IndyCar's international ambitions are alive and well, but no deals are done yet

While IndyCar teams and fans continue to wait on the second half of next year’s schedule to be released, the series has been busy in the background mapping out its future with international events.

As RACER revealed in July, Penske Entertainment, the parent company behind the IndyCar Series, is actively exploring a visit to Spain at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya road course, which has been a familiar stop on the Formula 1 tour and hosted the FIA World Endurance Championship last weekend.

Other global venues are also on the menu for consideration with Australia, Brazil and Japan serving as known destinations of interest, but Barcelona — birthplace of five-time and reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou — has been atop the list for a while and has been positioned as a strong candidate to join the schedule for 2027. Brazil, according to RACER’s sources, would happen no sooner than 2028.

Building on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya momentum, the series made a recent outreach to its veteran teams to inquire if they still have the shipping containers that were used for the last international races more than a decade ago in Brazil and Japan, but IndyCar did not provide any details on when or where the containers would be needed.

RACER has also learned Penske sent a delegate to Spain last week to meet with circuit officials during the WEC event, which suggests the yearslong efforts by Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles to secure an international race is moving in a positive direction. But the deal is not done.

A report on Monday from a Spanish outlet stated that a multi-year contract has been completed to bring IndyCar to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in July, and while an agreement could be signed in the coming days, RACER has confirmed that no deal has been executed.

While the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is widely expected to host the IndyCar series under a new deal, RACER understands details of the arrangement are still being finalized. Jakob Ebrey/Getty Images

An interesting item for Penske Entertainment to navigate is the sovereign sanctioning of its IndyCar Series. Unlike F1, WEC, and many other international series that rely on oversight and governance by the French sanctioning body, IndyCar has governed itself. And while there’s no need for the FIA’s approval as IndyCar holds domestic races in North America, it is not necessarily free to race outside of its home region and compete at tracks and areas where the FIA has a significant presence with series of its own.

IndyCar’s last trips abroad through 2013 occurred under a different administration atop the FIA that largely ignored those events, but the current desire to expand outside of the U.S. and Canada means a new conversation with the FIA and its current leaders needs to be held since the FIA has the ability to apply leverage against the host countries and circuits that might welcome the series.

F1’s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix was held in June, but moves into a new rotating schedule with Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium where Spa will be used in 2027, then give way to Barcelona in 2028 before Spa returns in 2029 and Barcelona comes back in 2030. Spa takes 2031 and Barcelona gets 2032 under the current plan, which would present IndyCar with F1-free opportunities at Barcelona in 2027, 2029, and 2031, provided the FIA does not intervene.

With F1’s upcoming appearance this week in Texas at Circuit of The Americas, an envoy from IndyCar is expected to meet with the FIA in the hope of facilitating an accord that would allow the series to hold international events in a harmonious manner.