PREMA Racing showed positive speed in the second race of the weekend at Iowa Speedway, and Robert Shwartzman converted this to the team’s best result of its debut season.
Less than 24 hours after racing, the cars rolled out once more for another 275-lap contest. The grid was determined on the second laps in qualifying.
Both Shwartzman and Ilott had better grid spots for Sunday’s race, lining up 11th and 13th respectively.
Shwartzman stayed in his position in the early part of the race while Ilott dropped back slightly until the first caution on lap 50.
Both cars lost out in the subsequent pit cycle – Ilott due to a slower stop and Shwartzman with a pit speed penalty.
On the restart, both drivers made moves to work up the order. Ilott worked up from 18th to 11th, while Shwartzman moved from the back up to 18th before the second caution period on lap 130.
Everyone pitted again before the restart. Ilott had a penalty for not being in line when the green flag flew, which dropped him out of contention.
Shwartzman climbed back up to 16th before Ilott crashed out on lap 177.
Everyone, bar one car, made what many thought was the final stop under this caution, with Shwartzman restarting from 16th with under 100 laps to go.
Shwartzman was on a charge on the restart, moving his way into 12th and holding position as the race headed towards its conclusion.
Some drivers opted to pit for fresh tires in the closing stages, and many had done so when the caution flags flew once more.
Shwartzman had not pitted and benefitted from this as he was able to pit under yellow, moving into the top five for a final dash to the chequered flag.
Despite dropping a few positions in the frantic final laps, Shwartzman was able to hold onto ninth for his and the team’s best result of the season.
The team now heads over the border to Canada and to Toronto for the final street course of the season next Sunday.
#83 ROBERT SHWARTZMAN
"It was an eventful race. At the beginning we were holding onto the top ten then I managed to do a mistake in the pitlane, which I am sorry for. I drove back up the order and I knew we had a pretty strong car. From then on I just tried to overtake as many cars as possible try to move up the field and try to gain my positions from the beginning. It was a bit tough but with the pitstops it started to become a bit easier. I was overtaking one car at a time and I was running in fourth when there was a yellow. I tried to defend as best as I could on the last restart but after a misunderstanding on how we approached the final stop the car was just drifting around on old tires and it was extremely tough. I lost quite a few positions. I'm very gutted for that because I’m very sure that I could hold onto the top five for the team."
#90 CALLUM ILOTT
"We had good pace during that race. We had a pretty bad first stop which set us back a bit and I managed to come back through after one of the restarts and then settled into about 11th or 12th. On the last restart I did they were late to call the green flag. Unfortunately people checked up in front of me and I had to avoid it and they gave me a very strict penalty for that. Then we were just a lap down trying to make up for it and unfortunately got caught out by the car in front. They didn't do anything wrong; they changed line compared to the lap before and I just lost the air on my car and lost it. Not a good weekend overall. We showed a lot of pace but there was nothing to come from it."