How an Italian junior formula giant is readying for its Le Mans future

“You know how much time you spend together in motorsport, it’s almost like being a family. And if you don’t get on well together, it doesn’t work.”

The words are spoken by Andrea Piccini, one of the Iron Lynx founders who played a key role in bringing Italian single-seater powerhouse Prema to sportscar racing – and, this weekend, its Le Mans 24 Hours debut. And his words couldn’t be more accurate.

Prema, you see, is quite literally a family. Founder Angelo Rosin and his wife Grazia Troncon these days look after the lower-level single-seater assaults, their son Rene and his wife Angelina Ertsou mastermind the upper echelons.

The team has spent most of the past decade winning title after title in Formula 2, Formula 3, Formula Regional and Formula 4. Now, under the nomenclature of Prema Orlen Team (in deference to star driver Robert Kubica’s Polish backer), it has already fought for LMP2 podiums on its first two starts in the World Endurance Championship in 2022, and as Prema Racing it has claimed two wins out of two in the European Le Mans Series.

Prema, says Rene Rosin, is a team that “were looking for some new challenge. The market of single-seaters for me was saturated. There was nothing else for Prema to do. What else you can do apart from F4, FRegional, F3, F2 is Formula 1. Formula 1… yes, it’s always a nice dream to have, but financial and economical-wise it’s of course something not always realistic.”

Enter a new collaboration between Iron Lynx and Prema, effective from July 2021. Within three months, the single-seater specialist had taken delivery of an LMP2 machine to begin gearing up for its maiden sportscar attack.

“I knew the Rosin family since a long time because working as an instructor I was very often in touch with the young drivers, there was a good relationship and mutual trust,” expands 2012 Spa 24 Hours winner Piccini.

Prema completed its latest F2-F3 title double last year, leading team boss Rosin (pictured celebrating with Oscar Piastri) to pursue a new challenge

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“They needed to run the Abu Dhabi Racing Team for the Al Qubaisi sisters [in UAE F4 and Asian F3], and they needed a support team basically, and that’s how we started working together. Iron Lynx grew on the GT side too and this year we are running ELMS, WEC and GT World Challenge with Ferrari.”

While Prema was hankering for new pastures, it made sense to Piccini for the team to represent the umbrella organisation in prototype racing, specifically LMP2 to start with.

“Now, all the single-seater classes are basically single-make series, which is more or less what it is in LMP2, because they are all ORECA cars,” explains Piccini. “So we were sure that the experience of Prema in this field would be fundamental to develop an LMP programme. On the other hand we have the experience of Iron Lynx in endurance racing.”

"I know that everybody expects Prema to be there, to fight for wins, and this is what I want. I’m not doing it just to be present in a championship. But on the other hand it’s a totally new world for us" Rene Rosin

Prema has been largely self-sufficient in running its LMP2 team rather than bringing in experienced sportscar hands. Frenchman Antoine Okla is chief engineer, making the switch to the team’s ORECA-Gibson 07 from GP2/F2, where he ran Oscar Piastri to the 2021 title. Ralf Aron, a multiple race winner in European F3 with Prema, has graduated from overseeing its FRegional and FIA F3 squads to be team manager – the Estonian is just 24 years old, gold-rated by the FIA, and quicker than a large proportion of those who will take part in the race.

“Some mechanics also moved into endurance without stretching the single-seaters,” adds Rosin, “because the priority for me is that the single-seaters are still my past, my present, my future.”

And then there’s the driver line-up. Kubica is an old friend of the Rosin family – he won in the F3 Euro Series in 2003 with Prema.

“It came a bit by coincidence when we started the programme,” says Rosin. “We were discussing together, me and the Piccini brothers, and it came up to have Robert on board. Which for us is something very important, because he brings all his passion, all his dedication, all his knowledge. Having his past in Formula 1 is incredible for a new team that you need to build up in a very short time.”

Kubica, who raced with Prema in F3, rejoins the squad with 2021 team-mate at WRT Deletraz and newcomer Colombo

Photo by: Paul Foster

Alongside Kubica came Louis Deletraz, with whom he won the 2021 ELMS title in Belgian GT3 behemoth WRT’s own debut LMP2 season. A recent convert from single-seaters, the Swiss is a handy driver who, in his single-seater days, “tried a lot of times to come to us, but for one reason or another we never found an agreement”, reveals Rosin.

And even with the FIA’s tightening up of the grading regulations for 2022, Prema still managed to find that crucial commodity: a ‘super-silver’ in the form of FIA F3 race winner Lorenzo Colombo, who somehow fell below the golden axe.

“I’ve known Lorenzo since a long time,” says Rosin. “We never worked together mainly for budget reasons, but he competed against us in F4 back in the time, and he’s always been a driver that we know is extremely fast.

“We made a test with two drivers and Lorenzo did a great job, and from there automatically it was an easy decision. He’s a great team player, he’s a great guy, he’s Italian on top, which is something important for us – an Italian team with an Italian driver in Le Mans is something very good.”

That test, last November at Paul Ricard, was the team’s first runout with the ORECA, just a few weeks after taking delivery of the car. Also on board was Prema single-seater graduate Juan Manuel Correa, who was signed up for ELMS alongside Deletraz and Ferdinand Habsburg, but who was replaced for the first two rounds by Colombo while recovering from injury.

And, of course, it was a sensational start, with victories at Paul Ricard and Imola. WEC has been tougher, with a fourth in class first time out at Sebring, followed by seventh at Spa last month.

“It was amazing from the team at Sebring,” enthuses Rosin. “We put the car down at one of the most complicated circuit environments we can ever have, we were fighting for the podium, we arrived P4, a very good result. Then ELMS at Paul Ricard, amazing result.

“Of course the level of WEC is a little bit higher, where you have teams like Jota, United and at the top of it WRT, who are the masters the last few years of endurance – they are something very impressive, and we are happy because this high competition makes us progress much faster.

Prema has won both ELMS races this year, with Colombo, Deletraz and Habsburg following up their Paul Ricard triumph at Imola

Photo by: ELMS

“At Spa, I would say we got a bit of bad luck. We were OK in the dry, then maybe we didn’t get the right set-up approach for the wet, which compromised a bit the result. Looking at our weather information we were expecting the rain to stop early, so we didn’t really go with the all-wet philosophy. But it was our first time in such difficult situations. Still, it was a big learning curve for us from where we need to gain experience.

“I know that everybody expects Prema to be there, to fight for wins, and this is what I want. I’m not doing it just to be present in a championship. But on the other hand it’s a totally new world for us, and I think what we are already doing is something exceptional.

“When I do something, either we go on the full gas or we wait a bit. It’s like in the past – we got several chances to enter Formula 2, or GP2 at the time, but they were not either the right ingredients or the right moment. When we decided to enter, it was the right moment [that was in 2016, when Pierre Gasly won the title and Antonio Giovinazzi completed a Prema 1-2].”

"The reason why we enter LMP2 and why we merge the experience of the two teams is to show to manufacturers how good we can be with the technical knowledge of Prema and with the experience of Iron Lynx in endurance racing, and how strong we can be as a partner for a constructor" Andrea Piccini

This, clearly, is the right moment for Prema in endurance. The team’s factory in Grisignano di Zocco (near Padua) is two hours north of sister squad Iron Lynx’s Cesena base in Emilia Romagna.

“We work quite closely between our engineers,” says Piccini. “They have some good things that we are using on our GTs, because of all the experience they have on set-up, and we have some good tools for strategy that we provided to Prema. The two companies are more and more getting closer and supporting each other, and the idea is that Prema stays focused mainly on single-seaters plus the LMP2 project, and we will keep working on the GT side.”

Iron Lynx also retains its F4 team – the operation was, after all, founded in 2017 primarily as an academy. This means it goes up against Prema in this arena, but Piccini explains: “We have so many requests from young drivers, and Iron Lynx is born as an academy, so we have very good coaches to grow the kids, so what we thought is, ‘OK, let’s keep three or four cars to have a test team to develop the drivers, and also a couple of cars racing, so Iron Lynx can be kind of a door to enter Prema’.

“Prema will have the most experienced drivers, but the younger ones who need support to develop their skills go to Iron Lynx, and then they can be ready to jump into Prema.”

And, then, of course, there’s the Hypercars future.

Iron Lynx and Prema are working closely together with a view to attracting a manufacturer to partner with for 2023

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“The reason why we enter LMP2 and why we merge the experience of the two teams is to show to manufacturers how good we can be with the technical knowledge of Prema and with the experience of Iron Lynx in endurance racing, and how strong we can be as a partner for a constructor,” states Piccini.

“Honestly, the goal of Prema has been entering LMP2 to prepare for LMH, LMDh, to find the manufacturer to work with,” adds Rosin. “We are talking with several possibilities. It’s something that we need to start making a decision on. We haven’t taken it because, honestly, the commitment to LMP2 has been quite total.”

Even more so with Le Mans coming up. Rosin, whisper it, is so enthused about this that he’s missing the Baku races for his beloved F2 team to be at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Only once has he skipped an F2 event, several years ago when there was a clash with a European F3 round.

“It’s two long weeks,” he reflects of Le Mans, where Prema is next-door neighbour to the four-car Iron Lynx Ferrari GTE Am attack. “The mechanics are already there since last Tuesday preparing everything. There is the scrutineering back in town. It’s for sure something incredible.”

And the mania has been spreading through the Prema factory.

“There’s been moments where the entire team of Prema, even from single-seaters, where they didn’t have anything to do because their cars have left already for races and so on, were all helping on the preparation for Le Mans,” says Rosin.

“The F3 guys, their next race is at Silverstone [next month], so they have quite a lot of time, and all mechanics have been helping on the LMP2. At the moment, everyone is really focused to prepare for Le Mans in the best way as possible.”  

And, as every single one of the thousands of people who work in single-seaters will tell you, and which the sportscar world will surely learn: never discount Prema.

Rosin will be missing the Baku F2 round to focus on Prema's Le Mans debut

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images