Baptism of fire continues for Shwartzman and Prema

On his outing lap in Free Practice 1, the driver of the #83 Dallara-Chevrolet had to stop and get out as quickly as possible! The cause was a fire that broke out at the rear of the chassis. The cause was an unspecified problem with the fuel tank. The fire spread slightly to the cockpit, which forced Shwartzman to abandon ship very quickly, without having been able to achieve a single fast lap during the first session. Despite the intervention of the safety services, the Italian team could only conclude that the chassis and the power unit of the car of the Israeli.

A fire for Robert Shwartzman and PREMA Racing in Thermal Practice 1. pic.twitter.com/Ii0zZlG0Lz

— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) March 21, 2025

A titanic task then began, to prepare the reserve chassis that Prema had brought to California, and to fit it with as many viable parts as possible from Shwartzman's initial car. The mechanics of Callum Ilott's car No. 90 also helped as much as possible, and the former AF Corse driver in WEC was able to return to the track for an installation lap at the very end of the second free practice session. There was no question of performing another fast lap, but at least to reassure themselves that all the systems were working after such a quick rebuild.

« We don't know (the cause) because there is a lot of damage at the moment.", team manager Piers Phillips told IndyStar. “Everything burned. It's a real mess, but it's too early to make any assumptions. There is so much damage that you can't see it. There is nothing left. Everything melted. The fire even entered the cockpit through the holes where the two electrical harnesses enter. That's why he came out quickly. CThis is the last thing we needed. This kid can't get lucky."

Continuous bad luck

Robert Shwartzman was unable to perform a miracle in qualifying, and he will start from last position on the grid for his second IndyCar race. « This weekend has been extremely bad so far, as we didn't complete any laps in free practice. The team made incredible efforts overnight to build a new car, but with a very limited number of laps, it was very unbalanced. I thought with the second set of tires I could try to improve something to try to change the balance of the car a little bit, but I didn't manage to do a final lap. It's incredible how unlucky we've been since the start of the season."

After seeing the finish with both cars in St. Petersburg, Prema hopes to do the same at Thermal. And let's hope for their rookie that things will go more traditionally at Long Beach in three weeks...

ALSO READ > Pato O'Ward leads McLaren one-two in qualifying at Thermal