The venue that will host FIA WEC races in the United States of America for the 2025 season and beyond remains a mystery, following comments earlier today from Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske.
Speaking with the media ahead of the opening FIA WEC race of the season at the Lusail International Speedway in Qatar, Penske – who also operates Porsche’s factory Hypercar and GTP programmes – appeared to play down the prospects of the world-famous venue joining the calendar any time soon.
“I think at the moment it’s a scheduling situation,” he said. “We’d love to have it (the FIA WEC) come at some point. Now, we will have an IMSA six-hour race in September this year which will be good.
“There’s a lot of interest in sportscar racing worldwide now. Talking to Pierre (Fillon, the ACO President) at Le Mans, you look at Imola, these places, the interest in tickets, there are some very very high levels of interest. It’s good for us, and good for Porsche.”
This year the FIA WEC returns to Circuit of The Americas in Texas for the first time since 2020, replacing the championship’s visit to Sebring, Florida for a double-header with IMSA’s SportsCar Championship. The deal for CoTA to run FIA WEC races is believed to be for a single year, meaning there could be a change in venue for the WEC’s annual trip to the USA as early as next season.
However, Penske seemingly all but ruled out the WEC visiting ‘The Brickyard’ in the short term, suggesting that he wouldn’t mind CoTA remaining on the schedule if this year’s event proves to be a success.
“I don’t have anything to announce, I don’t think we are ready to do something in the next 24 months,” Penske said when asked about the possibility for IMS to be on the calendar for 2025. “But I’d love to do something.”
“We’re not here to push them (CoTA) out, if they have a good race there, they should stay there,” he added.
This is a shift in tone on the subject from Penske, who revealed to WEC reporters last summer after Le Mans that he had “hoped” to have Indianapolis on the calendar in 2024.
“We had good discussions,” he said last July. “We were going to do it in September (2024), which is when they are going to CoTA. We were going to do it on the same weekend IMSA was coming and run an event like the doubleheader was at Sebring. But we couldn’t because of TV and the travel for them was going to be impossible.
“It was financial and there was no flexibility for IMSA to change its dates.”
Image courtesy of IMSA
