Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is one of two races switching from NBC Sports Network to NBCGetty Images
The '21 IndyCar schedule released Thursday "looks largely the same as the 2020 version before the onset of the pandemic: 17 races total, 14 of the 17 identical races in that bunch and 12 of those within a week of where they were set to be this year," but of those changes that "do exist, nearly every one is major and has large swaths of series fans up in arms," according to Nathan Brown of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. It is "fair to say next year’s calendar has some notable differences -- some simply the product of circumstance and others set to be semi-permanent." After next year’s season-opener Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 7, IndyCar will go "five full weeks before its second race of the year" at Barber Motorsports Park. Brown: "If you’re IndyCar, you likely worry a little about losing momentum after all the promotion and marketing you put into your season-opener on NBC." Among the "slight changes on the TV schedule," the season-opener as well as "one of the biggest weekends of the year at Long Beach, switch from NBC Sports to NBC." New tracks "require ample testing to get the tire specs honed in," and that is "not a simple thing in today’s climate." As "celebrated as IndyCar’s three additions to the 2021 calendar (Nashville, the Texas doubleheader and the NASCAR/IndyCar doubleheader at IMS) might be," the spots "had to come from somewhere" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 10/2).
