Indianapolis Remains on Table for Future WEC Round

Roger Penske remains optimistic about Indianapolis Motor Speedway joining the FIA World Endurance Championship in the future after “good discussions” earlier this year did not come to fruition.

The owner of the American venue told Sportscar365 during a roundtable with reporters at Monza that an attempt was recently made to get Indianapolis on the WEC schedule.

This could have signaled a return to the shared weekend format between the WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship that was held at Sebring three times.

However, a deal was not reached due to scheduling and broadcast factors, according to the Penske Corporation chairman whose race team runs the factory Porsche LMDh program in both series.

“We had good discussions, and we were even hoping we could run one this past year, or coming up in ’24, but the dates didn’t work,” said Penske.

“We would very much like to have a WEC race there. We’ll have an IMSA race there this year. It will be a shorter one, but we’ll have an IMSA race.

“Pierre [Fillon, ACO President] and Frederic [Lequien, WEC CEO] came to Indianapolis after Sebring. They saw what we had.

“We were down the road, but because IMSA was already committed to their dates and TV [it did not materialize].”

The Indianapolis infield course will host a WeatherTech Championship race on Sept. 17 and it will become part of the series’ Michelin Endurance Cup next year.

The WEC, meanwhile, is racing at Fuji Speedway on Sept. 10 and will head to the Japanese circuit on Sept. 15 next season.

An early-September slot is required for the WEC’s American round due to the two-week gap needed for air-freighting equipment to Fuji, and with that date not matching up with what was possible on the WeatherTech Championship side, a deal was not reached.

COTA instead slotted into the WEC schedule on Sept. 1 although the agreement with the Texan circuit, which has hosted the world championship six times before, is a one-year deal based on comments from Fillon at Le Mans.

“We were going to do it the same weekend that IMSA was coming, like a double-header like they had at Sebring,” Penske explained.

“But we couldn’t do that because [of] the TV. [And] the travel for them coming from somewhere around the world was going to be impossible.

“It was financial, and it was also television. With the commitments IMSA had, they didn’t have any flexibility to change the dates.”

Nonetheless, Penske remains keen to host the WEC at Indianapolis, potentially reviving the shared event concept with the WeatherTech Championship that was also previously in place at COTA.

“It would be great to have them on the same weekend,” he said.

“On the other hand, we’re prepared to host both series. Maybe there’s a merging of that at some point.

“As the rules get closer and closer, right now I think it’s difficult for IMSA to understand how they can bring a Hypercar in right now on a level playing field. But we certainly would love to see it at Indianapolis.

“We want to use that track for big events, international events. This is what WEC would bring to us.”