Share this article on LinkedIn Email

IndyCar's current, cramped five-month schedule will not be repeated in 2016, even if that means pushing the end of the season beyond the series' preferred late-summer closing date.

This year's season began in St Petersburg in late March and will finish at Sonoma at the end of August.

The tight schedule has been criticised for being too hard on personnel - teams worked 10 consecutive weekends between NOLA and Toronto - as well as making it hard for teams to justify employing staff year-round, and for sponsors to justify paying for what amounts to half a year's worth of coverage.

The early finish is the result of data that Mark Miles, CEO of IndyCar parent company Hulman & Co, says proves that TV audiences fall away after the Labor Day weekend at the start of September.

That was supposed to be countered by having the season start earlier - most likely with flyaway races, due to the lack of US venues with climates suitable for racing in February - but those races have not yet come to pass.

The problem was further exacerbated by Toronto needing to move its date due to a clash with the Pan American Games.

"We do not expect to have a five-month schedule, nor was that ever the goal," Miles said.

"The idea was not shorter and less, it was to see if we couldn't slide the schedule [earlier] while actually growing it earlier in the year to be in a more ideal or beneficial television period."

IndyCar is scheduled to visit Boston for the first time over the Labor Day weekend next year, which led to widespread assumptions that the venue would host the finale.

But Miles said that although that weekend remains his preference for a season-closer, the 2016 calendar is almost certain to end later in order to avoid a repeat of this year's congestion.

"When we end the season next year will be directly related to when we can start it," he said.

"We are not going to have a five-month season next year.



"We've got a new anchor race in Boston on Labor Day weekend.

"When we announced it, we made it clear that we had not decided if it would be the finale and for emphasis, at this point I would guess it won't be, but that would ultimately come down to what the full shape of the schedule will look like when we know what our options are."