It's not the four-week break we saw between race number one and race number two in 2018, 2020, 2023, and 2024. And it's not the six-week break we saw between actual championship races last year. But the fact that IndyCar is set to go three weeks without a race after the 2025 season opener is once again a talking point of frustration.
And this time around, each of the season's first four races are separated by three weeks, meaning there is just one more race from now through April 12, and two more races from now through Sunday, May 3.
The season opener on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, the first race of IndyCar's new broadcast deal with Fox, drew an average of over 1.4 million viewers.
No non-Indy 500 race had been viewed by that many people since the 2011 season.
Fox's new deal with the series is said to be worth $25 million, but IndyCar has gotten far more than that out of it already. The value of Fox airing three exciting new commercials during Super Bowl LIX, featuring Team Penske's Josef Newgarden, Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou, and Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward, exceeded $30 million alone.
With a 45% jump in viewership at St. Petersburg, year over year, their investment is clearly working. And while we don't want to overreact just one race into the new deal, the fact that all 17 races are scheduled for network television (as opposed to a split between Fox and Fox Sports 1, like the former split between NBC, USA Network, and Peacock) is a good sign.
But those new eyes on the sport cannot be taken for granted, and this would have been the perfect year for IndyCar to do everything they could possibly do to not have a long wait between the first couple of races.
Unfortunately, we are back talking about the exact same issue we have spoken about countless times before.
Thermal Club is scheduled to host the next race on Sunday, March 23, followed by the streets of Long Beach on Sunday, April 13. The iconic Grand Prix of Long Beach is the only race in April, as Barber Motorsports isn't scheduled to host its race until Sunday, May 4.
After that, it's rapid-fire, with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race scheduled for Saturday, May 10, Indy 500 qualifying scheduled for Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18, the 109th running of the Indy 500 itself scheduled for Sunday, May 25, and the Detroit street race scheduled for Sunday, June 1.
We're not suggesting that the season's first 10 weeks should feature 10 races, but surely the series can do better than just four, with each separated by 21 days. You simply don't see that in any other major racing series, for obvious reasons.
IndyCar is riding a wave of incredible momentum right now, and this would have been the perfect year to capitalize on it by giving fans no shortage of action early on the year to keep the hooked through the Indy 500 and beyond. Unfortunately, as of this writing, there are no races to speak of during the next two weekends.
Let's hope that momentum continues anyway, and that the new fans who were attracted to the series for Fox's IndyCar debut are hooked, even if that unfortunately means they don't have any more races to watch for another three weeks.