Ryan Briscoe has thrown his support behind the possibility of a race on the road course at Indianapolis.
Briscoe and Graham Rahal turned laps of the track to gather data about the current layout ahead of possible upgrades as part of a $100million facelift for the Speedway facility.
Derrick Walker, IndyCar president of competition and operations, said there are several ideas to improve racing and overtaking compared to when F1 raced at the Indy road course from 2000-2007.
Currently MotoGP and Grand-Am compete on the clockwise layout however Briscoe and Rahal completed test runs in both directions during the evaluations.
There has been suggestions that a road course race could be staged in early May leading up to the signature Indy 500 next year.
“I heard rumours (of a road course race) at the beginning of May to kick the month off and that would be fine,” Briscoe commented.
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“December. It might be a bit cold but any time we’re here at Indy would be great.”
Walker remained reserved as to what extent changes need to be made to the existing layout.
“We wanted to evaluate the racetrack as it is,” Walker said.
“There are a number of ideas to improve overtaking and making the racing more interesting perhaps than it was during the F1 days.
“I’m not sure the Speedway needs to make monster changes. There could be some alterations that would improve the racing short term.
“And then I think if the fans come you keep doing more and keep doing more. I think you could develop a really unique racetrack out of the infield.”
Douglas Boles, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway president, said that while it represented a break from tradition, there is positive feedback from the drivers about the road course.
“I think everybody at the IMS and the whole organisation is excited about the prospects (of a road course race) otherwise we wouldn’t be having this test.”
