European giant Prema Racing has announced that it will join IndyCar in 2025. Team principal René Rosin and newly appointed CEO for their IndyCar effort, Piers Phillips, spoke to select media – including Feeder Series – on the team’s expansion to America.

By Juan Arroyo

After months of discussions with IndyCar, Prema finally confirmed on Tuesday that it would be expanding its operations to the other side of the pond in 2025 with a two-car effort in the series.

The team is the most successful in the European junior ladder today, boasting of operations in all championships on the road to Formula 1. It has produced nine drivers from the 2024 F1 grid and has had current IndyCar drivers Marcus Armstrong, Felix Rosenqvist and Callum Ilott in its ranks.

Prema will keep this team separate from its northern Italy facility, choosing to operate from a yet-to-be-decided site in Indiana instead. A base close to IndyCar’s main hub will see it close to many of the series’ teams, any of which they could seek to form a technical partnership with before its maiden season.

Former Rahal Letterman Lanigan president Piers Phillips has been appointed as CEO of Prema’s IndyCar operation. Phillips, who also oversaw RLL’s factory IMSA effort with BMW, previously spent three years as general manager for the Arrow McLaren SP team.

“I think having known René and his team for a while now, the enthusiasm, the energy that emanates from them, it’s unbelievable,” Phillips said.

“And I think to come in as maybe nobody else has done, we haven’t been an Indy Lights [Indy NXT] team, we haven’t bought anybody or anything like that. To come in and really be able to put our mark on this from the first day we opened the workshop is incredibly exciting.”

Meanwhile, Rosin has said that his role will evolve to overlook both sides – European and American – of the team. In recent years, Rosin has led the team’s expansion to the World Endurance Championship and opened up technical partnerships with multiple IMSA teams. Other members on each side of the pond will now be left in charge of day-to-day operations. Overall, joining IndyCar is another step in the team principal’s goal to expand Prema beyond European borders.

“It’s a great challenge. It’s something that expands our business opportunity in another level, in another continent,” Rosin told Feeder Series and other selected media.

“We wanted to get out of Europe because we reach every possible category within the ladder of motorsport apart from Formula 1 in Europe, from karting till Formula 2. We have a technical partnership in the World Endurance Championship and as well in IMSA and LMDh. This is something that we were looking to expand our boundaries to make sure that we can create a global group within our entity.”

He added that they took the decision to start building this year specifically in anticipation of the 2025 season, as it is “the right moment for us in terms of structures, in terms of all the other programs that we are doing.”

The team has ruled out a future expansion to Indy NXT for now. Rosin cited the large amount of series they already run in – or “quite a lot on our plate,” as he put it. IndyCar is their lone focus in the U.S. at the moment.

Who will drive for them?

It has been widely mentioned that the team are looking for an experienced veteran and a young driver to fill their 2025 seats. The question was ever-present during Wednesday’s press conference attended by Rosin and Phillips, but they were in no rush to reveal their plans.

However, one key detail that arose is that the young driver may not necessarily come from Prema’s European squads. Rosin said that “everything is open at the moment” when asked where he would be sourcing his drivers from. The team will be evaluating candidates inside and outside its pipeline as it faces the IndyCar driver market for the first time.

On the topic, Rosin acknowledged that the series would bring Prema a chance to keep their F2 drivers by promoting them to the U.S. operation. Considering the difficulties drivers who excelled in F2 can have securing Formula 1 seats today, drivers can still be given the opportunity to shine on a big stage all the while remaining with the team in which they moved up the ladder with.

“This is for sure an opportunity that we give to drivers. The motorsport market can offer different opportunities, but for drivers going into after Formula 2, the places in Formula 1 are quite limited,” the team principal said.

“Having the chance to explore also the IndyCar world is something to consider and something positive. That’s something that we can offer to our drivers in order to continue their progression and their aspire to professionalism.”

Ollie Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli of their current F2 lineup will likely be vying for an F1 seat and would not be interested in the IndyCar squad, but with seats potentially open in the future, some former and current Prema drivers might be keen to join if they can’t find their way into F1.

One who matches their desired profile is Callum Ilott, who already has two years’ worth of experience in IndyCar coming from the European ladder.

He left Juncos Hollinger Racing by mutual agreement at the end of last year after defeating his teammate and has earned almost unanimous approval in America. At 25 years old, he is exactly the balance of youth and experience the Italian outfit is looking to place into their team.

Ilott was with the Italian outfit in 2017 for a European F3 campaign. That may seem like a long time ago, but Prema habitually keeps their former drivers close, as they are known to attend their events even years after leaving the team.

“We are still in very good contact with all these drivers that you mentioned,” Rosin said of Ilott, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Armstrong and even Ryan Briscoe – all ex-drivers for the Italian outfit.

“We just celebrated our 40th anniversary last year in December, and most of them [were] able to join us in Venice [for] our event. And we’re always very close to them and [have a] very friendly relationship with all of them. And we always talk together.

“So it’s always been, they always say, ‘Why not come into America? Why not do IndyCar? It will be something very good for you, very good for the team.’ And that’s something that we’re looking forward [to] in 2025 now.”

As for the future, virtually every youngster coming through the Prema ranks is targeting an F1 seat while IndyCar comes second. Should the team pursue Ilott and a current IndyCar driver as rumoured, the question whether it actually intends to ‘promote’ their F2 drivers will probably not be answered until the end of 2026 or 2027.

“If I can say for sure, ideally, it would be good to have an experienced driver and, of course, one rookie. But on the other hand, as Prema, we always work with rookies. We always maximise the result, and we are not scared even to have two rookies,” Rosin said.

“We are really evaluating all the opportunities to maximise what is our potential and our results. And I think this is now the next step on what we will dedicate most of our time together to building up the teams in the best way as possible, and that’s quite soon we will have some news.”

Possible logistical challenges

Prema states they employ 190 people in total, which would put them at the larger end of the IndyCar teams spectrum.

The Italian outfit will mix its current European staff with new hires from America, meaning Phillips will play a key role in recruiting over the next year. In the press conference, Phillips agreed with the possibility that the team could comprise people he is familiar with from his IndyCar experience and current Prema personnel.

What distribution that follows is unknown. Considering Prema’s many European programs, it’s very unlikely they will send hoards of its current staff to Indiana. But the team’s demeanour in the press conference – where they explicitly say that when they join a championship, they join to compete – signals that the recruiting drive won’t be modest.

Whatever the case, the team is facing a learning period as a new entrant to the series. Ovals – which occupy nearly a third of the 2024 schedule – will be a new challenge all around. This is where the experience brought in by Phillips’ recruiting will play a key role.

“IndyCar’s are very ‘sort of,’ particularly the Ovals. There’s a niche of experience that is required. There’s a lot of people since even the release yesterday, I think, I’m surprised my phone didn’t end up in a little bowl of melted plastic yesterday, but we will be looking at blending the talents from both sides of the Atlantic,” Phillips said.

Rosin shared a similar sentiment. “It will be a learning year, 2025. We need to learn this difficult way of racing from road course, ovals and street circuits, and I think that we are looking forward to blend together the European and American mentality and bring some novelties within this championship.”

Solving the talent issue quickly will be an important challenge for Prema to overcome if it is to avoid the pitfalls Carlin once went through.

Carlin entered IndyCar in 2018 as a two-car effort, with the reputation of an established force from Europe as well. But in recent years, as more jobs became available at other teams, the biggest teams sucked up most of the talent – and Carlin was left hung out to dry.

They switched to running one entry from 2020 so that they could pour all of their human and financial resources – both scarce at that stage – into a single car. But aside from one shock pole, the change did not yield much in terms of results.

The team also had many staff members constantly travelling from England to its Florida base, which arguably didn’t do much to help in terms of team dynamics.

At the end of 2021, and without having secured a technical partnership throughout its stint in IndyCar, Carlin sold off its parts to Juncos Hollinger Racing.

Phillips wants to avoid the many pitfalls the British team went through in its three-year stint.

“I think the main thing in my experience is understanding the culture of American racing, because it’s different to Europe,” Phillips said. “Having worked on both sides of the Atlantic and had success on both sides of the Atlantic, you understand the strengths, but the racing is different.”

“I think it’s important that you come in and respect the championship and respect the series for what it is […] But you need to understand the cultural differences. That’s back to what I was talking about earlier, being able to blend the best of both worlds and try and end up somewhere better than everybody else.”

“Those other teams, they’re all different circumstances. I think we start from a really strong foundation with Prema and their experience, and it’s up to me to make sure that we guide it in the right direction and keep our eyes open and make sure that we don’t fall into any of the situations that those previous teams did.”

Prema is evaluating whether to enter into a technical partnership with another team. Seeing Carlin’s case, it would almost seem obvious to do so. But the team also has possible expenses to factor into the decision – and that is if another team agrees to partner them in the first place.

There is a lot of work ahead for Rosin, Phillips and the rest of Prema in the next nine months. One thing is for sure, though: the Italian outfit has a reputation to uphold from Europe, and a direct example of where not to go wrong.

Header photo credit: Prema Racing