Robert Shwartzman is one of rookie three drivers racing in IndyCar this season, and he is finding it difficult to fully understand how to get the most out of his new car.
The Israeli national has an extra challenge in that his PREMA team is also new to IndyCar this season, so they are working through a long list of unknowns together.
Shwartzman has some assistance from his experienced team-mate Callum Ilott, but the young driver still needs as much seat time as possible to begin earning meaningful results.
His learning schedule has been hampered by issues outside of his control, however, including radio problems in his first race in St. Petersburg and a car fire at The Thermal Club.
“We have had really a lot of issues, which has compromised quite a lot,” Shwartzman told Motorsportweek.com during the Barber race weekend.
“From one side that hurts a lot for me because I’m a rookie and I need that time to drive. But on the other hand, it’s an experience and it’s normal with a new team there is a high chance of having some issues.
“For me, the hardest part is just to understand how this car works. It seems that we don’t know yet. It’s very technical, very thin. There is a lot of things you can play around with. And because we don’t have any more testing, a couple days of testing and that’s it, for us it’s difficult to understand at the moment how to set it up properly. At least compared to other teams.”
Shwartzman competed in Formula 2 during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, which has been described as having a similar feel to IndyCar.
There are still a host of new details to learn how that he is racing stateside, including everything from car setup, hybrid utilization, and even the pacing of the race weekends.
Shwartzman will start his fifth IndyCar race this weekend at the IMS road course, where hopes to make improvements upon his best result to date, an 18th place result at Long Beach.
