Penske has revealed that his aspirations to host the North American round of the WEC on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, outlined as early as 2022, remain on hold for at least the next two seasons.
“I cannot say we are ready to do something in the next 24 months,” said Penske, whose team runs the factory Porsche squad in the Hypercar class of the WEC.
“I would like to do it, but we have nothing on the ground right now.”
Penske revealed that the scheduling conflicts that resulted in the North American WEC round going to Austin for this season remain an obstacle to his aspirations to host the series at the venue of the US Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2000-07.
“At the moment it is a scheduling situation, when Indy is available and their schedule,” he explained.
Indianapolis has available the weekend in mid to late September currently filled by an IMSA SportsCar Championship round, which this year has become a six-hour enduro, but this conflicts with the long-standing Fuji WEC fixture in Japan.
The Fuji 6 Hours is scheduled for 15 September, only one week ahead of the so-called Battle of the Bricks IMSA round at Indy, while Austin will host the WEC on 1 September.
Start: #1 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Neel Jani, Andre Lotterer, Nick Tandy leads in 2017
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The WEC has renewed its relationship with the Circuit of the Americas in Austin in 2024 after the end of its five-year deal to run on the undercard of the Sebring 12 Hours IMSA race ended after last year’s season-opener.
Austin is understood to have signed a contract for a single year against the backdrop of the WEC organisation’s negotiations with Penske.
Austin had a regular place on the WEC schedule from 2013-17 before returning in 2020 on a one-off basis when it stepped in as a late replacement following the cancellation of the Brazilian fixture at Interlagos.
Penske has however re-iterated his hopes of bringing the WEC to Indianapolis in the future.
“We’d love to have them at some point,” he said. “There is a lot of interest in sportscar racing right now.”
Penske said he wasn’t looking for force Austin off the schedule.
“We are not here to push them out,” he said. “If they [the WEC] have a good race there, they should stay there.”
Austin has struggled to attract strong crowds to its WEC fixture, even when it was part of a double-header with IMSA in 2014-16.
Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach threw his weight behind the idea of what he said would be a “home race” for the Penske Porsche Motorsport squad.
“It would be something we would like to see,” he said.
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