First visit to COTA for INDYCAR
The decision not to continue INDYCAR racing at Phoenix left an opening in the schedule which is filled by Circuit of The Americas, the venue of Formula One's United States Grand Prix. The race in Austin became possible after Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth was no longer granted territorial exclusivity in the state of Texas.
The 3.4-mile track of COTA is arguably the most modern road course in the USA. The track has been well-received in F1 with a layout consisting of some flowing turns, long straights providing passing opportunities, and some elevation changes.
Being built to meet F1's safety standards, COTA has big paved runoffs, which will be different from the other INDYCAR road courses. When most other road courses in America have clear physical track limits, IMSA had trouble in policing the track limits in its races at COTA. Hopefully that will not cause too many problems in the INDYCAR race.
COTA doesn't have a great record in hosting other series than F1 and MotoGP. The track hosted both IMSA and the FIA WEC, originally as a doubleheader, then as separate events in 2017. Poor attendance led to both series leaving the venue for the 2018 season.
INDYCAR has struggled to draw a big crowd at many NASCAR venues, Phoenix which got replaced by COTA as an example. I think going to an F1 venue has the same risk; there is a bigger event than INDYCAR at COTA. However, Pocono Raceway has shown you can get a decent crowd for INDYCAR even at venues with bigger events. Hopefully COTA will do good job with promotion to get a good crowd for INDYCAR. At least it's a venue located next to a big city like Austin.
Laguna Seca replaces Sonoma
Following the announcement of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca being included in the 2019 INDYCAR schedule, another Northern California venue Sonoma Raceway chose not to pursue an extension for its race which had been in the schedule every year since 2005. Like Sonoma until this year, Laguna Seca will host the championship finale.
Sonoma was often criticized for the difficulty of passing. Laguna Seca may not be much better even though it's one of the most famous road courses in America with a long Indy car history. Sonoma was a fine location for sponsors with wineries nearby the track, though the attendance for INDYCAR races was never great. At Sonoma, INDYCAR faced competition from NASCAR and NHRA. On the other hand, INDYCAR will arguably be the biggest racing event at Laguna Seca which also hosts IMSA and the World Superbike Championship.
Time will tell if INDYCAR draws a bigger crowd at Laguna Seca than it's drawn at Sonoma. Though the success of returning old events at venues like Gateway Motorsports Park and Portland International Raceway has shown INDYCAR tends to draw bigger crowds at non-NASCAR Cup Series venues.
Big gaps in the schedule
Even though the INDYCAR schedule is barely six months long, it's had some big gaps and in 2019 there will be even more big gaps.
With COTA added to late March and Barber taking the old Phoenix date, there will not be a four-week gap after the season opener of St. Petersburg like there was in recent years. However, there will be a four-week gap between Long Beach and the Indianapolis road course. I still think it's better this way; you get the season started with a streak of races, then you have a break before five consecutive weeks of racing or qualifying at Indy, Detroit, and Texas.
The change to Saturday night required Iowa Speedway's date to be pushed back by two weeks to avoid a conflict on TV with Saturday night NASCAR racing. With Road America and Toronto keeping their dates from 2018, there will be a three-week gap between those races.
As Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course keeps its date from 2018, it means there will be three consecutive weeks of racing with Toronto and Iowa in the previous weeks. INDYCAR and Mid-Ohio probably didn't want to push the race back by one week, even though there will still be a three-week gap between Mid-Ohio and the following race at Pocono.
The season will finish one week later in 2019 than it does in 2018. Portland keeps the Labor Day weekend date from 2018 and the following weekend is probably out of question for INDYCAR because of the Brickyard NASCAR weekend. With IMSA scheduled for Laguna Seca two weeks after the Portland INDYCAR race, INDYCAR needs to wait one more week for the season finale.
I hope INDYCAR can find additional races or rearrange the existing ones to fill some of those gaps in the future schedules. I assume Barber will return to its usual date when it doesn't fall into the Easter weekend, shortening the gap before Indianapolis. Then again, there would still be some space in the early season. If Mexico became an option again, it would logistically make sense to have it after Austin.
The breaks in early July and early August call for a new race. Richmond Raceway was apparently a strong candidate to be included in the 2019 schedule. With NASCAR races in April and September, either July or August would seem like a suitable INDYCAR date for Richmond. With only five oval races in the 17-race 2019 schedule, it would be good to see the number of ovals increased in the future.
The gap before Laguna Seca is the one I like the least. Three weeks between the last two races is a giant momentum killer. As an INDYCAR-IMSA doubleheader at Laguna Seca is probably out of question, just swapping the two series at the venue's schedule would seem like an obvious solution to shorten the gap after Portland. Another option would be adding a new race. With Chicagoland Speedway's NASCAR weekend moved to midsummer and Kentucky Speedway having lost its standalone Xfinity Series fall race, those two oval venues close to INDYCAR's Midwestern fanbase might have space in their schedule in early September.
As for potential future overseas races, it would be hard to fit any races in the northern hemisphere in the current schedule as you'd need at least one off-weekend to freight the cars overseas and another off-weekend to freight them back to America. Unless Barber kept its date from 2019 into the future seasons, you'd need to rearrange the schedule to open space for overseas races.
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