Yahoo Autos IndyCar releases schedules for St Pete, Thermal
The new NTT IndyCar Series season is here, with this weekend’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg kicking off an 18-event calendar that runs from March 8 through September 15.
The March 8-10 street race in Florida opens with IndyCar’s familiar single afternoon session with a 75-minute run from 2:45-4pm ET. It’s the one chance driver have to sample Firestone’s faster alternate tires that will be used the following day in qualifying, and IndyCar is also trialing a new format for the session to keep the track busy for most of the 75-minute window.
Following a busy and late night of debriefing with drivers, analyzing data from the Friday runs, and performing simulations on the best chassis setup solutions to try next, teams reconvene Saturday morning for a 45-minute session — held within a one-hour window — from 9:35-10:35am. The final action for the day is IndyCar’s knockout-round qualifying session from 2-3:30pm.
Race day starts with a warmup session from 9:10-9:40am, and then it’s time to send 27 drivers on a 100-lap journey to determine who’ll win the opening round. NBC’s broadcast starts at 12pm, the command to start the engines is scheduled for 12:23, and the green flag will wave at 12:30.
Teams and drivers have the next weekend off from IndyCar duties, but many will head two hours south for the Thursday-Saturday Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring IMSA event across March 14-16 before venturing north for a March 18 test at Barber Motorsports Park.
Once the private test in Alabama is over, transporters will hit the road and race across the country to southern California where an open test at the Thermal Club near Palm Springs on March 22-23 leads into the $1 Million Challenge non-points all-star event.
Thermal’s testing activities begin Friday morning the 22nd from 9-11am PT and resume in the afternoon from 2-5pm. Saturday is a blend of testing and all-star activities with another session from 9-11am PT and 1-3pm, which ends the nine combined hours of testing during the first two days before moving into split qualifying groups for Race 1 (5-5:12pm) and Race 2 (5:27-5:39). All of the running on Friday and Saturday will be aired via streaming on NBC’s Peacock.
Sunday starts with the Race 1 heat, which has the command to start engines at 9:24am PT and the green flag set for 9:31. Although the final format for the all-star races is still being finalized, the fastest 12 from Saturday’s Group 1 qualifying session are expected to battle for 10 laps — approximately 20 minutes — after which the top six finishers will transfer into the final.
Using the fastest 12 from the Group 2 qualifying session, Race 2 has a 9:58am command to start engines and a 10:05am green flag for its 10-lap contest that will send the first six finishers onto the $1 million finale. The close to Sunday’s fun — all of which is carried live on NBC — has engines firing at 10:52am and the 20-lap race going green at 10:59.
At stake is $1,000,000 for the winner, $700,000 for second, $500,000 for third, $200,000 for fourth, $100,000 for fifth, and $23,000 for sixth through 27th.
Drivers won’t have much time to celebrate after the checkered flag as a rookie oval test is scheduled for March 27 at Texas Motor Speedway, and six teams will get their first chance to sample IndyCar’s new hybrid powertrain on March 28-29 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
A brief respite follows before the April 10-11 Indy Open test on the Speedway, where 33-plus cars and drivers will prepare for the month of May.
