DragonSpeed playing the waiting game with 2020 plans

With three racing programs to run across the European Le Mans Series, IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and the NTT IndyCar Series, Elton Julian’s DragonSpeed team is stuck in a big waiting game as schedules continually adjust in reaction to the coronavirus.

Of the outfit’s three-pronged effort, the ELMS and IMSA currently offer the most certainty for DragonSpeed’s LMP2 programs to go forth without significant interruption. Its six-race IndyCar calendar is where greater questions remain, as some of the events the Indianapolis-based team expected to attend have been canceled or moved to new dates that conflict with its sports car outings.

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Returning to try and make the field for its second consecutive Indianapolis 500 sits atop the team’s wish list.

“Not surprisingly, [IndyCar] is where our plans have taken the biggest hit,” the Chevy-powered team wrote in an update. “While sportscars remain our bread and butter, IndyCar is the focus of our future growth. Beyond the frustration of St Pete, we remain buoyed by a strong two days of testing in early March, progress on the sponsorship front, and the challenges of climbing the IndyCar mountain. Once our core sportscar business is back in full swing, we aim to return to the IndyCar grid, with the Indy 500 our top priority.”

DragonSpeed was among the IndyCar teams present in St. Petersburg for the season-opener in March with driver Ben Hanley ready to race the No. 81 Chevy prior to the event's postponement to October 25.