Ilott “In For A Busy Year” With IMSA-IndyCar Double Duty

Callum Ilott is in for a “busy year” as he looks to juggle his new full-time position with Wright Motorsports in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with what is set to be a continued presence in the NTT IndyCar Series.

Ilott was announced last month to be joining Wright team owner/driver Adam Adelson aboard the No. 120 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo for the full, ten-round WeatherTech Championship schedule.

For the British racer, it marks a reunion with Wright and Adelson after previously driving for the team at the Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS in 2023.

“I’ve known Adam for a long time, since 2019, and that was one of the reasons I did the Indy 8 Hour a couple of years ago,” Ilott told Sportscar365.

“We always joked about racing together and end of last year he called me suggesting that he was going to change his lineup a bit and wanted to see what my situation was.

“I looked at the calendar and realized that there was fairly minimal clashes between the two IndyCar and IMSA.

“I really wanted to race the endurance races in IMSA and he was looking for a full season driver.

“We agreed as long as Long Beach isn’t an issue that I do the full season.

“There’s a couple of tracks I don’t know, but it was pretty keen and I was pretty keen as well. It’s been a while since I’ve done GT3 and the Porsche is an exciting car to drive.”

Ilott is set to dovetail his GTD commitments with a second season with Prema in IndyCar.

The Indiana-based squad is expected to continue in the series, despite speculation over the team’s future amidst financial troubles for parent company DC Racing Solutions.

“It will be a busy year, that’s for sure,” said Ilott. “To be honest, they’re two very different cars. I think the LMP2 might have been a bit closer to the IndyCar, for sure.

“I know GT3 a bit,  but I know the IndyCar super well now. So I wasn’t too worried about it.”

Adelson Explains Rationale Behind Lineup Overhaul

Ilott’s move to full-time WeatherTech Championship competition comes amidst a lineup overhaul for the No. 120 Porsche.

Elliott Skeer, Adelson’s long-time co-driver, has been moved into a Rolex 24-only role, with Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver Tom Sargent joining Adelson and Ilott for the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds.

When asked by Sportscar365, Adelson indicated that the decision to bring in Ilott to replace Skeer was down to multiple factors.

“What it boils down to is that I started racing in 2020 and every single year Elliott has been my coach, mentor and co-driver,” said Adelson.

“I have learned so much from him and I credit my ability now and my experience as a driver largely to Elliott.

“But realistically as with anything you can’t learn everything that you need to learn from one source. You have to learn from others.

“Callum and I have been close friends for six, seven years now. He’s raced with us in the Indy 8 Hour 2023.

“And also from a team perspective I’m thinking about how to best go about the re-expansion efforts to bring Wright Motorsports back to the capacity that it previously used to be at.

“With Callum’s breadth of experience across a variety of different formats of motorsport, different types of cars with many different teams, and just his capability as a driver and the way that we gel as friends, it seemed like a really great opportunity to really invest in myself as a driver and invest in the growth of the team to bring someone on like that with that level of experience.”