New massive Fishers race shop secured, team being built, Prema Racing begins driver search

INDIANAPOLIS -- From the rear parking lot of their brand-new, gargantuan shop – which stands to be one of the largest in the IndyCar series – is a taunting view of what Prema Racing hopes to be in just a few years’ time.

IndyCar’s newest program , set for its 2025 debut as a full-time two-car team with Chevrolet power, joins Andretti Global as the second series team to make a corner of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport in Fishers its racing headquarters .

In December of last year, Prema Racing team principal Rene Rosin and its IndyCar CEO Piers Phillips were quietly touring options large enough to house an IndyCar team and an IMSA program. When they came across the 125,000 square-foot red brick building built and owned by Patch Development with a pristine, completely empty, untouched interior, Rosin instantly told Phillips, “This is the one I want.”

In April at the team’s formal launch during Indianapolis 500 testing from the IMS media center, Prema Racing merely had a pre-agreement for a lease on the shop. In the three months since, work has begun in haste.

Of the five brand-new Dallara DW12 chassis the team ordered earlier this year, the first two are set to be delivered in a matter of days. Team trailers are set to arrive in September around the same time as the team’s other three chassis. Rosin and Phillips say they’ve already hired roughly 50% of the 45- to 50-person team that will be charged with launching Prema Racing into IndyCar in the coming months.

What was a blank canvas for a team that was merely a long-held rumor in the early months of 2024, Rosin and Phillips’ plans are quickly taking shape. More importantly, everything seems to be on schedule.

“We’ve recruited strongly from Europe in F1, F2 and F3, and there’s several individuals that have experience here (in IndyCar) or with us as well. We’re not just going to put warm bodies into positions,” Phillips told IndyStar in an exclusive sit-down earlier this month at Iowa Speedway. “We’re looking to be patient and hire the right people, because this needs to have a dynamic and an energy.

“We need a DNA that has momentum and a progressive attitude with how we go racing. It’s not about being different for the sake of being different. It’s being different to be consistently competitive. That comes with some constructive, but challenging, goals for the team, because we need that to make sure we stay on point and stay focused.”

And Phillips talks – albeit in a light, somewhat joking manner – as a team leader who plans to quickly challenge those who’ve long been at the top of the sport.

“Yep, we’re neighbors (with Andretti Global). There’s a runway in the middle, but neighbors,” he said. “They’ve already challenged us to a football game and a go-kart race.”

When a reporter mentioned that Andretti’s crew, which includes a deep three-car IndyCar program as well as a two full-time GTP class entries in IMSA, Phillips quipped, “Yes, but we’ve got talent.”

“I think we’ll generate a culture and a flavor within the team that makes Prema attractive and different than everybody else,” Phillips continued. “(IndyCar) is such a grueling championship, and next year’s going to get worse. It’s absolutely critical – and it comes from leadership on down – to really keep that energy up and keep that mentality where it needs to be to be successful.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to go to Prema’s (headquarters) in Italy and meet their people and have a look around, and you walk in, and you can feel it in the place. It just buzzes with this connection, this vibe. Everybody follows the ‘Prema way,’ and we’re very keen to do that and bring the protocols and principles from Italy, along with the successes they’ve had, over here and synergize the two sides of the team, so there aren’t two sides – it’s all one big operation that can feed each other both ways.”

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Inside the team’s new Fishers shop , work continues to turn the cavernous space into a state-of-the-art racing shop, with Rosin estimating it should be nearly a finished product by September. Outside the team’s cars and trucks, nearly all its necessary spare parts and machines big and small have been ordered.

Despite the herculean task of joining what’s arguably the most competitive high-level racing series on the planet and building a team from the ground up – even as a long-tenured, dominant junior formula series in Europe with dozens of championships and the reputation of helping propel the careers of nearly half the current Formula 1 grid – Rosin says he’s almost eerily calm and content with where his project is three months from its public reveal.

“Everything is in place and ordered and set to be delivered after the summer break,” he said. “And everything is on-time. I don’t foresee any challenges at the moment. For sure there will be some, whether it’s closer to St. Pete or for our first rollout and test, but at the moment, everything’s in place and as planned.

“Maybe some finishing work on the factory will take a bit longer, but this is quite normal when you start from scratch on a building. By September, we’ll have all the offices and operation parts up and running. The cars will be there, the mechanics will be there and the engineers will be there.”

Next up: Securing the two drivers who will propel it all once Prema Racing hits the track in earnest for testing this winter and racing next March on the streets of St. Pete. Rosin and Phillips said they’ve only recently began wide-spread outreach and in-depth conversations with managers representing European junior formula drivers, F1 challengers and IndyCar competitors alike.

Of the team’s most strongly-linked possibility – American F1 product Logan Sargeant, who’s long been rumored to end his two-year tenure with Williams F1 after this season, if not sooner – the Prema Racing principal says he’s “very close” with Sargeant’s management team and has known them even before the American racing product ran for Prema in F3 in 2020. But though the Prema and Sargeant camps have spoken about a reunion in 2025 in IndyCar, “there’s multiple drivers we’re talking with,” Rosin said. “At the moment, it’s all still too premature.

“I think we have quite a good idea of what we want to achieve (for a driver lineup). Now, we just need a little time to get everything in the right spot. Our main goal is still one (driver with IndyCar experience) and one rookie. Of course, if these drivers have knowledge of the Prema system, it would be a plus, but it’s not something that’s a key factor.”

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As Penske Entertainment finalizes the details of its yet-to-be-launched charter system – which one team owner described as “imminent” and said they expected to receive paperwork soon – Rosin reassured that even if the team has to qualify up against one or multiple non-chartered Chip Ganassi Racing entries to just make the grid in 2025, there’s no question his team will press forward and meet those challenges head-on.

When asked whether Prema had – or would be – approaching current teams looking to buy one or more charters at the launch of the system, Rosin simply said the team has been in frequent talks with IndyCar brass to learn more as the program is molded into shape.

“(The charter system) hasn’t been finalized or announced yet, so we want to see how everything impacts the series first, and once we get that, we will decide what’s the best possible plan for us,” Rosin said. “But with or without charters, Prema will compete in IndyCar in 2025.

“I’m not scared or worried. At the moment, I’m just concentrated on getting the best people, the best equipment, the best facility and the best drivers that can work together with us in achieving the best results as possible.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: New massive Fishers race shop secured, team being built, Prema Racing begins driver search