IndyCar CEO Mark Miles expects a revised championship calendar will feature “at least 12” races with a target of 15 rounds before the end of the year.
The series has already confirmed it will begin its truncated season behind closed doors with a shortened 300-mile race at Texas Motor Speedway on June 6.
Meanwhile, races at Circuit of the Americas, Long Beach and Barber Motorsports Park have all been cancelled.
Consequently, Iowa Speedway will now play host to a double header on June 17-18 while the series will see the addition of a second race contested on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on October 3.
Speaking on Motorsport Radio, Miles admitted that the dynamic nature of the season with races yet to decide whether they are able to host a round of the championship this year has problematised series organisers’ ability to confirm a fully revised calendar.
“Some of the teams have said to us, ‘We’d really like to make sure we get at least 12,’ but there’s just no ironclad number,” Miles said. “Everybody is going to have to work through whatever it is with their people, employees, drivers, sponsors and all the commercial interests, whatever it is.
“So yeah, I think it’s 12 [races] to 15. Right now, it’s 15.
“We do think we have some flexibility in replacing events if additional events just can’t be staged. Doubleheaders come to mind as a way you could imagine making up for an event that doesn’t happen. If that occurs again. It’s pretty efficient.“
Miles also addressed concerns of the running of IndyCar’s blue riband event – the Indy 500 – which has been pushed back until August 23 with still no substantive answer on whether fans will be able to attend the race.
“So, there’s two scenarios, right? All or nothing, in terms of fans, but I wouldn’t completely reject the idea that we could come up with ways to provide for some distancing if that’s essential.
“We want to run the 500, however we got to do it. And yeah, we can’t run the 500 we know in a way that would provide for a lot of social distancing, but 1) maybe that won’t be required by late August or 2) maybe there is a way to work with our fans and provide the possibility of some spacing.
“Let’s make a list of 10 things we might imagine as possibilities,’ one of them would be if you can’t do it at the end of August, we do it later.
“I think we’ll know a lot more honestly in the next two, three, four weeks about July.”
