The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League will continue to be part of the IndyCar calendar in 2025. One of the scoring rounds will take place at the Thermal Club, an exclusive venue for members. This calendar remains largely unchanged from the previous year, except for the season finale which will be held at the Nashville superspeedway instead of the downtown circuit.
The Thermal Club was used as a testing venue before the 2023 season and recently hosted a non-scoring round with an experimental heat format. Although the circuit received mixed reviews for this event, the drivers generally responded positively to the track. Their main complaint was that they did not want a non-scoring round as the second event of the season. Despite this, the Thermal Club will retain its place on the calendar and will now be a scoring event held on March 23, three weeks after the season opener in St. Petersburg.
There are some notable date changes in the calendar. The Gateway weekend has been moved from August 17 to June 15 for the 2025 season. The Laguna Seca round has also been postponed by over a month from its previous date on June 15. In July, there will be five race rounds, including visits to Mid-Ohio, the double-header at the Iowa oval, and the street race in Toronto.
These calendar adjustments were possible because there are no conflicts with the Olympics, which will be extensively covered by IndyCar’s current broadcast partner, NBC, from July 26 to August 11. However, this will be NBC’s last year as the broadcaster of IndyCar, as the series announced a new agreement with Fox Sports.
The announcement also confirms that there will be no race in downtown Nashville this year. Initially, the city was scheduled to host the season finale in 2024, but due to challenges with the redevelopment of the NFL football team stadium, Tennessee Titans, the race was moved to the oval outside the city. The work on the stadium is expected to be completed in 2027, which could allow IndyCar to return to downtown earlier in the season. However, the event sponsor and manager, Scott Borchetta, has expressed a preference for using less of downtown Nashville, which suggests that the revised street circuit initially planned for 2024 may not be used.
Here is the revised IndyCar schedule for 2025:
– March 2: St. Petersburg
– March 23: Thermal Club
– April 13: Long Beach
– May 4: Barber
– May 10: Indianapolis circuit
– May 25: Indianapolis 500
– June 1: Detroit
– June 15: Gateway
– June 22: Road America
– July 6: Mid-Ohio
– July 12: Iowa
– July 13: Iowa
– July 20: Toronto
– July 27: Laguna Seca
– August 10: Portland
– August 24: Milwaukee
– August 31: Nashville
