IndyCar will be taking over the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida for their season opener this weekend and the amount of story lines going into the first race of 2025 seems unending.
Between the debut of not only the three drivers of Louis Foster, Jacob Abel, and Robert Schwartzman, but also the IndyCar race for Prema as they move over from the European circuit, there will be many questions heading into the weekend about how well each will perform.
There is a lot of hype around Prema ahead of their IndyCar debut because of their past success in Europe and the large amounts of money that they have put into their effort to be a competitive IndyCar team from the moment the green flag drops on Sunday. Being competitive immediately is a very difficult task, but not impossible with the right funding, leadership, and drivers in the car. With Callum Ilott and Robert Schwartzman at the wheel, it’ll be largely up to their performance that determines the amount of success that Prema achieves not only this weekend, but throughout this entire season.
Prema Founder Angelo Rosin said while talking to IndyCar Journalist Paul Kelly, “The biggest challenge has been starting from zero,” Rosin said. “We started a bit less than a year ago with the selection of the factory base. From there on, the movement into this new organization, we wanted it to be the right environment, the right blend between the European and American mentality, and always focusing on performance and the results, but keeping a family environment and a patient environment. For us, this is very important.”
It will be extremely interesting to see if the blend of the European and American mentality is successful in IndyCar this season.
Another major storyline going into the 2025 NTT IndyCar season is will FOX’s first broadcast live up to the hype?
So far, FOX’s dedication to IndyCar has been extremely present as they took over the IndyCar broadcasting rights from NBC this offseason. Between numerous commercials, social media campaigns, and the fact that they were able to steal Will Buxton from F1 TV to come cover IndyCar for the near future, FOX’s commitment to growing the sport to new heights is very present.
All of the talk around FOX was kicked off when an overflow of praise was the result of a 3 day media shoot hosted at the Indianapolis Convention Center in early January. I had the opportunity to Intern for FOX during the shoot and help them make sure that their first media shoot was as high quality as FOX production standards typically are. I cannot say too much about what was shot and any content that was made, but I can say that FOX is definitely taking IndyCar seriously and I have no doubts FOX Executive Producer, Eric Shanks, and his crew will bring the series to places that couldn’t have been dreamed of 5 years ago.
Despite the large amounts of confidence in FOX and optimism about the broadcasts going into the season, Team Owner Chip Ganassi expressed concern on how FOX’s media attempts might correlate to TV ratings when he talked to racer.com journalist, Marshal Pruett: “Everything that FOX is doing so far is just fantastic with the ads and with the awareness that they’re bringing….more people saw the IndyCar ads at the Super Bowl than watched IndyCar racing all last year, combined. So that’s the kind of power they have, and we’re fortunate to have them as a partner. But I don’t know if it’s that direct with (TV) ratings.”
Every IndyCar fan is excited to see not only the quality of the broadcast that FOX puts on this weekend, but the amount of people that tune in to see The NTT IndyCar Series kick off their 2025 season on the streets of St. Petersburg this weekend.
For more IndyCar news, opinions, and race predictions tune into the podcast Across the Bricks with myself and Justin Scott 25’, streaming on Spotify and the Irish Connection Website.
