PREMA Racing highlighted the team’s progress on road and street courses over one lap on the IndyCar XPEL Grand Prix at Road America qualifying session with a top 10 start.
Around the fast, 6.51-kilometre undulating road course, both of PREMA Racing’s drivers – Robert Shwartzman and Callum Ilott – were in the first group of drivers, featuring many of the frontrunners in the championships and entries from top teams.
The drivers split their tire strategy for the session. Ilott went from the harder compound for his first run before switching to a softer set for his final effort, while Shwartzman spent the whole segment on soft tires.
Shwartzman’s efforts were solid throughout and, in the close-fought session, he finished in ninth place. His time of 1:45.305 came in his penultimate effort after an issue on his final lap, just over three tenths from making the cut on the longest lap on the calendar.
Meanwhile, Ilott put in a late time of 1:44.883. That was good enough for third to progress to the Top 12 and cementing the team’s strongest road course qualifying result to date and his best result of the season.
Ilott put in a strong benchmark at the start of the Top 12 on the soft tires. He was on a good lap at the start of his final run, but caught traffic. With his final effort, he put in a 1:45.253 to secure ninth on the grid, missing out on the Fast Six by just over two tenths.
With 17th, Shwartzman also secured his best road or street course qualifying result of the season.
PREMA Racing next takes to the track for Sunday’s 10:00 warmup, ahead of the 55-lap race at 13:47 Eastern time.
“Overall I’m having mixed feelings. On one side I am happy that we managed to improve the car balance, on the other hand we had an issue where I just lost straight-line power on my second run. When I compare to Callum, it was like around four tenths on the straights so it should have been enough to put me in the top six of our group. That said, I was quite happy with my run, I managed to improve and generally get a bit more confidence and feel with the car so overall it's good. We're going to be starting 17th tomorrow so we'll do our best in the race to get some positions and move forwards.”
“The car was good; we improved a lot since FP2. It was great to be third in our group. The first run in the Top 12 was not so good, the tyres were quite used and just didn't have a good feeling or rhythm. On the second run we put the new tyres on, it felt really good on the first lap but unfortunately everyone else backed up in front and so I didn't get to complete it. I think it would have been a Fast Six lap. On the last lap the tyres are gone a little bit, so we’re P9 which is the first top 10 start for the #90 car and everything feels pretty good for tomorrow.”