Robert Mikhailovich Shwartzman (; , ; born 16 September 1999) is an Israeli and Russian racing driver who is due to compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship for Peugeot.
In formula racing, Shwartzman was a Ferrari junior between 2017 and 2022, and a reserve driver for Ferrari in Formula One between 2021 and 2024. He won the Toyota Racing Series in 2018 and FIA Formula 3 in 2019, before placing fourth and second in Formula 2 for Prema Racing. He joined Prema on its IndyCar Series debut, and scored a shock pole position at the 2025 Indianapolis 500.
In endurance racing, Shwartzman has been a factory driver for Ferrari in 2023 and 2024, and for Peugeot since 2027. At Ferrari, he raced in GT World Challenge Europe and the FIA World Endurance Championship, where he won the 2024 Lone Star Le Mans for AF Corse in Hypercar. He will return to WEC in 2027 with Peugeot.
Early and personal life Shwartzman was born on 16 September 1999 in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was raised in Saint Petersburg and Italy. His father, Mikhail Shwartzman, was from Russia, and died of COVID in 2020. He is of Jewish heritage.
In 2023, Shwartzman released a rap song titled "ACTIVE".
Junior racing career Karting Shwartzman began karting in 2004 at the age of four. Throughout a seven-year career of karting professionally, he claimed karting titles across Europe (predominantly in Italy).
Formula 4 Italian F4 In 2014, Shwartzman graduated to single-seaters, partaking in six races of the Italian F4 Championship with Cram Motorsport. He finished in the points four times out of the six, to rank sixteenth overall with 26 points.
The following year, Shwartzman partook in the championship full-time with Mücke Motorsport. Shwartzman claimed his first single-seater podium at just the first race at Vallelunga. He later took his maiden wins at Adria. Overall, Shwartzman claimed three wins and finished third in the standings with 212 points behind the Prema Powerteam duo of Ralf Aron and Guanyu Zhou.
ADAC F4 During that year, Shwartzman also partook in the inaugural ADAC Formula 4 championship. He had a run of six consecutive podiums but did not record a win. He was unable to finish the season, but finished fourth in the standings.
Formula Renault 2016 In 2016, Shwartzman moved to Formula Renault 2.0 with reigning series champions Josef Kaufmann Racing after testing with the team at Motorland Aragon. He claimed two victories in the Northern European Cup and finished sixth in the standings. In the Eurocup, Shwartzman finished eighth.
2017
For 2017, Shwartzman stayed in Formula Renault 2.0, but decided to switch to the R-ace GP team. He lost thirteen points to his teammate Will Palmer and finished in the third place in the driver standings, but was able to win six races, having podium finish at all rounds excepting Red Bull Ring, and at Circuit Paul Ricard.
Toyota Racing Series Shwartzman made his Toyota Racing Series debut during the 2018 off-season, competing for M2 Competition. He finished all fifteen races in the top-five and was the only driver in the season to do so. He won the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy and the series title, ahead of the M2 teammates Richard Verschoor and Marcus Armstrong, who have raced in the series in 2017.
Formula Three
GP3 Series In November 2016, Shwartzman was listed among the drivers partaking in the post-season test at Yas Marina with Koiranen GP.
FIA Formula 3 European Championship
In September 2017, Shwartzman tested the European Formula 3 machinery with Prema Powerteam. After his tests with Prema he was included into the Ferrari Driver Academy. In December 2017, it was confirmed that he will race for Prema in 2018 FIA Formula 3 European Championship. Shwartzman took his first European Formula 3 win in the third Spielberg race. With his second win in the season finale he outscored another Ferrari Driver Academy member Marcus Armstrong in the drivers' standings, completing the top-three with claiming the rookie title.
FIA Formula 3 Championship
Following the merger of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship and GP3 Series into the new FIA Formula 3 Championship in 2019, Prema announced Shwartzman as one of its drivers for the inaugural season. Shwartzman qualified on pole for the first Barcelona race and initially finished the race in second before being promoted to race winner following a time penalty to Christian Lundgaard. In the following day's race, he finished fourth.
Shwartzman took third place at qualifying in Circuit Paul Ricard and finished second in the first race, losing only to his team-mate Jehan Daruvala. After starting from seventh in the grid, at the sprint race, he took his second victory. At the Red Bull Ring, Shwartzman qualified only twelfth, after suffering from technical issues. He went up to fifth in the first race, and in the next race he battled with Marcus Armstrong, but at the final lap made contact. Armstrong retired and Shwartzman crossed the finish line in first, but was given a five-second time penalty for causing a collision, dropping him down to third behind race winner HWA Racelab driver Jake Hughes, who took victory here last year, and Jehan Daruvala.
At Silverstone, Shwartzman qualified sixth. It looked like he would finish in the same position, but with three laps remaining, he overtook Christian Lundgaard. Later, Pedro Piquet also overtook him. On Sunday, he finished second with the fastest lap, behind Hitech Grand Prix and race winner Leonardo Pulcini who took two victories in the 2018 GP3 Series – at Sochi and Abu Dhabi – all victories for the Italian were at the feature races. At the Hungaroring, it was the first weekend for Shwartzman to not score any podiums - he qualified fourth, but following a poor start, finished only in fifth. The following day, he was set to take third position, however retired following difficulties in tyre management and a collision with Felipe Drugovich. At Spa-Francorchamps Shwartzman qualified in fourth position, and overtook Jehan Daruvala and Marcus Armstrong to finish in second place. In the following sprint race, he finished third behind Yuki Tsunoda, and Marcus Armstrong.
At Monza, Shwartzman qualified third, and despite a five-place grid penalty, was able to win his third race of the year. In the sprint, he took eight place by a margin of 0.067 seconds over Christian Lundgaard and to take the final point. Shwartzman took the pole position ahead of his home race at Sochi, but he couldn't save his race lead and finished second behind Armstrong. However, Shwartzman's point advantage on Daruvala was enough for him to clinch the championship title.
FIA Formula 2 Championship 2020 Shwartzman joined Prema Racing for the 2020 FIA Formula 2 Championship, partnering Mick Schumacher. The season was planned to begin in March, but was postponed until July due to COVID-19 pandemic. On 18 April 2020, Shwartzman's father died of COVID-19 aged 52. On his rookie season of F2, Shwartzman expected his season as "toughest season of my life" mainly due to his father's death. Shwartzman qualified eighth on the opening race at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. He made a good start, moving up to fifth and later taking advantage for a mechanical issue for Guanyu Zhou and a mistake from Schumacher. This led him to take a podium finish on his Formula 2 debut, taking third place in the feature race. Shwartzman finished in fourth, two places higher than where he started due to retirements from Giuliano Alesi and former Formula 3 teammate Marcus Armstrong. Shwartzman took his first Formula 2 victory at the feature race of the second Red Bull Ring round, having started eighth. He took the lead from Zhou with nine laps to go. Over the cool-down lap, Shwartzman dedicated the victory to his late father. After the race, Shwartzman described that the red flag "saved" him at the start of the race. However, in the sprint race, his fortunes were reversed by spinning out on the first lap on his own and retiring.
The next feature race at the Hungaroring saw Shwartzman qualify in eleventh position. He left the first turn of the first lap five places ahead in sixth. He had a tire strategy different from the front-runners and had better tyre management. He was in a different world after his pit stop, overtaking Luca Ghiotto and Callum Ilott at the end of lap 29, and taking the lead from Schumacher just a lap later. Eventually, he won the race with a fifteen-second gap. In doing so, Shwartzman took the championship lead. In the sprint race, Shwartzman finished in fourth, passing a few drivers in the race. In Silverstone, Shwartzman qualified a lowly eighteenth. He struggled for pace in both the feature and sprint races, finishing fourteenth and thirteenth respectively. The second Silverstone weekend would prove to be a little better, with Shwartzman qualifying in eleventh. He ended the feature race in eighth, passing Dan Ticktum for the reverse-grid position with five laps to go. Shwartzman led the race for the majority of the sprint race, until with thiree laps to go, Schumacher tried to pass him, but smashed into his front-right tyre, damaging Shwartzman's front wing. They were overtaken by Yuki Tsunoda who went on to win the race. Shwartzman was soon swarmed by the field, and in the end finished thirteenth. His result saw him lose the championship lead. Shwartzman back in top form again in Barcelona, qualifying second and taking the lead from Ilott into the first corner. On lap eight, however, the British driver would reclaim it back. Shwartzman survived a dramatic late safety car restart to finish in second place, only losing out to a timely pitstop from Nobuharu Matsushita. During the sprint race, Shwartzman was hit with massive tyre degradation and only managed thirteenth.
Shwartzman topped free practice for the first time and qualified fourth at Spa-Francorchamps. He fell to seventh on the opening lap but made it up to finish fifth. During the sprint race, Shwartzman passed a slow starting Guanyu Zhou. He grabbed his opportunity after Ticktum and Roy Nissany collided. From then on, he would control the race and eventually win by nine seconds. Shwartzman improved to ninth after starting 16th at Monza, but was just less than a second away from Louis Delétraz from taking reverse pole. He managed to progress to sixth place in the sprint race, before being promoted a place after Ticktum was disqualified. Shwartzman qualified ninth for the round at Mugello. He would retire with a car issue at the halfway mark of the feature race. Shwartzman stormed back to ninth in the sprint race despite a mistake on lap eighteen but was not enough to nab points.
At his home event at Sochi Autodrom, Shwartzman qualified seventh. However, a slow pit stop costed Shwartzman and soon slipping down to 11th. Shwartzman only finished tenth in a red-flagged sprint race, capping off another point-less weekend. Following the weekend, Shwartzman sat fifth in the standings, a distant 51 points off championship leader Schumacher. Shwartzman qualified fourteenth in the first of two rounds in Bahrain. He pushed his way up into fifth place, but fell to eighth after drivers on fresher and softer tyres overtook him. However, he did manage to get reverse pole. He converted it to a dominant win, leading every lap. Shwartzman qualified fourth at the second Sakhir round. He improved ahead to second on the first lap, passing both Carlin drivers. He eventually was passed by Tsunoda, and later in the race by Guanyu Zhou and Felipe Drugovich. He finished in fifth, but when Nikita Mazepin was penalised, he was moved to fourth position. Shwartzman placed 5th in the sprint race. Overall, Shwartzman ranked fourth in the standings with 177 points, but ultimately was beaten by teammate Schumacher who became champion. During the season, he collected six podiums, a fastest lap and four wins — the most wins of any driver during the season.
2021