The NTT IndyCar Series announced its 17-race 2022 schedule during a penultimate stop at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, which will be the site of its 2022 season closer. The series will begin its quest to crown a new champion at least a month earlier than it did pre-COVID and will close competition at a more “normal” time of year, the middle of September.
One exciting fact for fans of the United States’ highest level of open-wheel racing is that, of these 17 contests, fully 14 of them will be broadcast on network NBC television, with only a single race at Belle Isle outside Detroit, the series’ return to the streets of Toronto, Canada and its final oval contest on the 1.25-mile World Wide Technology Raceway will be seen on USA, Peacock and USA networks, respectively. Start times will be announced at a later date.
The schedule includes five temporary street courses, seven permanent road courses and five oval races, including a doubleheader at Iowa Speedway, which has been absent from the schedule this year. The two races at Iowa are the sole doubleheader scheduled for next season.
The city of St Petersburg has already agreed to its change of dates from mid-March to February 27th, an earlier contest than what had been normal and one week after NASCAR’s Daytona 500. Then, three weeks later, the Indy cars race on the 1.5-mile Teas Motor Speedway oval, dropping the customary June date. The 47th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is the sole April event on the calendar, meaning the Indy cars will compete only once in each early-year month: February, March and April.
As always, the emphasis is to give competitors plenty of seat time on both road courses and ovals prior to spending the bulk of the month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where they’ll contest both the 106th Indianapolis 500 and hold a road-course competition two weeks prior to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. INDYCAR will start the month of May on the permanent Barber Motorsports Park road course before heading back home again to Indy.
In June, there are only two races scheduled: the Raceway at Belle Isle Park becomes a single event the first weekend of June; the following week, INDYCAR returns to Road America at Elkhart Lake, WI, a fan- and driver-favorite. July includes five races – two are allocated to the Iowa Speedway doubleheader – with a July 3rd celebration on MId-Ohio Sports Car Course’s permanent road course. INDYCAR’s first visit north of the United States border since 2019 takes place on the weekend of July 17th in downtown Toronto, Iowa’s double occurs a week later and the Indianapolis road course ends the seventh month of the year. The latter race weekend marks the second time INDYCAR shares the bill at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with NASCAR.
One week after their second in-season road-course race at IMS the INDYCAR series makes a second visit to the streets of Nashville, marking the close of six races in a row, a difficult chore for road crews to undertake. The final three races of the season take place on the World Wide Technology Raceway oval outside St. Louis, MO on August 20th, followed by the series’ visit to Portland International Raceway’s permanent road course on September 4th, Labor Day weekend. The season finale takes place September 11th on the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca permanent road course.
“This schedule continues to build on the growth and momentum the NTT IndyCar Series has achieved, especially in 2021,” said Mark Miles, Penske Entertainment’s president and CEO. “Our terrific partnership with NBC Sports has led to a fantastic opportunity to place an unparalleled 14 events on broadcast television while completing the rest of the schedule with USA Network and Peacock.”
“We’re incredibly excited about our 2022 NTT IndyCar Series schedule, highlighted by the 106th running of the Indianapolis 500 and a record 14 races on the NBC broadcast network, that will bring added exposure to the series,” said Mike Perman, VP, programming for NBC Sports.
INDYCAR’s date equity for many of its races returns the series to venues it couldn’t visit during the pandemic, like Toronto. The good news is the number of races, the fact that mechanics won’t have to drag themselves to Detroit for a doubleheader, right after the Indy 500, the number of races on broadcast TV and the return to Toronto. The not-so-good news is the three races in three months early in the season, the July-August scramble of six races in five weeks. The latter should be extremely tough. Still, as Miles puts it, “This calendar provides a level of balance between temporary street circuits, [permanent] road courses and ovals. That variety and required versatility from our drivers are important distinguishing attributes of NTT IndyCar Series racing.”
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