Prema Racing has unveiled the shock signing of Romain Grosjean as reserve driver, but he's not the only ex-Formula 1 addition to its ranks.
As part of its team unveiling at General Motors in North Carolina on January 10, which included the first look at its 2025 livery, it has also revealed details about its new factory and the people working in it.
Aside from a couple of key personnel who were known, this is the first confirmation of a large number of the staff that will work for its IndyCar team this year.
Here’s what we learned from Friday's launch event.
Key Figures
Angelo Rosin - team founder
Deborah Mayer - team owner
Rene Rosin (above, right) - team owner
Guillaume Capietto - Prema Racing group technical director
The IndyCar team itself has unveiled a host of new signings too, with key roles in the team. We've outlined those for you below.
Who's who elsewhere in the team?
Piers Phillips (above, left) - IndyCar team CEO
Phillips has filled a host of management roles at the likes of Schmidt Peterson, Brabham and most recently he was president of Rahal Letterman Lanigan from 2018-2022.
Michael Cannon - head of engineering
A legendary engineer who has worked for Forsythe, Ed Carpenter, Andretti, Dale Coyne, Ganassi and most recently spearheaded an enormous improvement of the AJ Foyt team as its technical director for the last two years.
Graham Quinn - operations manager
An engineer who has filled a host of team manager roles too, working for Prodrive, Andretti and RLL.
Alessandro Vantini - technical coordinator
Engineer and driver coach who worked in F4 before joining Ferrari's Driver Academy, where he worked with its young talents from 2020-24.
Ryan Briscoe - Sporting advisor
Seven-time IndyCar race winner who went on to be successful in sportscars and has more recently worked as a driver coach in IndyCar. Briscoe won the Formula 3 Euro Series for Prema in 2003.
Joao Ginete - race engineer for Shwartzman
Aerodynamicist with F1 experience at McLaren, Red Bull - where he also worked on the Valkyrie - and most recently aero performance engineer at Haas.
Steve Barker - race engineer for Illott
Formerly Ilott's engineer at Juncos Hollinger Racing and moves over to take up the same role at Prema.
Robert Gue - R&D engineer
Former Pratt & Miller and Arrow McLaren engineer.
John McGill - aero leader
Race engineer in F1 for Honda (2000), Benetton/Renault (2001-06) and Toro Rosso in 2007 before joining Prema the following year. McGill had a brief spell in senior engineering roles at Hitech and HWA (2015-19) before returning to Prema.
It's a star-studded roster and about the best line-up you could imagine for Prema's attempts to blend European and American ways of working.
When it announced its team, it did so with great respect for the American culture and great teams that had gone before, wanting to channel that and conjoin the DNA of racing in North America with its own experiences in Europe. Its mixture of staff will help with that.
People like Gue, Barker and Cannon will be invaluable when it comes to adapting to ovals, too, which is the only true new thing on the horizon for Prema. It's raced in new series and disciplines before, but never has it raced at this level with single-seaters on ovals.
The factory itself - in Fishers, just northeast of Indianapolis - where this group will be working has been specially designed for the team.
It's 100,000 square feet, with 4 double car bays, 60 workstations, 18 offices, and over 50 staff members, plus three trailers built and ready ahead of what is expected to be the first test at the Thermal Club on January 28, with a shakedown likely sometime before that.
As the team did not receive charters for 2025 - and as yet hasn't been able to purchase any - it will have to qualify for all races this year. But as things stand, including Prema there will be 27 entries at most races, which means it should automatically qualify for most events unless a new or existing team brings an extra car.
