highs, as you said. There was multiple strong points to it. But then there were some tremendous lows. Very volatile and rocky. But I would say transformative, if anything. For me, it was a really good year to go through.”

“It makes me excited about 2025. It ended up being a really positive year for the way everything transpired, even the waviness of the year. It just put us in a good spot to come out firing in 2025, and I think we can do that.”

“I don’t have many more adjectives for it. It was just very up and down. So many good things to take from it. Certainly Indy was the biggest highlight, but a lot of positives all around. Even within the negatives, they all turned into positives I thought.”

The media had several questions about the commercial that was shot by Fox.

“That was the best part of the shot was Alex’s bit. Fox has done a tremendous job. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a partner like FOX that has fully bought in and understands the significance of INDYCAR.”

“I think it can’t be overstated how appreciative we are of Eric, his entire team. The FOX team is a big group. They’re very innovative. They’re capital intensive when it comes to entertainment and as far as production quality and innovation. They’re not scared to try things.”

“I think we have needed that for quite a while, and they’re going to help push the sport where it deserves to be. I don’t think we’re — I’ve told this to people a lot, but we’re not hoping and dreaming for INDYCAR to be this thing that it’s never been before.”

“INDYCAR used to be a household name, and it deserves to be. It’s been this hidden gem for so long now, so I think FOX will take it to new heights, and really excited about what they’re doing.”

“I think Tom (Brady) disagreed with the statement that I was better looking”.

Robert Shwartzman, Prema Racing #83

Robert Shwartzman will be the rookie driver for Prema Racing in 2025.

“I’ve done like 20 years in Europe racing from karting to junior formulas to the higher level formulas, being reserve F1 and stuff, and here it’s like fresh air. Like at some point after 20 years you know all the tracks already, you know all the people.”

“Here it’s new. It’s cool. Last year in 2024 I’ve done hyper cars or WEC and we actually were in Austin, so I was like, well, that’s another good thing. I have a good vibe in the U.S. here because we took the win.”

“Yeah, really looking forward to racing here. We are rookies. We have nothing to lose. We have only to gain. So that’s my mentality.”

“I’m really, really happy and thankful for the team for their trust because when we had the discussion, they had a lot of other drivers, other opportunities, and obviously there are some drivers who have more experience in America than I do.”

“So for sure in one sense it’s sort of a risk for the team to go for it, but the team knows me. We worked four years together. We’ve won together. We’ve won a lot of races and we know each other really well. So we both have full trust that we can win here together.”

“At that stage it was pretty clear that none of us had any doubts about each other. We understand that we need some time, obviously, because everything is new and we need to set up the whole team, people. It takes time, and we kind of have an expectation to go in the first race and dominate.”

“It’s really cool that me and Callum are there because we’re both ex-PREMA driver; now we’re back with PREMA. Again, I think that decision has been made because the team knew who we are. They knew what we are capable of, and I think they were searching for that as we were searching for a team who is motivated to win and are determined and will do everything for it.”

“That’s where we found each other, and our journey begins here.”

Shwartzman is also a songwriter.  He shared his musical background with us.

“I had a friend and he was doing hip-hop, like he was writing lyrics and stuff and I was like, can I join in? Can you just teach me? Can we just do something together? And he’s like, yeah, come in.”

“We started doing the beats and he started explaining to me how it works, the hip-hop industry and stuff, and I was like, this is cool. Then we decided to write a song. We wrote a song. I released it. I don’t know, it’s up to people whether they like it or not. I personally quite like it. I can’t say it’s the greatest, but I think as a baseline it was kind of good and I was happy about it.”

“You can go to Spotify. It’s called Active, my song. My name is Shwartzy.”

“You can check it out. Have a listen.”

Will Power, Team Penske #12

Will Power will be starting his 21st year in the NTT INDYCAR series, his 16th year with Team Penske.  His car will have a new livery with a brighter Verizon color.

“The expectations, yeah, based on the performance the second half, really most of the season last year were very strong. A very disappointing end, obviously, there to drop back a couple in the championship standings.”

“Yeah, very determined to come back and have a strong 2025. I think we’ll have the car, engine, package to do it, and I think Penske is in a very good spot right now. Obviously everyone goes back and works on their stuff. I’m sure Honda has gone away and worked, and Chevy has, also, and other teams.”

“Obviously Colton seemed very strong last year. I think Andretti will be strong.”

“I think McLaren will be strong. They’ve got Lundgaard there now with Pato, so that’s two very strong guys, as well.”

“It will be a tough year, as it is, and that’s why I enjoy it. I love that stuff.”

The Aussie was asked about his opinion of the new Fox coverage.

“It’s great to see what FOX has been doing. You look at that commercial with Josef, the unveiling of the Verizon car, they’re serious. They’re advertising us before NFL games. I don’t know the numbers, but you can tell they are serious about making our series big and doing a great job, and I think it’s everything that we needed.”

“Just really, really happy to have FOX on board, to be on all network races, similar times.”

“Yeah, I think similar place, same times, all the stuff that INDYCAR has needed. And yeah, just watching it all, it’s such a difference even from five years ago, but just having been around the series so long, it’s so great to see.”

“My commercial? Am I getting one? I don’t know. Yeah, I’m not sure. I think I’ll always — I was actually going to fly out to LA and do something at some point, but yeah. They can have me up there and sing something. Yeah, man. I’ll be like Shwartzman. Him and I will get up and –”

Power was then asked about the length of his career.

“I think I could be absolutely competitive for another five years if I wanted.”

“It’s absolutely the goal, to definitely keep rolling while I’m really competitive. I was like very competitive last year. I won three races and seven podiums. No one else in the field but McLaughlin did that. So I’m still performance really high.”

“Yeah, if I wasn’t performing, I wouldn’t want to do it. I’m still learning. It’s crazy, but you’re still learning stuff.”

” I can’t be more thankful to Roger for giving me the chance that he’s given me over the years.”

 

Lucille Dust reporting live from Indianapolis