Robert Shwartzman: From Ferrari Academy to Indianapolis 500 Pole and Peugeot

Shwartzman rose through Ferrari's young driver academy and has since raced in Formula 2, IndyCar and the World Endurance Championship. He won the 2019 FIA Formula 3 Championship, finished second in Formula 2 in 2021 and started the 2025 Indianapolis 500 from pole in his first IndyCar season. His next step is a return to the WEC with Peugeot in 2027.

Who is Robert Shwartzman?

Robert Mikhailovich Shwartzman was born on 16 September 1999 in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is both Israeli and Russian, and he was raised in Saint Petersburg and in Italy. His father, Mikhail, was from Russia and died of COVID-19 in April 2020.

In formula racing he was a Ferrari junior from 2017 to 2022, and a Formula One reserve for Ferrari from 2021 to 2024. Titles in the Toyota Racing Series (2018) and FIA F3 (2019) came before Formula 2 finishes of fourth and second with Prema. Prema then signed him for its IndyCar debut, where he took the 2025 Indianapolis 500 pole.

A driver whose route from Ferrari's academy ran through three title fights and a rookie pole at Indianapolis.

How did his single-seater career begin?

Shwartzman began karting in 2004 at four and spent seven years in karts, claiming titles across Europe, mostly in Italy. In 2014 he made six starts in the Italian F4 Championship with Cram Motorsport, finishing in the points four times to rank sixteenth.

The following year he raced in the championship full-time with Mucke Motorsport. He took a first single-seater podium at Vallelunga, then his maiden wins at Adria, and he finished third overall with three wins. He also ran a full ADAC F4 season, with six consecutive podiums but no win.

In 2016 he moved into Formula Renault 2.0 with Josef Kaufmann Racing, after a test at Motorland Aragon. He won two rounds of the Northern European Cup and finished sixth. In November 2016 he was also listed for a post-season test at Yas Marina with Koiranen GP. A switch to R-ace GP in 2017 brought six wins and a third place in the standings, although he lost thirteen points to his teammate Will Palmer over the season.

Shwartzman made his Toyota Racing Series debut in the 2018 off-season with M2 Competition. He finished every one of the fifteen races in the top five, the only driver to do so that season, and won the series title with the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy. He finished ahead of M2 teammates Richard Verschoor and Marcus Armstrong.

Why did the 2019 FIA Formula 3 title matter?

Shwartzman's first European Formula 3 season came in 2018 with Prema, after tests that led to a place in the Ferrari Driver Academy. He won the third Spielberg race, then took a second win in the season finale to outscore Armstrong and claim the rookie title.

In 2019 Prema kept him for the inaugural FIA Formula 3 Championship, which merged the European series with GP3. He took pole for the first Barcelona race and was promoted to the win after a penalty for Christian Lundgaard. At Paul Ricard he was second in the feature race and won the sprint.

His season had its ups and downs. At the Red Bull Ring he qualified only twelfth after technical problems, then battled with Marcus Armstrong in the next race. Contact ended Armstrong's race, and Shwartzman crossed the line first, only to receive a five-second penalty that dropped him to third. At Silverstone he set the fastest lap and finished second, and at Monza he started third and then took a five-place grid penalty, yet he still won the third race of the weekend. He took a pole at Sochi and finished second, and his points advantage over Jehan Daruvala was enough to clinch the championship.

How did his Formula 2 years go?

Prema signed him for the 2020 Formula 2 campaign, pairing him with Mick Schumacher. The start was pushed from March to July by the COVID-19 pandemic. On debut in his rookie season, he finished third in the feature race at the Red Bull Ring.

His father had died in April, and he dedicated his first F2 win, at the second Red Bull Ring round, to him.

At Monza he started 16th and climbed to ninth, then moved up to sixth in the sprint race before being promoted a place when Dan Ticktum was disqualified. He won at the Hungaroring by fifteen seconds after a different tyre strategy. Silverstone was a rougher weekend, with an eighteenth-place start and finishes of fourteenth and thirteenth. He then won the sprint at Spa by nine seconds, and at Bahrain he led every lap of a feature race. He finished the season with four wins, the most of any driver, and fourth in the standings with 177 points. Schumacher took the title that year.

In 2021 he stayed with Prema and partnered Oscar Piastri. He won at Baku from reverse pole and at Silverstone, which he described as redemption after an earlier win was taken away. In Monaco he topped practice and qualified second, but he brushed a barrier in the first sprint and retired. At Monza a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage at the start dropped him from third to sixth, and in Sochi he finished third in front of his home crowd after a battle with Jake Hughes. He finished second in the standings with two wins, three fastest laps and eight podiums, and 192 points, 60.5 points behind Piastri. He then left the series.

What was his role at Ferrari and in Formula One?

Shwartzman was due to appear for Haas at the 2020 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but he was absent from the entry list. Later he joined the post-season test for young drivers at Haas and Ferrari in 2021. He was released from the academy in 2023 but kept on as reserve.

In 2022 he took part in two Free Practice 1 sessions for Ferrari, before the United States and Abu Dhabi rounds. At his first outing he finished sixteenth, the highest of the rookies, but well behind his teammate. In his second session at Abu Dhabi he was seventh. In 2023 he drove again in Abu Dhabi, finishing eighth overall in FP2, and completed 123 laps in the SF-23 during post-season testing.

In 2024 he was reserve for Ferrari again, running an FP1 for Kick Sauber at Zandvoort and finishing sixteenth. At the Mexico City Grand Prix he was nineteenth, and he picked up a five-place grid penalty for overtaking under double yellow flags. A month later he signed for Prema in IndyCar and announced that he had left Ferrari.

What has he done in sportscars?

Shwartzman returned to competition in 2023 in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with AF Corse, alongside Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera. That was his sportscar debut as a Ferrari factory driver. At the end of 2023 he drove the Ferrari 499P Hypercar at the Bahrain WEC rookie test and was fastest overall.

He made his World Endurance Championship debut in 2024 with AF Corse's No. 83 car, with Yifei Ye and Robert Kubica. The car finished fourth on its debut at the Qatar 1812 km race. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans it led at the six-hour mark, but a thirty-second penalty followed after Kubica made contact with Dries Vanthoor. A mechanical issue then ended the car's race after 248 laps.

The team bounced back with a victory at the Lone Star Le Mans, and finished eighth at the 8 Hours of Bahrain. That result left the car ninth in the Hypercar standings, with 57 points. Shwartzman is set to return to the WEC with Peugeot in 2027.

How did his IndyCar career unfold?

Shwartzman took part in an IndyCar test with Chip Ganassi Racing in January 2023. On 5 November 2024 Prema announced he would race full-time in 2025 alongside Callum Ilott. The team struggled in the first five rounds, with neither driver higher than 18th.

The turning point came at the 2025 Indianapolis 500, where he took pole. He became the first rookie to do so since Teo Fabi in 1983, and it was Prema's first pole in IndyCar. He crashed in the pit lane on lap 87 and did not finish, but he was named the race's Rookie of the Year.

His rookie season finished 24th in the standings, two points short of Louis Foster for the rookie title. He had top-20 finishes in all but two races and a best of ninth at Iowa, and a first top-ten at Illinois earlier in the season. His 2026 future was in doubt when Prema's commitment to the series became uncertain, and he did not secure a seat with another team for the 2026 Indianapolis 500. He became the first pole-sitter since Bruno Junqueira in 2003 not to race the following year.

Did he race in other categories?

In April 2023 Shwartzman tested for DS Penske in Formula E at the Berlin rookie test, and he took part in pre-season testing at Circuit Ricardo Tormo for the 2023-24 championship. He returned to DS Penske for the 2024 Berlin rookie test, where he was fastest overall.

Career highlights at a glance