PREMA Racing continued to show progress in its debut NTT INDYCAR SERIES season at the Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix, which for a third successive race, went without caution.
The 90-lap race began with the team's drivers on split strategies. Robert Shwartzman was on the softer compound of tires and Callum Ilott on the harder tires. Like the rest of the field, PREMA Racing's drivers opted for a three-stop strategy.
Shwartzman, who initially lost a position at the start, made his way into 23rd, where he continued running until drivers ahead made their first pit stops. He completed a longer first stint, coming in on lap 20 for a new set of soft tires.
Meanwhile, Ilott's race was compromised after a hit on the opening lap led to damage which dropped him down the order. He was among the drivers to make an earlier pit stop to discard the hard tires for the red-sidewalled softer compound.
The British driver ran the soft tires for the remainder of the race, pitting on laps 37 and 65. Shwartzman was running well on the soft tire and pitted again on lap 44 for the harder tire, keeping them until lap 64 where they were discarded for a final push on the soft tires.
In a physical race which was flat out from the green flag, neither driver was able to make progress through the field, despite showing some good pace. Ilott and Shwartzman concluded the race in 23rd and 25th respectively.
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES continues the Month of May by heading to Indianapolis where the Sonsio Grand Prix kicks off the action at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 9-10.
# 83 - Robert Shwartzman
“In the morning, the car felt pretty decent despite very few laps with it. Then, in the race, the first stint was mega. I came from the back towards the mid-pack and was battling with Scott Dixon. Honestly, at that stage, it felt really good and felt we could challenge for the top 10. But from that moment on everything just started to fall apart. We came to pit, and we had a really slow pitstop. From then on, on Prime tires, I had zero grip. I don't understand what was going on. And then at the end, to top it off, I had a hybrid issue. Overall, this is definitely a weekend to forget.”
# 90 - Callum Ilott
“It was a shame about the contact on lap one. It was just a bit of a concertina, and way, way more damage than it should have been. It was quite costly. Unfortunately we had a bit of an issue in the pitstop with the with the fuel, which didn't help. We had to do an extra pitstop to recoup that. But the positive was the pace and the car felt good. It's a shame to have all those issues early on. We've got to work through these, there are some lessons for me and some lessons for the team, but the positive was that we had a top 10-pace car and a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes and there’s been a lot of improvement.”