R02 Thermal Race Club – NTT INDYCAR SERIES Qualifying Report – PREMA Racing continues to build with Thermal Race Club qualifying

PREMA Racing’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman made the most of a challenging weekend to date around the Thermal Race Club in qualifying.
Following two 45-minute Free Practice sessions, the NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers took to the circuit to decide the grid for the first points-paying race at the desert-based venue.
The first road course of the season, Thermal’s long, fast sequential corners make for a very different challenge to St. Petersburg three weeks ago. PREMA Racing carries on getting to grips with the different processes and nuances of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, including the qualifying format.
Both of PREMA Racing’s drivers were in the second group. Shwartzman’s preparation for the weekend was severely hampered by a practice issue but he did a solid job to get some laps in at a decent pace on the softer red-sidewalled Firestone tires, continuing to build his experience in this category.
Ilott meanwhile produced a solid effort to conclude his group in 11th place with his final tour, six tenths away from making the second segment of qualifying around one of the longest laps of the season.
The team and drivers will now prepare overnight and in the warmup ahead of Sunday’s race with the green flag dropping at 3:22 PM EST.

#83 ROBERT SHWARTZMAN
“This weekend so far has been extremely bad as we did not complete any laps in Free Practice. The team did an incredible effort overnight to build a new car but with the very limited running it was very unbalanced as a result. For my first push lap, it felt okay until Turn Four but then, I just locked up and the tires were already gone. I thought with the second set I could try to improve something to try to change the car balance a bit, but then I had a drive-through, so I didn’t manage to put in a final lap. It is unbelievable how unlucky we have been so far this season.”

#90 CALLUM ILOTT
“It was not the not the best session. We weren’t in the right balance when I was out on the Primaries and tried to make it better for the Alternates, but it wasn’t perfect and just couldn’t quite get it together. We still have a lot to learn from everything so far this weekend. It’s very hot and it doesn’t make it easy for us, but this race with the heat and tire degradation there’s probably quite a lot of room to move forwards. But we will have to work overnight and see on race day.”