IndyCar: Bottas not ruling out a step down to IndyCar after F1

Increasingly, F1 and NASCAR drivers are looking to possibly race in IndyCar when they are no longer fast enough in their current series. Current Alfa Romeo Valtteri Bottas is the latest F1 driver keeping an eye on IndyCar.

Is this good for IndyCar?

Yes, and No.

On one hand, it brings in new fans to IndyCar who perhaps never followed it before.

However, it makes IndyCar look like a series for rejects and retirees.

And in a double whamming, most IndyCar drivers wish they could be F1 drivers someday, thereby putting it on par with F1 feeder series F2.

The FIA even awards F1 Super License points to IndyCar drivers, so the world motorsports governing body also views IndyCar as a training ground for aspiring F1 drivers.

In other words, IndyCar has an identity problem that needs to be solved if it wants to be recognized as a top-level motorsports series in the world. Liberty Media had a plan for that when it wanted to buy the IndyCar Series at the same time it bought F1.

Valtteri Bottas on a potential American future: “IndyCar is quite interesting…it seems like a pretty cool series, the tracks are nice, the racing seems really real and probably, from my understanding, a little less politics than in F1.” FULL SND EPISODE: https://t.co/FwjS5cirbA pic.twitter.com/VcQakNxxge

— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) October 24, 2022