A rookie driver for a brand new team won the pole for the Indianapolis 500 on a strange day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where Team Penske was disqualified before the final two rounds of qualifying.
Robert Shwartzman, a 25-year-old with dual nationality in Israel and Russia, became the first Indy 500 rookie to qualify on the pole since 1983 when he did it for Prema Racing.
The last rookie to qualify on the Indy 500 pole was Teo Fabi. Coincidentally, he was an Italian — just like Prema, which was also founded in ’83. Prema is established in Europe and races in the Formula 2 series. It made its IndyCar debut this season.
Shwartzman initially raced under the Russian flag until the start of the war with Ukraine. He now races under the Israeli flag, which makes the Tel Aviv native the first driver from Israel to make “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
Prema is the first team making its debut in the Indy 500 to land on the pole since Mayer Motor Racing put Tom Sneva there in 1984.
Shwartzman’s four-lap average of 232.790 mph beat out a host of open-wheel racing’s biggest stars to earn the first spot on the starting grid for the May 25 race.
Shwartzman, who has never before raced on an oval, was mobbed by a sea of red-clad team members as soon as his pole-winning run became official.
“Honestly it feels like I’m dreaming. I just had it in my dreams when I was going how would it feel to do such a good job in quali,” he said. “It’s the Indy 500. It’s the main race of the year. Honestly it feels unbelievable.”
Then, he made an impassioned plea for peace in the Middle East, where Israel has been at war with Hamas-led Palestinian groups since 2023, and Eastern Europe, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with top US officials Sunday ahead of a phone call between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at ending their war.
“I just want peace in the world,” Shwartzman said. “I want people to be good, and I don’t want the separation of countries, saying, ‘This is bad country. This is good country.’ There is no bad or good. We’re all human beings, and we just have to support each other. We need to find ways to, let’s say, negotiate things. Find ways to agree on things, you know? Because from my experience, there is always, you know, a gold medal, I’m calling it — like, there’s always the right path.”
The war in Gaza erupted on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a devastating invasion of southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw hundreds abducted as hostages to Gaza.
Shwartzman was surprised by the raucous cheer he received upon winning the pole — and really, the reception he has had among American racing fans throughout the month — given the way he was treated by many fans in Europe.
“Here, I feel really good with the fans. In my couple years in Europe, it was a bit more tense for me, I have to admit,” he said. “Some fans supported me but some were against me. There were very tough moments in my life where I didn’t do anything bad. I didn’t support anything. I generally support people from my country, but all people with respect, and some people were saying bad things just because of where I was born.”
Perhaps those experiences were one of the reasons why Shwartzman was so vocal in asking for peace on Sunday.
“I really hope that at the end of the day, everything’s going to be good in the world. It’s going to be all calm,” he said. “From my side, I try to just, you know, represent my country and do my best, let people know that I’m here and that I’m giving it all.”
Shwartzman was born in Tel Aviv and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He began racing go-karts when he was four years old, and eventually, his budding career in motorsports took him to Italy and elsewhere in Europe.
He’s a former member of the Ferrari Driver Academy and served as a Formula 1 reserve driver until just last year.
In November, he was hired by Italy-based Prema Racing as one of two drivers for its nascent IndyCar program. He’d never raced on an oval before arriving at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where speeds can reach up to 240 mph on the straightaways, and he was considered an afterthought to qualify anywhere near the front of the prestigious Indy 500.
He was the fourth of six drivers to make their qualifying attempt and took the pole from Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan. But he still had to wait for Pato O’Ward of McLaren and Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing to make their runs, and he nervously watched from the pit lane.
O’Ward went first and landed in the third spot, and Rosenqvist dropped to fifth, sandwiched in the second row between Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon and Alex Palou. It was a strange finishing order as the Ganassi cars were expected to battle each other for the top starting spot in next Sunday’s race.
“Rookie on pole with Shwartzman — how wild does that get? New team. I didn’t see that coming at all,” said 2008 winner Dixon.
The pole was wide open for the taking first when Team Penske was disqualified from qualifying for an illegal modification on the cars of two-time defending Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden and Will Power, and Scott McLaughlin destroyed his car in a Sunday morning crash during practice.
Shwartzman’s engineer is Eric Leichtle, who spent a season with Team Penske as the engineer for Newgarden in 2022. Leichtle left motorsports and spent the past two years working for SpaceX as a senior structures engineer.