The new layout on the streets of the city, which replaces Belle Isle, is the great novelty of a very stable calendar with the same events and only six date changes. The season will kick off on March 5 in St. Petersburg and end on September 10 in Laguna Seca.
16 days after crowning Will Power as champion at the revered Laguna Seca Speedway, The official calendar of the IndyCar Series for the 2023 season has been made public this Tuesday. Perhaps the most stable in the recent history of the championship, with very few changes in dates and only one change of circuit within the same event regarding the Detroit Grand Prix, which will be the great novelty of a year in which the The Indianapolis 500 will take place on May 28.
St. Petersburg and Laguna Seca will reopen and close the curtain, although the start of the season is delayed to March 5, a week later than in 2022 in which the date was brought forward for television reasons. Unfortunately, the already long break of three weeks until the second event has been extended by another week, and we will have to wait until April 2 for the 375 miles from Texas, which this time will not coincide with 12 hours of Sebring. The event, which was on the line due to low attendance and surface problems, was renewed two weeks ago for a three-year period sharing a bill with the NASCAR Truck Series, and will continue to be the only high-speed oval outside of Indianapolis.
From there, two weeks will pass until the Grand Prix of Long Beachwhich is delayed a week until April 16 and reduces the margin to two weeks with the Grand Prix of Alabama (April 30th). From there, the rest of the spring remains unchanged, with the Grand Prix of Indianapolis for Saturday May 13 and the revitalized Detroit Grand Prixwhich maintains its location on June 4 as a post test to the Indianapolis 500 with a decisive novelty.
As announced in November last year, the temporary circuit of Belle Isle will no longer be used after three decades of intermittent existence to be replaced by a new layout in the streets of the business core of Detroit. It is the same area in which the race was held as a Formula 1 Grand Prix between 1982 and 1988, as well as the following three seasons in IndyCar, although now with a different and simpler layout that extends much less to the north. .
Loading tweet…
1574793745551294467
More consistency with gaps in summer
Also covering an existing imbalance in the 2022 calendar, Road America delayed one week to June 18. In addition to avoiding the 24 Hours of Le Mans again, this alleviates the whirlwind of consecutive weeks of work around the Indy 500 and leaves an even two-week margin with Detroit and the 200-mile Mid-Ohio (July 2nd). In turn, July will be a much less hectic month thanks to the shift of two weeks of the second race of the Indy GP to August 12, which avoids another stretch of four consecutive weeks of events, in turn reducing the weeks without races of the summer period.
In this way, the urban circuit of toronto (July 16) precedes the double test launched this year at the often Iowa oval (July 22 and 23), but then there will be two weeks of margin until the third Grand Prix of Nashville (August 6), which will take place in consecutive weeks with the joint event with NASCAR at the Brickyard 200 weekend for August 12, again on Saturday. From there, it’s going to be a frenetic finale with three consecutive events starting on the oval of Gatewaydelayed a week (August 20) and that remains on Sunday afternoon despite requests to return the appointment to Saturday night.
The final continues in September despite American football
Afterwards, the circuits of Portland (September 3) and Laguna Seca, which will end the season on September, 10th. Despite the low audience figures for this year’s final due to coincide with the first weekend of the NFL competition (in addition to the US Open final and an important Indianapolis Colts match that damaged the local audience), the season will end on the same weekend. With that, dodge for now the voices that ask for an early end in August to maximize television data, while frustrating fans who lament that the competition does not extend until at least October, despite the overwhelming competition from American football.
Looking ahead to 2024, the calendar promises to have fundamental changes in its conception, being the year in which the series will introduce a new engine and new modifications to its venerable Dallara DW-12 chassis that is on its way to its 12th season in service. Increasing the number of events to eventually reach 20 appointments is a medium/long-term goal for those responsible for the championship. To do this, we aim to add at least one new ovalwith the historic Milwaukee as the best positioned, and other events in key markets such as Denver or Pittsburgh.
Photos: IndyCar Media