Prema out of IndyCar's St. Petersburg Grand Prix

The official entry list for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg confirms what was anticipated and Prema will not participate in the first round of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season. There will be 25 cars taking the start this Sunday, March 1st, on the streets of Florida, exactly one year since the team debuted on this same circuit with the ambition of replicating in North America what they had built over decades in European junior categories. One year later, the American operation is in crisis and its continuity depends on an asset sale that has not yet materialized. Prema has not been assigned a space in the garages or in the team area for this weekend, ruling out any last-minute appearance.

Photo By Penske Entertainment

The 2025 season was not a sporting failure

Although the absence in St. Petersburg does not necessarily mean the end of the project, it does force a review of what the 2025 season left behind. Prema ran all 17 rounds of the calendar with Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman, and both drivers scored points from start to finish. Ilott accumulated 78 points with an eighth-place finish in Toronto as his best result, a modest but reasonable figure for a team in its first season. Shwartzman was more productive with 104 points and, above all, with the pole position at the Indianapolis 500, something no other debutant team had achieved in recent years.

That pole in Indianapolis was Prema's best moment in IndyCar, but that Shwartzman finished 26th in that same race and that Ilott finished last with a regulatory infraction says a lot about the other side of the project: there was speed at certain times, but never the consistency that a full season against Penske, Ganassi, and McLaren demands. Prema finished far from the top spots in the team championship, without podiums or victories, and what has the project on the ropes is not the lack of speed but the lack of money.

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Operating without a charter in today's IndyCar is almost impossible

Since 2025, IndyCar operates with a franchise system similar to NASCAR in which a charter guarantees a place on the grid for each race, with the exception of the Indianapolis 500, and gives access to the Leaders Circle program, which distributes significant financial bonuses at the end of the season. On the secondary market, analysts estimate that a charter could be worth between 20 and 30 million dollars.

Prema never had one, and that meant competing without a guaranteed entry to each race if the grid fills up and outside the revenue system designed to provide financial stability to permanent teams. For a newly arrived team, with no history in the category and without strong sponsors, that position was unsustainable from day one.

The bankruptcy of DC Racing Solutions accelerated the collapse

DC Racing Solutions, the parent company that operates Prema in North America, could not keep the operation afloat. Its financial difficulties led to the departure of the Rosin family, founders of the team over four decades ago and directly responsible for the reputation that Prema built in Europe. Without the Rosins, the current management concentrated resources where the operation remains viable and abandoned IndyCar as the first cost-cutting measure. Prema did not make payments to basic suppliers during the winter, did not participate in any pre-season sessions, and arrives in March 2026 as a team in formal bankruptcy on American soil.

Carlin walked the same path and also did not survive

Prema is not the first European team to try its luck in IndyCar and fail to sustain itself. Carlin Motorsport entered the series in 2018 with a heavy name in junior categories and international-profile drivers, competed for four seasons without obtaining significant results, and by 2022 had already abandoned the category to refocus its operation towards Indy NXT, where costs are a fraction of what the main series demands.

And the pattern comes from further back, because in the CART era, teams like EuroInternational competed with modest results and without real continuity. IndyCar is a category where local infrastructure, relationships with suppliers, and proximity to the industrial base of Indianapolis weigh as much as what happens on track, and a European team that arrives without those support networks starts at a disadvantage that pure speed does not compensate for.

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Ilott and Shwartzman remain under contract but have nowhere to race

The two drivers who raced the 2025 season remain contractually linked to Prema, but neither participated in any activity during the winter. If the asset sale progresses, their contracts could be part of the package, and a buyer intending to operate the two cars would benefit from retaining two drivers with experience in IndyCar and in Formula 1, particularly Shwartzman, who has already proven that he can fight for the pole in the most important race on the calendar. The alternative is that they become free if the new owner prefers to start with their own drivers.

Prema's assets lose value with each week that passes

The current management needs to sell the two cars, the Indiana headquarters, the engine contract, and the remaining operational resources as soon as possible. There are interested parties, and rumors point to some wanting to enter the grid in one of the three remaining March races in Phoenix, Arlington, or Alabama, although putting together a functional operation in weeks is a huge logistical challenge.

The most realistic date to see these cars back on track is the Grand Prix of Long Beach, scheduled for April 19th, which would give at least six weeks to close the deal, prepare the cars, and define drivers. Each week without a signature reduces what the package is worth, because two charter-less entries are only useful if enough races remain ahead to justify the investment, and with four races only in March, time is running against them.