IndyCar has finalised its calendar for the 2024 season including a return to the historic Milwaukee Mile oval.
The 120-year-old venue will hold a double-header round ahead of the season finale. As previously announced, that will relocate from Laguna Seca to Nashville’s street circuit, which is being remodelled for its fourth year as an IndyCar venue.With the number of points-paying races remaining unchanged, two events have been dropped as IndyCar returns to Milwaukee for the first time since 2015. Texas Motor Speedway has lost its place on the calendar, as has the second of two races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
St Petersburg will open the season as usual. A six-week gap until the next round will be interrupted by a new, non-championship race at The Thermal Club in California, a venue which has never previously hosted races for such a high-level series.
The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge will take the form of a qualifying session and two heat races. The top six finishers from the heat races will advance to a showcase finale with a million-dollar top prize.
The championship will resume at Long Beach the series races at Barber Motorsports Park, then May is taken up by all the action at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Teams will first race on the track’s road course, then take to the oval configuration for the iconic Indianapolis 500 race.
The streets of Detroit and Road America follow in June, with the race at Laguna Seca moving from the end of the season to run on 23rd June.
July starts off with the permanent Mid-Ohio track, then there is a double-header on the Iowa oval before teams have a few days to get 1,280 kilometres north-east into Canada for the street race in Toronto.
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A break of almost a month follows before action resumes at Gateway, the third oval on the schedule, but that is the start of back-to-back-to-back weekends of racing. Portland is next up after Gateway, then the two Milwaukee Mile races take place on 31st August and 1st September.
Two weeks later the calendar concludes on the streets of Nashville, which has signed a deal to become the new home of IndyCar’s season finales.
IndyCar president Jay Frye said 2023 had been a record-breaking year for the championship. “For the first time, 27 starters competed at each event, and on-track passing records were broken at six racetracks. IndyCar remains the most diverse and competitive championship in motorsports. We cannot wait to see how the 2024 season plays out beginning on the Streets of St. Pete.”
| Round | Date | Venue | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10/3/2024 | St. Petersburg | Street |
| NC* | 24/3/2024 | Thermal Club | Road |
| 2 | 21/4/2024 | Long Beach | Street |
| 3 | 28/4/2024 | Barber Motorsports Park | Road |
| 4 | 11/5/2024 | Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course | Road |
| 5 | 26/5/2024 | Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval | Oval |
| 6 | 2/6/2024 | Detroit | Street |
| 7 | 9/6/2024 | Road America | Road |
| 8 | 23/6/2024 | Laguna Seca | Road |
| 9 | 7/7/2024 | Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course | Road |
| 10 | 13/7/2024 | Iowa Speedway | Oval |
| 11 | 14/7/2024 | Iowa Speedway | Oval |
| 12 | 21/7/2024 | Toronto | Street |
| 13 | 17/8/2024 | Gateway | Oval |
| 14 | 25/8/2024 | Portland International Raceway | Road |
| 15 | 31/8/2024 | Milwaukee Mile | Oval |
| 16 | 1/9/2024 | Milwaukee Mile | Oval |
| 17 | 15/9/2024 | Nashville | Street |
*Non-championship race
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StephenH
25th September 2023, 15:30
Looks like a much better balanced calendar overall, and it’s great to see Milwaukee back, but I can’t fathom out why Laguna is not the finale, and that terrible Nashville track is.
Radoye
25th September 2023, 16:07
Money talks, just like in F1 where sucky Abu Dhabi replaced Interlagos as the finale.
Although, the new Nashville config on Broadway might yet turn out to produce good racing. I’m reserving my opinion until we see the first race there.
MichaelN
25th September 2023, 17:26
Laguna Seca has very bad attendance. Since Indycar almost always (of course not this year) has a title decider in the final race, they want to be in a place where there is an actual crowd.
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
25th September 2023, 15:53
I do like Milwaukee but I hate that we are losing Texas as it means that now outside of Indy there’s no other super speedways and no higher banked ovals.
They need to bring back better diversity with ovals as right now it’s basically all short track, low banked stuff and there fine but we need some of the faster, wider & higher banked multi-grooved ovals that allow for more dynamic racing with the draft battles & possibility to do the slingshot passes that used to make that style of racing so exciting to watch.
Get rid of the double headers that only serve to pad the field & bring back Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire & Pocono. And do whatever it takes to get Cleveland back as well, Then we’ll have a good calender with the sort of diversity the series used to be known for in the CART days.
Radoye
25th September 2023, 15:59
Texas is only out for this one year due to scheduling conflicts with the Olympics (NBC has the exclusive rights to broadcast the Games in the USA and will carry them on all platforms leaving no room for IndyCar for the duration). Attempts to reschedule Texas proved futile due to clashes with NASCAR. It should be back in 2025.
And return of Milwaukee is great news!
asd
25th September 2023, 16:07
Oooh, thanks for the clarification Radoye!! I also love Texas and see its importance on the calendar.
And to echo Roger Ayles’ sentiments – yes, the calendar needs more proper speedways, like Michigan.
And the month long gap between races at the beginning of the season is terrible.
Radoye
25th September 2023, 16:16
Yeah i would love to see IndyCar back at Michigan, Fontana (if it still remains as-is), Pocono (providing they upgrade their fences properly). We need more superspeedways, it is plain silly that teams must purchase superspeedway body kits and only race them once a year.
My ideal IndyCar season schedule would include 1/4 superspeedways, 1/4 shorter ovals, 1/4 road circuits and 1/4 street races.
Asd
25th September 2023, 17:48
I would do it:
7 road, 5 street, 3 super-oval, 2 short-oval
Oval tracks as such offer fundamentally less variety than regular tracks so the oval/non-oval ratio shouldn’t be 50/50, so as I see it the 30/70 ratio I propose here should be around perfect.
Imre (@f1mre)
25th September 2023, 16:59
No double IMS road course, yay!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
26th September 2023, 23:53
@f1mre Yeah I wasn’t a fan of that. To be honest I’m not sure they need one race on the road course.
nickp91
25th September 2023, 18:05
At least they grew brains and got rid of the 2nd IMS road course
SteveR (@stever)
26th September 2023, 5:04
One of my favorites back in the day was Burke Lakefront Airport, with 10 different lines into the wide open corners. Would really love to see that again….
Sam
26th September 2023, 8:58
Always a bit lost as to why they have two races on an oval when it has a roval configuration. Don’t think there is a Michigan roval but there is an Iowa roval. Also, would love to seem them race at Sonoma and the Daytona roval.
Radoye
26th September 2023, 15:41
Can’t be done in a single weekend, it takes a few days to reconfigure the track from oval to roval. At the IMS they run the Indy GP on a Saturday and then convert back to oval so that the 500 practice can start on Tuesday.
So if they need to run races on Saturday and Sunday back-to-back they need to be on the same track config.