Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Joie Chitwood has admitted that the United States Grand Prix could return to the venue at some point in the future and said that the addition of a round of MotoGP to the circuits schedule isn't in place of F1.
The circuit first hosted an F1 event in 2000 although its position on the calendar came into doubt following the 2005 race when only six cars took the start after safety concerns with the Michelin tyres used by most of the grid led to the majority of teams withdrawing from the event after the green flag lap.
Having failed to reach an agreement with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to continue hosting the race, the circuit was missing from the schedule for the 2008 season although circuit boss Tony George has already reiterated his desire to bring the Grand Prix back in future.
Speaking in a press conference ahead of the start of the Indianapolis 500 in the month of May, Chitwood again stated that the venue would welcome F1 back with open arms if the event can be made financially viable.
“I know that Tony has said it, I've said it: The door is open,” he said. “We think that's a phenomenal racing series; we think it should be back in America. So the door is open. Maybe it can come back some day.”
Chitwood also added that additions made to the venue ahead of the first MotoGP race later this year had been undertaken with Formula 1 in mind, with the revised lay-out for the motorbike event seeing the action take place on a newly designed road course running in the opposite direction to the one that had hosted the Grand Prix.
“One thing I want to make sure is clear, motorcycles didn't replace F1,” he said. “If you look at the way we scheduled our calendar, we had hoped that F1 would come back and it would have maintained that June date after the Montreal event, and that's why you saw the motorcycle event in September.
“One of the things that we did do with the design of this motorcycle course, which they will run the same direction as the oval, is that every change we made was also inspected and approved by the FIA so that shouldF1 come back, they can run this course.
“They can run it their same direction, they can run it the other direction, they can run the four-turn chicane in turn one or not. We did not want to make any changes that would preclude us in the future from hosting F1.”
crash.net
The circuit first hosted an F1 event in 2000 although its position on the calendar came into doubt following the 2005 race when only six cars took the start after safety concerns with the Michelin tyres used by most of the grid led to the majority of teams withdrawing from the event after the green flag lap.
Having failed to reach an agreement with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to continue hosting the race, the circuit was missing from the schedule for the 2008 season although circuit boss Tony George has already reiterated his desire to bring the Grand Prix back in future.
Speaking in a press conference ahead of the start of the Indianapolis 500 in the month of May, Chitwood again stated that the venue would welcome F1 back with open arms if the event can be made financially viable.
“I know that Tony has said it, I've said it: The door is open,” he said. “We think that's a phenomenal racing series; we think it should be back in America. So the door is open. Maybe it can come back some day.”
Chitwood also added that additions made to the venue ahead of the first MotoGP race later this year had been undertaken with Formula 1 in mind, with the revised lay-out for the motorbike event seeing the action take place on a newly designed road course running in the opposite direction to the one that had hosted the Grand Prix.
“One thing I want to make sure is clear, motorcycles didn't replace F1,” he said. “If you look at the way we scheduled our calendar, we had hoped that F1 would come back and it would have maintained that June date after the Montreal event, and that's why you saw the motorcycle event in September.
“One of the things that we did do with the design of this motorcycle course, which they will run the same direction as the oval, is that every change we made was also inspected and approved by the FIA so that shouldF1 come back, they can run this course.
“They can run it their same direction, they can run it the other direction, they can run the four-turn chicane in turn one or not. We did not want to make any changes that would preclude us in the future from hosting F1.”
crash.net