IndyCar: More overseas races needed says Lundgaard
–by Mark Cipolloni–
21-year-old Rahal Letterman Lanigan IndyCar sensation, Christian Lundgaard, says more overseas races are needed
Why?
Because IndyCar has a problem. Formula 1 is making major strides in the USA and already is getting more TV viewers than IndyCar. And they are not done yet.
And now NASCAR has shown that it can put on successful street races, another bread and butter part of IndyCar’s schedule that may get trampled on.
Some people think that IndyCar should be more international, to counter Formula 1’s onslaught in the USA.
However, there is currently not enough sponsor dollars in IndyCar to fly the entire circus overseas on a regular basis, nor the will of many IndyCar team owners who think everything is hunky-dory.
Many of the European drivers in the series want IndyCar to be more international.
“I do think it’s important,” said Lundgaard when asked about IndyCar’s yearly trip to Canada. “Not necessarily just Toronto or Canada, but in my opinion, we need to go to South America more. We need to go more international.
“We need to do more fly-away races because, in my opinion, that’s what we see in F1 right now, moving more and more over here. They’re sort of exploding because of that, just because there’s more people around that are aware.
“That’s a problem with this racing series being a national racing series. But at the same time, we do have the best racing product in the world.”
“I definitely think we should have a race in Scandinavia],” continued Lundgaard. “How many — there’s me and Benjamin Pedersen, which is two Danes. We actually got Josef Newgarden as well, who’s a half Dane. I think we’ve got two Swedes. So I think we’ll have to fight over where it’s going to be.
“I know there was plans of actually building a proper racetrack in Denmark. I don’t know what’s happened to it or if it’s been built or whatever. But that would definitely be something that I would be up for and would definitely push for it.
“Right now I don’t think it’s the right time for the series to move to Europe. I mean, obviously now with [Agustin] Canapino, I don’t think know if they’re looking for a race in Argentina or not. That would be a starting point. We’ll take it slow, but I do think we definitely need to move somewhere as well.”