Move over Alon Day, Israel’s 2017 Motorsports Athlete of the Year. A new Hebrew name has entered the history books;. On Sunday, rookie oval-racer Robert Shwartzman took pole position for the 109th running of ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing‘.
Robert Shwartzman is known to those who follow open-wheel racing. He ascended through the European racing series including FIA Formula 3 and Formula 2, and despite immense talent, never got his shot at Formula 1. So, in 2025 he traveled across the Atlantic with his Prema Racing team to attempt the IndyCar Series.
Against giants of American open-wheel racing like Ganassi Racing and Team Penske, the fledgling Prema Racing team sent their No. 83 car into qualifying, realistically expecting little. Shwartzman has never raced on an oval, and Indianapolis is the biggest and baddest of them all.
Shocking the racing world, the 25-year-old, Tel Aviv born Shwartzman made it through 3 rounds of qualifying to emerge with pole position for the Indianapolis 500 with a four-lap average speed of 231.295 MPH.
He’s the first rookie in 42 years to achieve top qualifying spot. Schwartzman is also the first Israeli-born driver ever to qualify for the world-famous Indianapolis 500, let alone put the car on pole. The closest an Israeli has ever come before was Alon Day the Israeli racer who made six Indy Lights starts back in 2012. But pole at Indy is a whole other level of greatness.
Israeli Robert Shwartzman will share the front row with Japan’s Takuma Sato and Mexico’s Patricio O’Ward, truly demonstrating the diverse drivers and international appeal of the historic Indianapolis 500 after more than a century.
My dad always watched this race and by the time I could afford to take off from trucking and taking him to the race in person he was too sick to go. I love all racing because I had a dad who shared his passion for speed.
Thank you for sharing this about your father, the passion for racing and speed.
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The Indy 500 is a weird event. For more than a century it’s been in the public consciousness. I’ve watched so many old movies from the 1930s and 1940’s about characters trying to make it to Indianapolis. Interestingly, the same passion exists today.
I am troubled by the sounds from the Indy cars like a swarm of bees 🙂
Interesting. When my son and niece were 4 years old, me and my brother in law took them to the Toronto Indy. They fell asleep in their strollers to that same sound!
Dad sat us at the bleach box at our local 1/4 mile dragstrip we love it but may have loss of hearing now 🙂 in our 60’s due to that and live band concerts for me.
Guess I love a different type of noise that drones on 🙂
Your dad sounds like a cool guy!
He was the best and also into racing Mopars 🙂