IndyCar's 2019 schedule has arrived
The 2019 IndyCar schedule has been released and it has some nice addition's and some old traditions.
( palabras)
Tuesday has been the day that IndyCar Nation has been waiting a while for, the release of the 2019 series schedule.
And one of most anticipated questions for the 2019 schedule was what is going to replace the 1 mile oval known as ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona in late March, early April? Well, fans we're greated to a pleasant surpirse as IndyCar announced it will be going to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on March 24 as the first race after the season opener in St. Petersburg.
Mark Miles who is the CEO of IndyCar's parent company Hulman & Co. seemed very pleased about the upcoming event. "COTA is one of the finest motorsports facilities in the world and Austin is a happening city. This is a natural fit for the IndyCar series. IndyCar racing has a large and passionate fan base in Texas with hunger to attend more races. This added date will allow us to deliver both oval and road course events to the state in a single season."
The founder and chairman of Circuit of the Americas, Bobby Epstein said that the he is looking forward to the series coming to Austin in the near future.
"It's going to be spectacular, our entire team at COTA is excited to welcome the teams, drivers and visitors to our great city, and we know Austin will give them a warm welcome."
Other than the addition of COTA the schedule is relatively the same as past seasons.
The season starts out in St. Petersburg, Florida which has seen a good number of attendance in the past few seasons and has very much become the traditional season starter.
Then after the new COTA race will be the very challenging and fun 15 turn road course in Birmingham, Alabama known as Barber Motorsports Park. However this the event will be moved up to the race before Long Beach on Apr. 7th as Barber was always the raced a week after Long Beach.
The race on the Iowa Speedway will be returned to a saturday night as the past couple seasons has seen it's course run on Sunday afternoon. Attendance has been pretty solid at Iowa and is expected to grow with the race being run on Saturday once again.
The successful return to Portland International Raceway deemed itself into getting on the schedule again. There have been reports of multiple title sponsors interested.
And the last race of the season has seen quite a change in venue's. Instead of Sonoma Raceway hosting the championship, in 2019 IndyCar, will travel about 160 miles south to Monterey, California and do title battles on one of the greatest road courses in the world considered by many, Laguna Seca Raceway (or Weather Tech Raceway Laguna Seca). IndyCar has not been to this circuit since 2004 and that was during the IRL Champ Car split with Champ Car running there last. Laguna Seca has seen some of the best IndyCar racing, including 1996 when Alex Zanardi passed Bryan Herta in what is known as the 'corkscrew' and flew over the chicane style curbing on the last lap, passed Herta and captured the win. It will be very exciting to see what kind of racing Laguna Seca can produce in 2019 with the current style aero package.
And one of most anticipated questions for the 2019 schedule was what is going to replace the 1 mile oval known as ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona in late March, early April? Well, fans we're greated to a pleasant surpirse as IndyCar announced it will be going to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on March 24 as the first race after the season opener in St. Petersburg.
Mark Miles who is the CEO of IndyCar's parent company Hulman & Co. seemed very pleased about the upcoming event. "COTA is one of the finest motorsports facilities in the world and Austin is a happening city. This is a natural fit for the IndyCar series. IndyCar racing has a large and passionate fan base in Texas with hunger to attend more races. This added date will allow us to deliver both oval and road course events to the state in a single season."
The founder and chairman of Circuit of the Americas, Bobby Epstein said that the he is looking forward to the series coming to Austin in the near future.
"It's going to be spectacular, our entire team at COTA is excited to welcome the teams, drivers and visitors to our great city, and we know Austin will give them a warm welcome."
Other than the addition of COTA the schedule is relatively the same as past seasons.
The season starts out in St. Petersburg, Florida which has seen a good number of attendance in the past few seasons and has very much become the traditional season starter.
Then after the new COTA race will be the very challenging and fun 15 turn road course in Birmingham, Alabama known as Barber Motorsports Park. However this the event will be moved up to the race before Long Beach on Apr. 7th as Barber was always the raced a week after Long Beach.
The race on the Iowa Speedway will be returned to a saturday night as the past couple seasons has seen it's course run on Sunday afternoon. Attendance has been pretty solid at Iowa and is expected to grow with the race being run on Saturday once again.
The successful return to Portland International Raceway deemed itself into getting on the schedule again. There have been reports of multiple title sponsors interested.
And the last race of the season has seen quite a change in venue's. Instead of Sonoma Raceway hosting the championship, in 2019 IndyCar, will travel about 160 miles south to Monterey, California and do title battles on one of the greatest road courses in the world considered by many, Laguna Seca Raceway (or Weather Tech Raceway Laguna Seca). IndyCar has not been to this circuit since 2004 and that was during the IRL Champ Car split with Champ Car running there last. Laguna Seca has seen some of the best IndyCar racing, including 1996 when Alex Zanardi passed Bryan Herta in what is known as the 'corkscrew' and flew over the chicane style curbing on the last lap, passed Herta and captured the win. It will be very exciting to see what kind of racing Laguna Seca can produce in 2019 with the current style aero package.