By alley - Sep 8, 2017, 2:51 PM ET

Penske's Petit Le Mans plans now uncertain

Sports car fans hoping to see Team Penske's return to prototype racing next month at Petit Le Mans might have to wait until January's Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Team president Tim Cindric says the plan,

announced by Roger Penske in August

, where Acura Team Penske would use a stock ORECA 07-Gibson WEC P2 at IMSA's 10-hour season finale as a warm-up for its Rolex 24 debut, is now in jeopardy.

"We still haven't entered a car for Petit Le Mans, so there isn't an entry there," Cindric told RACER. "I know he told you we were entering a car there, and that was what was happening. We'd like it to happen. We're preparing like we are doing it, but if we don't get a chance to test there with our drivers first, we won't go."

Driver preparedness is at the core of Cindric's concerns. Although Acura Team Penske

recently tested at Road Atlanta

, site of Petit Le Mans, with Juan Pablo Montoya in the new ARX-05, his 2018 co-driver Dane Cameron is obligated to finish out the year with Action Express Racing. Penske's Helio Castroneves, who is expected to be confirmed as another full-time ARX-05 driver, hasn't raced at Road Atlanta since 2008.

Other members of the Penske driver family like Simon Pagenaud haven’t driven the new P2 cars at Petit Le Mans, and the likes of Josef Newgarden and Will Power have never raced a prototype. A similar lack of track or vehicle experience is also found within Penske's Australian Supercars and NASCAR programs, which has led to Cindric's hard stance on providing testing miles in a ORECA 07.

"We won't go into that weekend, at that kind of racetrack, without our guys getting some experience there," he said. "We're looking for dates there after we get through the last IndyCar race in Sonoma [on Sept. 17] to go there, and if we can't find that window, we won't race.

"The entry deadline is Sept. 9, so it's already here, but there's a late entry option to use if needed. I know Roger said we're going, but if we don't test, we'll need to pull the plug. Those cars are really, really fast without any traffic, much less with a bunch of GT traffic around you for 10 hours, so we'll see what we end up doing."