How Ryan Briscoe’s career has come full circle in IndyCar

It was a result nobody predicted. Robert Shwartzman’s pole for this year's Indianapolis 500, his maiden oval outing, was the first achieved by a rookie at the Brickyard in over 40 years.

Still more remarkable was his Prema team usurping the US open-wheel elite at its first crack. That Shwartzman didn’t have the luxury of a back-up car only exacerbated the impression that this was a feel-good story of the kind rarely seen in motorsport.

Ryan Briscoe fully acknowledges that the feat surpassed expectations. Prema’s Australian-born sporting director, credited by Shwartzman afterwards with calming his nerves and helping him to enjoy the experience, won Indy 500 pole himself in 2012, his last campaign with Team Penske.

Briscoe was mentored by the legendary Rick Mears, and today makes every effort to impart his own insights to Shwartzman and Callum Ilott as Prema learns IndyCar’s many nuances.

“Rick was a big help to me,” states Briscoe, singling out his non-car-specific insights into working with traffic and making balance-related adjustments. “He wasn’t in-your-face all the time, and I don’t want to be like that either. I’m trying to step outside the box and think, ‘What would I have wanted in their position?’

“It’s usually not a lot, just little bits here and there. In the car, you’re so focused and sometimes on the outside you can have a different perspective that helps them out.”

Briscoe calls his role “pretty fluid”, with driver coaching a significant element. He attends engineering meetings too, offering set-up and run plan suggestions from a career that yielded eight IndyCar wins and 13 pole positions.

“We’ve got great engineers on the team, but a lot of people without much experience in IndyCar,” he explains, “so that’s where my input can be helpful.”

Quality Euro F3 field topped by Briscoe in 2003 included Rosberg

Photo by: Sutton Images

It seems appropriate that Briscoe’s latest endeavour is with the team where his car racing journey began. After being plucked from karts by Toyota, he became Italian Formula Renault 2.0 champion in 2001, but graduation to Formula 3000 for 2002 was premature. Briscoe struggled before being withdrawn from a “demoralising” campaign mid-season.

But Toyota again placed him with Prema, in German Formula 3, where his damaged confidence was swiftly restored by ending 2002 with three podiums from the last four races. When German and French F3 merged to form the Euro Series for 2003, Briscoe was the man to beat and became champion with eight wins from 20 starts.

With his career now back on track, Briscoe did get a tantalising taste of Formula 1, making six Friday practice appearances at Toyota in 2004. But long-term deals for Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli limited his options. Jordan’s procurement of Toyota engines in 2005 offered a potential route onto the grid, yet chasing sponsors didn’t excite Briscoe.

“It was getting very much about money and not about me,” he recalls. When Chip Ganassi Racing offered a paid IndyCar seat, he didn’t look back: “I was ready for the change and OK with stepping away from the F1 opportunities. America felt like the right decision on a personal and a professional level.”

“Everyone knew that it was a difficult situation, especially for a rookie. With hindsight and experience, I definitely would have crashed less. I was lucky probably to survive the year…” Ryan Briscoe

Unfortunately, Toyota’s “massively underpowered” IndyCar engines blighted Briscoe’s US bow. Bright spots were leading the most laps at St Petersburg and pole at Sonoma, but efforts to mitigate the horsepower deficit “running absurdly low downforce levels for certain tracks” contributed to numerous incidents.

“Everyone knew that it was a difficult situation, especially for a rookie,” he remembers. “With hindsight and experience, I definitely would have crashed less. I was lucky probably to survive the year…”

Briscoe was indeed fortunate that two broken collarbones were the most serious injuries sustained in a horrifying Chicagoland crash that ended his season prematurely. “A lot of IndyCar teams were nervous about hiring me because of my accident, and even I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go oval racing anymore,” he reveals.

A collapsed deal with Champ Car team PKV Racing resulted in a nomadic 2006 contesting multiple categories – arguably a blessing in disguise. Briscoe grasped the opportunity to impress in sportscars, making sporadic Grand-Am appearances for Wayne Taylor’s SunTrust-branded team alongside long-time manager Max Angelelli, which, along with a podium on his IndyCar return with Dreyer & Reinbold at Watkins Glen, caught Roger Penske’s eye.

Briscoe’s FP1 role with Toyota in 2004 led nowhere

Photo by: Sutton Images

Briscoe steered Penske’s Porsche RS Spyders in the 2007 American Le Mans Series “with the intent to end up in their IndyCar programme” – which transpired when Sam Hornish Jr bit the NASCAR bug.

Briscoe broke his duck at Milwaukee in 2008 and by the following year, as a tax evasion trial dogged Helio Castroneves, was Penske’s leading light. “I was so focused on the championship,” Briscoe says, “things were going well for me.”

In a close fight with Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, he led the 2009 standings into Motegi’s penultimate round, but clanged the wall exiting the pits and finished 18th. A 28-point swing to Franchitti proved decisive, despite Briscoe producing what he considers “the best race of my life” at Homestead.

Beating Dixon to secure the two bonus points for leading the most laps proved immaterial when the race went caution-free. Franchitti, committed to a fuel-saving strategy, managed one stop fewer and snatched the crown.

“Scott and I were going at it, because he couldn’t let me lead the most laps and vice versa,” reflects Briscoe. “It was the hardest-fought race I’ve ever had, but Scott and I didn’t make it on fuel. I couldn’t have run the race any differently; I had to lead the most laps. That was a tough championship not to win.”

Briscoe never again came as close to winning a title for Penske and was released at the end of 2012, just when he believes he was recapturing his best form. “The chemistry wasn’t the best on the engineering side,” he offers to explain the preceding years of struggle, which yielded one win across 2010-11.

“When the new car came in 2012, I got a new engineer and felt like we were kicking back off. With three races to go, I got notified that the team wasn’t going to move ahead with me. That was tough to take.”

Briscoe never won again in IndyCar. He made sporadic appearances with Panther Racing in 2013, and returned to Ganassi for 2014. By the time he replaced the injured James Hinchcliffe at Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports in 2015, a future in sportscars beckoned – he had already enjoyed success with Corvette in IMSA endurance races.

Forlorn chase of Dixon and Franchitti in 2009 IndyCar showdown

Photo by: Robert LaBerge/Getty Images

He joined the Ganassi-run Ford GT programme for 2016, instead of holding out for a firm offer from Schmidt, and across four seasons twice finished runner-up in IMSA’s GTLM standings with Richard Westbrook. “Had I waited and stayed with [Schmidt-Peterson], I possibly would have spent several more years racing IndyCar,” he says. “But I’m happy with my choices.”

Briscoe’s IndyCar win tally is evenly split between road/street courses and ovals. That stat doesn’t surprise him – he professes to love the engineering aspect of oval racing and the myriad ways of manipulating set-up: “I actually felt like one of my strengths was more on ovals than sometimes street and road courses.”

After Ford concluded its factory programme, Briscoe rejoined Taylor’s Cadillac-affiliated team and, together with Renger van der Zande, was unfortunate to lose the 2020 DPi title by a point. Damage at the Sebring finale, when third driver Dixon was hit by a Mazda, limited them to a season-worst seventh.

“Everyone loved Glickenhaus; how old-school he was, how cool the car looked and everything about that programme was like going back in time, which was refreshing for the fans” Ryan Briscoe

“I don’t think not winning the title was on us,” Briscoe maintains. “We had a really strong season. We won Daytona and Petit Le Mans, it was just unfortunate circumstances at the last race.”

WTR signed Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque for 2021, which Briscoe believes was unrelated to the championship outcome. He rejoined Westbrook to lead development on Jim Glickenhaus’s 007 Hypercar in the World Endurance Championship, and relished the chance to build a programme from scratch.

Joining the Toyotas on the Le Mans podium in 2022 was the pinnacle for the US garagiste before an influx of new manufacturers for 2023, combined with a lack of development, left the underdogs “out of touch with the competition”.

“The support we had in France was unreal,” relates Briscoe. “Everyone loved Glickenhaus; how old-school he was, how cool the car looked and everything about that programme was like going back in time, which was refreshing for the fans. It was fun to be part of.”

Briscoe didn’t start a race in 2024, but his Prema return was already set in motion. Following a catch-up at Prema’s 40th anniversary celebrations the year before, team boss Rene Rosin called in February.

Daytona victory in 2020 – just before the world locked down

Photo by: Getty Images

“Rene told me their plan, and asked if I’d be interested in coming on board, with my experience in IndyCar,” he recalls. “Things were starting to slow down on the driving side, and I thought, ‘Man, this feels perfect’. I’d been looking at what I might do when I stop driving, and options outside racing as well.

“My career started with Prema, and it just felt like the right thing, and full circle, to come and help the team with this new adventure. I was super-excited from the word go.”

Briscoe doesn’t consider himself a retired driver just yet, but concedes he’s not pursuing full-time gigs: “I’m happy with where I am and the career I’ve had.” But if Indy is anything to go by, there are plenty more chapters still to be written in the Briscoe-Prema story…

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the Summer 2025 issue and subscribe today.

Third place at Le Mans in 2022 – “The support we had in France was unreal,” says Briscoe

Photo by: Marc Fleury