We are only ten days away from the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season opener from St. Petersburg, and we have previewed all the team, except one. It is with good reason. We don't know if Prema will compete at all in 2026.
Prema did not compete in any preseason testing, including the official IndyCar test which just concluded from Phoenix Raceway. The Italian team has experienced some ownership changes as team founder Angelo Rosin and his son Rene were among those who left the organization. The team has said it is still working to make the grid at some point in 2026, but that is far from a guarantee.
With this uncertainty we aren't going to preview Prema, but discuss the team's situation, and what has been lost with the team shrinking from a full-time program.
2025 Prema Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 6th (Laguna Seca, Portland)
Poles: 1 (Indianapolis 500)
Championship Finishes: 21st (Callum Ilott), 24th (Robert Shwartzman)
Where does Prema stand?
At this moment, it will not be full-time, and its first race of 2026, if it ever makes it to the racetrack, appears to be unknown. Funding has been the major issue for the program, and Prema has been looking for new backers since the end of the 2025 season. Team CEO Piers Phillips has reportedly been seeking support throughout the offseason.
Both drivers from the 2025 season are believed to be under contract with the team. Callum Ilott has taken on a full-time IMSA role with Wright Motorsports in the GT Daytona class. The only IMSA race that clashes with an IndyCar round is the August 23 race from Virginia International Raceway. This was originally not a clash until the Washington, D.C. round was added to the IndyCar calendar earlier this month. Robert Shwartzman has no reported deals in any series for this year.
Rumors state Prema will not be on the grid until Long Beach at the earliest though there has been no official timetable to the team's 2026 season.
What is lost?
Losing a two-car team will create space on the track and in the pit lane, which should give everyone a little more breathing room. It also clears up any issues with entering open entries. With a 27-car limit to every grid outside the Indianapolis 500 and 25 spots reserved for the chartered entries, Prema took the two available spots at every race in 2025. Without Prema, the door is open for a team to run an additional car without a risk of missing the race.
There have been no official words about any teams adding cars for any races outside of the Indianapolis 500, but once we are through the first two or three months of the season and we know how active Prema will be, we could see a few teams roll out additional cars later in the season.
While the loss has created opportunities, it does mean the likes of Ilott and Shwartzman will likely not be competing in 2026. Ilott has been racing in IndyCar since the end of the 2021 season. While at Juncos Hollinger Racing, Ilott had some impressive drives to top ten and even top five finishes. As a rookie, Shwartzman had two top ten finishes, but his 2025 season will be remembered for an incredible pole position at the Indianapolis 500.
We saw plenty of growing pains for Prema in its first year, but it was making strides. Ilott had four top ten finishes in the final five races, and we cannot forget the speed the team showed at Indianapolis.
What has Prema's experience told us about IndyCar?
Prema may have been a year too late with its entry to IndyCar. Entering in 2025 with the introduction of charters saw the team miss out at least one, if not two, guaranteed spots on the grid while also competing for Leader Circle funding. Prema could not control when IndyCar would change its business model in terms of prize money for the teams, nor could it plan on being entirely left out in the cold.
Prema did announce its IndyCar intentions for 2025 before the charter system was introduced. The team could have been given a spot considering it was committed to running full-time, but Prema was left to fend for itself.
Being a European-based team that had predominantly competed in juniors series previously. Prema was not the first such team to enter IndyCar. Less than a decade ago, it was Carlin. Both teams experienced the same learning curve, and in Prema's case it was not going to overcome it in year one.
Both Carlin and Prema struggled with funding. Carlin's introduction to IndyCar largely came down to the team being partially owned by Grahame Chilton, father of Max Chilton, and then-CEO of Gallagher Insurance, while also having a second car backed with sponsorship from Charlie Kimball. In the junior series, there is always someone willing to fund a seat, especially one for a quality team. In contemporary IndyCar, funded drivers help, but they are not going to turn a team into a contender, let alone keep them alive for long.
After year one, Carlin's second entry was on life-support and dependent on other funded drivers. Kimball stuck around on a part-time basis, but then Patricio O'Ward came in before briefly becoming a Red Bull junior driver. Sage Karam and RC Enerson brought some money for a few races, but after one-year of that experiment, Carlin shrunk to one-car and it was out of IndyCar after two more years.
Prema was on the same path. It was largely self-funded, but it did not have the infrastructure to court sponsors in the United States, just like Carlin. It had to attract some kind of partner after year one and it has come up empty.
Such a business model has its shortcomings with IndyCar. For junior series drivers, bringing money to a team has promise if it is leading to something greater. A driver can bring $2.5 million to a Formula Two team because there is something larger down the line. A driver could move into Formula One and that sponsor supporting a driver could easily gets its money back having a small decal on a Formula One car. The investment is work the risk. In IndyCar, the money required to fill a seat is nearly double that of Formula Two, and there is nothing higher. IndyCar is the limit and its popularity, or lack thereof, makes the price tag hard to justify. With no chance of moving up to another level and seeing a greater return on investment and more required to enter the series, IndyCar becomes a less attractive option.
Financing any IndyCar team is a difficult task. Not having the manpower to scout for sponsors and make connections makes survival bleak. We must acknowledge even if Prema had a charter entry and two charter entries, it was having issues greater than that base payment. It would have helped, but the team had greater financial issues and likely would have still been in an uphill battle entering the 2026 season.
What comes next?
There is hope Prema makes the grid, even if it is under a different name should someone purchase the assets. It feels like we could see an entry from this organization appear on the grid at some point. It could be a legitimate part-time entry and run a handful of races. It could be an Indianapolis 500-only program. It could see Ilott or Shwartzman in the car. It could see neither and be an entirely different driver. The program could never materialize.
For Ilott, it is the second time his career has stalled out in IndyCar. First was the unceremonious dismissal from Juncos Hollinger Racing. For all the fanfare from within the paddock, he is a driver that has not received the big call when opportunities have presented themselves. Another year mostly on the sideline and running sports car race could be the final straw. If a bigger team does not call, or if at least a team is willing to give Ilott structure, his IndyCar career is likely over.
As for Shwartzman, your guess is as good as mine. He has etched a spot in folklore somewhere along Fabrizio Barbazza. That isn't a bad place to be.
This will be an ongoing story over the first few months of the season. Once we get through the Indianapolis 500, we will likely move on from it, especially if a car never makes it to the grid.
The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday March 1 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage will begin at noon Eastern.
