Ronco Scrivia (Genova, Italy), May 27th, 2024 – Racing Force Group, with its brands OMP and Bell Racing, celebrates the victory in the 2024 edition of the Indianapolis 500, the most important race in the NTT IndyCar Series calendar and one of the most prestigious events in the world of motorsport. For the first time, OMP and Bell Racing jointly achieved this result by equipping the driver Josef Newgarden of Team Penske, America’s most successful racing team, with racewear and helmets.
Starting this season, the Italian brand OMP became a partner of Team Penske for the supply of fireproof products for drivers and mechanics, both in the NTT IndyCar Series and in the NASCAR Cup Series. The collaboration, a symbol of Racing Force Group’s expansion plan in the United States’ motorsport safety industry, already brought the first official triumphs in the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix, for the NTT IndyCar Series, and in the All-Star Race for the NASCAR Cup Series.
Team Penske immediately showed enormous potential for the 108th running of the Indy 500, taking the first three positions on the grid in qualifying with Scott McLaughlin in pole position ahead of teammates Will Power and Josef Newgarden, then winner for the second year running. This is a feat reached by only five other names since 1911, while Team Penske further strengthened its record of victories among the racing teams, which now stands at 20.
As in 2023, Newgarden also used a Bell Racing helmet, the benchmark choice in the NTT IndyCar Series and at the Indianapolis 500, with 65 per cent of the starters wearing it and specific technical solutions for the requirements of this discipline.
On the same day, Sunday 26 May, Bell Racing also celebrated the win at the Monaco Grand Prix of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship with Scuderia Ferrari HP driver Charles Leclerc. For 2024, Bell Racing was thus the only company in the business to have won two of the three events that compose the famous Triple Crown of motorsport together with the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with the aim of completing the season’s hat-trick in just three weeks’ time.
Paolo Delprato, Chairman and CEO of Racing Force Group, commented: “This landmark victory at the Indianapolis 500 shows in the best possible way where our ambitious strategy of expansion in the United States is taking us. For the first time since the creation of Racing Force Group, the OMP and Bell Racing brands jointly won the most important race in America, part of motorsport’s famous Triple Crown, and they did so by supporting the most successful stable at the start, Team Penske. Since the winter, we have worked closely with Team Penske to provide drivers and mechanics with OMP racewear products that are at the forefront of performance, safety and comfort, along with the Bell Racing helmets that are already the standard in the NTT IndyCar Series. I want to congratulate all of Team Penske and Josef Newgarden, because to win at this level is a fantastic accomplishment, but staying on top is even greater. I also want to thank our production departments in Ronco Scrivia, Italy, and Sakhir, Bahrain, as well as all our colleagues in the USA, for their coordination and commitment in making such a great result possible. For us it was a true collective triumph”.
