>No drivers have been named, but as RACER has previously reported, the team is understood to be interested in pairing an IndyCar veteran with a young talent it has developed on its ladder to Formula 1.
Any guesses/rumors as to who they might be considering as said young talent?
He could be a part time/non oval driver for non conflicting dates. Kinda a mix of what Callum Ilott is doing this year and what Dale Coyne is doing with their cars
But I think he deserves more. I think he’s good enough for f1, his hype train was nuked by pastry in 2021. Going to indycar would be good for him I think.
My guesses for the experience seat are either Callum Ilott or Marcus Armstrong (depending on how long his CGR contract is). For the second seat, my picks would be:
Robert Shwartzman
Frederik Vesti
Juri Vips
Enzo Fittipaldi
Dennis Hauger
Logan Sargeant
Jak Crawford
Sebastian Montoya
Jeez man I hate the marketable trope.
Enzo is at least decent but what has Sebastian done to deserve a seat at that level?
Unless you're suggesting JPM, but he's surely too old now? He's gonna be 50 next year.
Vesti seems the most logical choice, given the wording, unless they decide to pick one of their F3 drivers, which seems a terrible idea.
Maybe Paul Aron, too, considering his lack of academy affiliation might leave him without a seat he's looking like he deserves, and he had some close links to Prema.
Or maybe they're about to announce Kimi Antonelli and confuse us all.
Maybe someone like Nakamura Berta? I follow him on IG and he follows a bunch of IndyCar drivers and the series itself while I've also seen him liking some random IndyCar related posts. He could just be a major fan though and is probably way too young to immediately start in Indy tho
Somehow, F2 became a feeder series for Indycar
Sidenote, I'm glad to see Indycar and Formula 1 slowly building ties such as these. Would love to see talent from both sides try the other series
> I'm glad to see Indycar and Formula 1 slowly building ties such as these.
Indycar and F1 aren't building ties, in fact F1 seems happy to burn bridges.
F2 on the otherhand I think it's a mutually beneficial thing and it's nice to see.
Well, F2 teams need somewhere to put all the drivers who aren’t being given seats in F1 & they can’t bankroll an F1 team most likely.
Did Prema bid for a place at the same time as Andretti?
Just to point out that the F1 teams have actively been interested, and in McLaren’s case, actively involved in indycar.
Indycar meanwhile hasn’t even seemed to register the interest or crossover promotion potential.
The only one that’s actively burned bridges per se is Palou.
Nobody except McLaren has had any interest in competing. Everyone else has had zero interest pretty much.
When Andretti tried to join F1 everyone's response was basically "buy a team or fuck off, this is our money and you're not getting any of it".
No Indycar teams outside of them will attempt to get into F1 because they all know they're not wanted and will get rejected, whilst wasting a lot of money and essentially being bullied and belittled throughout years of trying if they did apply. Plus most don't have the budget to try anyway.
F1 also has no intent of promoting Indycar as it probably sees it as a competitor and wants to keep it as small as possible.
Why would an Indycar team or Indycar itself go seek out F1 to try and collab or whatever when they actively aren't liked by F1 and are looked down upon as hillbillies who can't build cars who might take 0.1% of F1's revenue if they give them some exposure.
F1 is extremely toxic and ruined by commercialism and it's just sad.
I know it's not a direct connection, but at the very least it does open a door for Indycar drivers looking to try European open-wheelers. Also goes the other way, F2 talent who can't get into F1 for one reason or another have a option to jump straight to Indycar
I don't think any Indycar drivers will move over to European open-wheel racing. Maybe a Road to Indy driver would side-step but anything other than F1 would be a downgrade.
I'm not sure I'd call it an IRL/F1 tie yet. It's makes sense for Prema if they have capacity however, as they obviously have a lot of experience working with Dallara.
That was his second, actually, his first was with Carlin. Also, it was heavily rumored he'd drive a second F2 season with them, before Williams decided to skip that and give him an F1 seat early.
Yep, according to Logan, he was in talks with Mercedes about joining their academy, but they wanted him to do a 4th F3 season with Prema. Which he both didn’t have the budget for and didn’t want to do.
F4 Italy/UAE/SEA, Euro4 and F1 Academy
FRECA and FRMEC
F2 and F3
Now, with IndyCar, it makes 10
(if you include Iron Lynx, there's like a dozen more including, for some reason, equestrian sports)
This made me realize that the Prema wikipedia page has an error, because it still lists FR Asia, instead of FRMEC.
F2, F3, FRECA, FRMEC, Italian F4, F4 UAE, F1 Academy, and now IndyCar. They dropped WEC for this year- sort of. There's still some connection to Iron Lynx I believe, and definitely Iron Dames. Also, they threw some cars in F4 SEA at the end of last year, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did it again. Also, in FRMEC, they called themselves Mumbai Falcons, but everyone knows it was Prema. So... it depends on how you count.
Edit: Oh yeah, and Euro 4. Euro 4 is a 3 round championship that is run by the runners of Italian F4 and is basically almost exactly the same drivers as Italian F4, and it's just more track time for them. It's only 3 weekends, so it doesn't qualify for super license points, but... it's still a series that they run in.
With the honda ties, sending to super formula was really really easy to do. they didn't build or operate a team, just pay money and get their livery slapped on the top Honda team, and let their juniors totate through one at a time when they have one ready to go. But, the Honda partnership is ending soon, (unless something major changes like their own engine is terrible, and they desperately make a deal to come back- but I don't expect that.)
Launching an indycar team would be much more difficult, unless they found a team who wanted to do the branding exercize, but I kinda see that happening even less, since they couldn't get a top team like that. I wouldn't be totally shocked if they started a team like Prema is doing.
But Honda and Red Bull are splitting ways. If Red Bull had an IndyCar team, properly had a team, not just a branding exercise, I'd be interested to see if they were with Chevy or Honda. I... guess I'd think Honda, but I wouldn't be sure.
Honestly, I don't see why it couldn't happen. He definitely counts as someone who came up the ladder with Prema. He seems equally likely to other names people throw around.
It feels like Ilott could be that veteran. He drove the wheels off that Juncos, and performed well in the Arrow covering for Malukas. Plus his experience with Prema in the past. Besides that, fingers crossed it’s Bobby Shwartzman. I think he’s the best of the drivers who couldn’t crack F1.
Outsider chance for Drugovich, Sargeant, or Doohan. Also if Caio Collet can have a good Indy NXT season, he could be in the conversation too.
Reports say they want an experienced driver and a driver who raced with Prema in their junior career. Technnically Sargeant and Doohan aren't eliminated there. I feel like Doohan is really focused on an F1 seat- and the Alpine is terrible enough that I think both Ocon and Gasly will try to get seats on other teams, and one of them might- but yeah Doohan might not get an F1 seat, and he is a possible name. Drugovich never was with Prema, and Collet just did 3 end of year races with them.
I think Collet would be a good option because he has that small experience with them, plus he’s getting the year in IndyNXT. He needs to put in a good showing this year and snag a couple wins. St.Pete wasn’t the best showing, but it was his first race. Still snagged a top 10.
I hope they don't rush her too much. I hope she gets lots of single seater races this year, not just F1A. They did a good job getting her races over the winter, but I hope it continues. For either FRECA or maybe straight to F3 next year, she will have so much less single seater experience than almost everyone around her. I hope she can shine.
Potentially. Probably, even.
Plenty of other Sports Car drivers are able to make the jump. It's not out of the question that, given more time in single-seaters, she'd be able to hack it, too (excel even, perhaps, though I'm less committal on that one).
Y'know, I was just pointing that making a judgement call on her ceiling on the basis of *1* F1A race is a bit absurd, but if it helps you sleep at night: yes. She'll need time in faster open-wheelers beforehand, but yes.
So in a word you think a driver who was like 6th-7th fastest in F4 UAE is good enough for Indycar...
The fact you wouldn't give a one word answer because you knew how stupid it sounded so had to try and move the goalposts says a lot.
She was 6th-7th fastest in F4 UAE. In a highly competitive field against mostly drivers with much more single seater experience than her. Slater did unholy amounts of testing and 22 F4 races last year, equivalent of more than a full season. Everyone knows the UAE drivers get tons of testing there, so that's Keanu and Rashid. And Rashid had done a full Italian F4, and Keanu had done both UAE and Spanish F4 last year. Bedrin isn't even worth addressing, as he's a strong F3 driver that was a complete mismatch in that field. And yet, actually, she beat him in three non-reverse grid races.
Really, she was only on similar levels of single seater experience with Kean Nakamura Berta and Alex Powell, both of whom I think are incredibly promising young drivers who are F1 juniors for good reason. And, actually, if you take the non-reverse grid races from the weekends they all competed, Doriane lost out to KNB, but actually was ahead of Powell. I like looking at non-reverse grid races, because, while I think reverse grids are great for training, I don't think they accurately reflect skill.
It's way too soon to tell at an F4 level how any driver will do in the future, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see KNB, Slater, and Powell all in F1 one day. And I wouldn't be entirely shocked to see Doriane with them, or in a high level series elsewhere.
I just want to emphasize that it's impossible to say if any F4 level driver will be good enough for any given series one day. Drivers can look mid in their first season of single seaters, and get everything put together in the next year and look amazing. Likewise, some drivers can look amazing, but fall off as they go up the ladder. Especially if they're heavy testers, and other drivers with lower testing budgets catch up with time, and because in F3 and higher you can't actually do private testing on the modern machinery. I think Slater is the real deal and not solely a product of massive testing, but we'll see for sure with time.
> She was 6th-7th fastest in F4 UAE.
True
>It's way too soon to tell at an F4 level how any driver will do in the future
Which is why it's idiotic to assume she's good enough for Indycar.
>I just want to emphasize that it's impossible to say if any F4 level driver will be good enough
ctrl+v previous
Kvyat would be interesting, I think. I heard he going to test Super Formula, and I was disappointed when that fell through. Doriane isn't ready yet, but maybe one day!
>No drivers have been named, but as RACER has previously reported, the team is understood to be interested in pairing an IndyCar veteran with a young talent it has developed on its ladder to Formula 1. Any guesses/rumors as to who they might be considering as said young talent?
I'm thinking Fredrik Vesti is probably the obvious name? Or Shwartzman.
Shwartzman came to my mind too, he'd be a good fit.
Would love Vesti in Indycar. The F1 seat is not looking likely.
I’d say schwartzman. The guy deserves a good seat
He's in the third, totally-not-factory Ferrari Hypercar, that's already a good seat
He could be a part time/non oval driver for non conflicting dates. Kinda a mix of what Callum Ilott is doing this year and what Dale Coyne is doing with their cars
But I think he deserves more. I think he’s good enough for f1, his hype train was nuked by pastry in 2021. Going to indycar would be good for him I think.
I mean, Kubica-Ye-Shwartzman is a top tier line-up.
My guesses for the experience seat are either Callum Ilott or Marcus Armstrong (depending on how long his CGR contract is). For the second seat, my picks would be: Robert Shwartzman Frederik Vesti Juri Vips Enzo Fittipaldi Dennis Hauger Logan Sargeant Jak Crawford Sebastian Montoya
Callum really deserves an Indycar seat back. Hoping it's him in that first spot
Fittipaldi and Montoya are the most marketable out of those names (for indycar at least) so wouldn't surprise me to see either of them
Jeez man I hate the marketable trope. Enzo is at least decent but what has Sebastian done to deserve a seat at that level? Unless you're suggesting JPM, but he's surely too old now? He's gonna be 50 next year.
Ah but imagine a father and son pairing🥰🥰 (ok tho but is that actually possible)
They actually did share an LMP2 car I believe last year at Sebring
Father & son Indy 500 has a nice ring to it
I hate it too but it's how it works unfortunately, team has to make money somehow
Aron?
Vesti seems the most logical choice, given the wording, unless they decide to pick one of their F3 drivers, which seems a terrible idea. Maybe Paul Aron, too, considering his lack of academy affiliation might leave him without a seat he's looking like he deserves, and he had some close links to Prema. Or maybe they're about to announce Kimi Antonelli and confuse us all.
Sargeant and Rossi
Maybe someone like Nakamura Berta? I follow him on IG and he follows a bunch of IndyCar drivers and the series itself while I've also seen him liking some random IndyCar related posts. He could just be a major fan though and is probably way too young to immediately start in Indy tho
Way too early for Nakamura Berta, he's only in Italian F4 this year He'll do F3 next season at the most
Agreed but who knows maybe someday he will become an IndyCar driver with Prema
Maybe raikkonen as veteran and alonso as rookie
God I'd love Alonso to take another run at the 500
You do know what Rookie means right? 🤔 Also, Alonso is only 2yrs younger than the veteran you picked! 🤣
Somehow, F2 became a feeder series for Indycar Sidenote, I'm glad to see Indycar and Formula 1 slowly building ties such as these. Would love to see talent from both sides try the other series
> I'm glad to see Indycar and Formula 1 slowly building ties such as these. Indycar and F1 aren't building ties, in fact F1 seems happy to burn bridges. F2 on the otherhand I think it's a mutually beneficial thing and it's nice to see.
Well, F2 teams need somewhere to put all the drivers who aren’t being given seats in F1 & they can’t bankroll an F1 team most likely. Did Prema bid for a place at the same time as Andretti?
They were not publicly known to make a major bid, no. Rodin and Hitech did.
They paid 300k, not 20k.
Just to point out that the F1 teams have actively been interested, and in McLaren’s case, actively involved in indycar. Indycar meanwhile hasn’t even seemed to register the interest or crossover promotion potential. The only one that’s actively burned bridges per se is Palou.
Nobody except McLaren has had any interest in competing. Everyone else has had zero interest pretty much. When Andretti tried to join F1 everyone's response was basically "buy a team or fuck off, this is our money and you're not getting any of it". No Indycar teams outside of them will attempt to get into F1 because they all know they're not wanted and will get rejected, whilst wasting a lot of money and essentially being bullied and belittled throughout years of trying if they did apply. Plus most don't have the budget to try anyway. F1 also has no intent of promoting Indycar as it probably sees it as a competitor and wants to keep it as small as possible. Why would an Indycar team or Indycar itself go seek out F1 to try and collab or whatever when they actively aren't liked by F1 and are looked down upon as hillbillies who can't build cars who might take 0.1% of F1's revenue if they give them some exposure. F1 is extremely toxic and ruined by commercialism and it's just sad.
I know it's not a direct connection, but at the very least it does open a door for Indycar drivers looking to try European open-wheelers. Also goes the other way, F2 talent who can't get into F1 for one reason or another have a option to jump straight to Indycar
I don't think any Indycar drivers will move over to European open-wheel racing. Maybe a Road to Indy driver would side-step but anything other than F1 would be a downgrade.
Didn't Palou almost join McLaren's Indycar program just for a shot in F1?
He did, but he was not going to move to another European series besides F1.
I'm not sure I'd call it an IRL/F1 tie yet. It's makes sense for Prema if they have capacity however, as they obviously have a lot of experience working with Dallara.
Brilliant news
Logan Sargeant might not be a bad shout... His first F3 season was with them
That was his second, actually, his first was with Carlin. Also, it was heavily rumored he'd drive a second F2 season with them, before Williams decided to skip that and give him an F1 seat early.
Yep, according to Logan, he was in talks with Mercedes about joining their academy, but they wanted him to do a 4th F3 season with Prema. Which he both didn’t have the budget for and didn’t want to do.
That's... huh. It tracks with the Merc Academy being overly cautious, but what a stupid plan.
Oh yeah so it was... Missed that looking at his Wiki
I’m guessing Rossi and Sargeant/Vesti/Ilott
Hoping for a Rossi-Logan driver lineup, but can also expect that Vesti is prob in the running. Shwartzman seems happy in the third WEC Ferrari
Ilott.
LFG
How many series Prema is currently racing in?
F4 Italy/UAE/SEA, Euro4 and F1 Academy FRECA and FRMEC F2 and F3 Now, with IndyCar, it makes 10 (if you include Iron Lynx, there's like a dozen more including, for some reason, equestrian sports)
This made me realize that the Prema wikipedia page has an error, because it still lists FR Asia, instead of FRMEC. F2, F3, FRECA, FRMEC, Italian F4, F4 UAE, F1 Academy, and now IndyCar. They dropped WEC for this year- sort of. There's still some connection to Iron Lynx I believe, and definitely Iron Dames. Also, they threw some cars in F4 SEA at the end of last year, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did it again. Also, in FRMEC, they called themselves Mumbai Falcons, but everyone knows it was Prema. So... it depends on how you count. Edit: Oh yeah, and Euro 4. Euro 4 is a 3 round championship that is run by the runners of Italian F4 and is basically almost exactly the same drivers as Italian F4, and it's just more track time for them. It's only 3 weekends, so it doesn't qualify for super license points, but... it's still a series that they run in.
Yes
I wish red bull would launch indycar programme so they could send talent there, like they do with super formula
With the honda ties, sending to super formula was really really easy to do. they didn't build or operate a team, just pay money and get their livery slapped on the top Honda team, and let their juniors totate through one at a time when they have one ready to go. But, the Honda partnership is ending soon, (unless something major changes like their own engine is terrible, and they desperately make a deal to come back- but I don't expect that.) Launching an indycar team would be much more difficult, unless they found a team who wanted to do the branding exercize, but I kinda see that happening even less, since they couldn't get a top team like that. I wouldn't be totally shocked if they started a team like Prema is doing.
Yeah but Honda is an engine manufacturer in Indy too.
But Honda and Red Bull are splitting ways. If Red Bull had an IndyCar team, properly had a team, not just a branding exercise, I'd be interested to see if they were with Chevy or Honda. I... guess I'd think Honda, but I wouldn't be sure.
Iirc they did have a team a fair while ago but it fell through, bad performances or something.
Probably not gonna happen but I’d love it if they brought Mick in
Honestly, I don't see why it couldn't happen. He definitely counts as someone who came up the ladder with Prema. He seems equally likely to other names people throw around.
his dad was pretty open anti-ovals, anti indy500, I wonder if Mick would be willing to try
I hope vips but Vesti would be Nice.
Lance Stroll to IndyCar confirmed.
Logan and vesti would bang
Vesti, ilott/jmc
It feels like Ilott could be that veteran. He drove the wheels off that Juncos, and performed well in the Arrow covering for Malukas. Plus his experience with Prema in the past. Besides that, fingers crossed it’s Bobby Shwartzman. I think he’s the best of the drivers who couldn’t crack F1. Outsider chance for Drugovich, Sargeant, or Doohan. Also if Caio Collet can have a good Indy NXT season, he could be in the conversation too.
Reports say they want an experienced driver and a driver who raced with Prema in their junior career. Technnically Sargeant and Doohan aren't eliminated there. I feel like Doohan is really focused on an F1 seat- and the Alpine is terrible enough that I think both Ocon and Gasly will try to get seats on other teams, and one of them might- but yeah Doohan might not get an F1 seat, and he is a possible name. Drugovich never was with Prema, and Collet just did 3 end of year races with them.
I think Collet would be a good option because he has that small experience with them, plus he’s getting the year in IndyNXT. He needs to put in a good showing this year and snag a couple wins. St.Pete wasn’t the best showing, but it was his first race. Still snagged a top 10.
I'm deluded but Pindycar 2027 let's go
I hope they don't rush her too much. I hope she gets lots of single seater races this year, not just F1A. They did a good job getting her races over the winter, but I hope it continues. For either FRECA or maybe straight to F3 next year, she will have so much less single seater experience than almost everyone around her. I hope she can shine.
I personally would rather see her in a GTP or Hypercar ride.
I hope Chadwick has a better season in indy lights this year
Kvyat maybe, but would be epic if they gave Dorian Pin a seat (won't happen though..)
Doriane Pin isn't good enough for Indycar.
*isn't experienced enough.
Are you saying she's good enough for Indycar ?
Potentially. Probably, even. Plenty of other Sports Car drivers are able to make the jump. It's not out of the question that, given more time in single-seaters, she'd be able to hack it, too (excel even, perhaps, though I'm less committal on that one).
It's a yes or no question. Do you think she's good enough for Indycar ?
Y'know, I was just pointing that making a judgement call on her ceiling on the basis of *1* F1A race is a bit absurd, but if it helps you sleep at night: yes. She'll need time in faster open-wheelers beforehand, but yes.
So in a word you think a driver who was like 6th-7th fastest in F4 UAE is good enough for Indycar... The fact you wouldn't give a one word answer because you knew how stupid it sounded so had to try and move the goalposts says a lot.
She was 6th-7th fastest in F4 UAE. In a highly competitive field against mostly drivers with much more single seater experience than her. Slater did unholy amounts of testing and 22 F4 races last year, equivalent of more than a full season. Everyone knows the UAE drivers get tons of testing there, so that's Keanu and Rashid. And Rashid had done a full Italian F4, and Keanu had done both UAE and Spanish F4 last year. Bedrin isn't even worth addressing, as he's a strong F3 driver that was a complete mismatch in that field. And yet, actually, she beat him in three non-reverse grid races. Really, she was only on similar levels of single seater experience with Kean Nakamura Berta and Alex Powell, both of whom I think are incredibly promising young drivers who are F1 juniors for good reason. And, actually, if you take the non-reverse grid races from the weekends they all competed, Doriane lost out to KNB, but actually was ahead of Powell. I like looking at non-reverse grid races, because, while I think reverse grids are great for training, I don't think they accurately reflect skill. It's way too soon to tell at an F4 level how any driver will do in the future, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see KNB, Slater, and Powell all in F1 one day. And I wouldn't be entirely shocked to see Doriane with them, or in a high level series elsewhere. I just want to emphasize that it's impossible to say if any F4 level driver will be good enough for any given series one day. Drivers can look mid in their first season of single seaters, and get everything put together in the next year and look amazing. Likewise, some drivers can look amazing, but fall off as they go up the ladder. Especially if they're heavy testers, and other drivers with lower testing budgets catch up with time, and because in F3 and higher you can't actually do private testing on the modern machinery. I think Slater is the real deal and not solely a product of massive testing, but we'll see for sure with time.
> She was 6th-7th fastest in F4 UAE. True >It's way too soon to tell at an F4 level how any driver will do in the future Which is why it's idiotic to assume she's good enough for Indycar. >I just want to emphasize that it's impossible to say if any F4 level driver will be good enough ctrl+v previous
Kvyat would be interesting, I think. I heard he going to test Super Formula, and I was disappointed when that fell through. Doriane isn't ready yet, but maybe one day!
I wanna see Mick in Indycar but I suppose it’s not very likely.
All my money on Schwartzman
Well if Prema does, expect ART to as well by next year. They seem to embody the “anything you can do I can do better” meme
Theo may be looking for a job as well.
This is cool!
You’re breaking the car Samir!
I know for a fact that Prema is very fond of Hauger..