Rookie Prema driver Robert Schwartzman has revealed the secret behind his historic pole position at the Indy 500.
The start of the month of May indicated a tough Indy 500 for Robert Schwartzman and Prema. The car initially was unprepared for practice, and not arrive for the start of the first day.
When Schwartzman could finally take to the track, his running was curtailed by car issue. The cameras showed the Israeli-Russian with his head in his hands as his appalling luck in his and Prema’s maiden Indycar series continued.
However, once he and the team started to gather data through consistent running, their runs showed pace more than comfortable enough to qualify.
Schwartzman pulled a blinder of a lap during the first stages of qualifying to progress to the Fast Six. His run in the Fast Six could not be matched by the heavyweights of Alex Palou, or Pato O’Ward.
His achievement gave Schwartzman the accolade of the rookie Indy 500 pole position since Teo Fabi in 1983. Prema also became the first rookie Indy 500 polesitter team since Mayer Motor Racing in 1984.
Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, Schwartzman said that the pace of the Prema was hidden during practice.
“Just to make it clear, I think in free practice we were definitely way faster than where we were. The problem is that other people were mainly simulating race runs while we were actually focusing on qualy [qualifying] runs.
“We were always in the free air trying to search and find the free air, obviously without the boost. So that’s why we were not as good-looking in the field because other drivers, they had slip stream, and that was definitely giving them some speed advantage.
“We didn’t really care at that stage, let’s say, at the ranking.“
Engineer critical to Robert Schwartzman Indy 500 pole
Robert Schwartzman then revealed how he got his car into the right operating window for qualifying to secure pole position. The secret was his highly experienced race engineer.
The target was just to get the car in the right window with the right balance for qualy,” he said. “Again, that’s another thing.
“I would have not known how to approach it, but luckily, there is my engineer, Eric, who have done that in the past, he was a Joseph engineer, and he knew how Indy 500 works. That was his input, and he said, Guys, we’re going to do it like this. Obviously we have full trust in him. At the end here we are. He managed to give me a pole position car.
Schwartzman and Prema switching focus to the race
The elation of securing pole position for the Indy 500 will quickly fade for Schwartzman, as focus shifts to next weekend’s race.
With only two days of practice left until the iconic race, he stated the importance of the sessions.
“For sure,” he said. “For me, like I said, we spoke with Ryan who was helping me, Ryan Briscoe, and he was, like, basically Indy splits in two races.
“There is one race that is just qualy’s and then there is another race which is actual race. For me it’s the same approach.
“We don’t have much time obviously, and we need to try to figure out what’s about best way for the race car, how is it going to be looking like?
“Plus, I don’t have much experience. I have none experience racing on oval, so don’t know exactly how are the overtakes, how do you defend? It’s something absolutely new. So I don’t want to put any high expectation on myself on that point.
“It’s obviously amazing to start first, but again, I just probably take it easy. I guess I need to just analyze and see what the others are also doing because, you know, it’s very easy to make be a mistake here. As I said, it can cost a lot.
“I just want to make it a smooth ride. The approach is just we use maximum we can the free practice we got for the race, and then hopefully it’s going to be good enough to put the car in a decent position. Then we’re just going to race. I try to enjoy the battling, the racing with the other guys.”
