2023 AT&T Champ Car World Series season

2023 Champ Car season

The **2023 AT&T Champ Car World Series season** is scheduled to be the 24th season of Indycar World Championship competition, and the premier tier of the 111th season of American open wheel racing. The season's headlining event is scheduled to be the 110th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.

The 2023 season marks the fourth of six seasons telecommunications conglomerate AT&T is contracted to sponsor the series. AT&T began sponsoring the series in 2020.

## Background

The 2023 season will be the second season to use the AAI IR-22 chassis, introduced in 2022 as a development of the original chassis. Firestone continues to be the sole tire supplier of the series, in a tradition dating back to 1996.

### Rule Changes

#### Technical Regulations

* The 2023 season will be the final season to feature the usage of ethanol fuel. Beginning in 2024, the series will pivot to butanol, a biofuel that has the ability to be more efficient and more carbon-neutral. The change is part of Horizon Corporation's Neutral Initiative, which pledges itself to bringing Champ Car to a carbon neutral status by 2030.
* Push to Pass will return in 2023, marking the first time since 2004 that the system will be featured in the World Championship. The new push to pass system will permit 10 uses on exclusively the road and street courses. Each use is good for up to 20 seconds, and will provide an extra 25 brake horsepower.
* Beginning in 2023, teams will have access to, and will be required to use, both the primary and alternate compound tires on road and street courses. Up to the 2022 season, Firestone traditionally supplied one compound or the other for the events.

#### Sporting Regulations

* Beginning in 2023, full time entries will be secured by a Racing Operations Contract (ROC). All teams that competed in 2022 will automatically receive ROCs for 2023. ROCs can be sold to other teams for up to USD$1 million, or can be given back to Horizon Corporation, who can reassign vacant ROCs as needed. ROCs were created as a way of formalizing regulations regarding full time entries, entry loans, and team relations.
* Road and street course events will move to standing starts for initial starts of events for the first time since the 1994 season. Since 1995, rolling starts have been used at all events. Now, rolling starts will be exclusive to ovals, as well as road courses with banked corners at the start-finish line, such as the road course layout of Daytona International Speedway.

## 2023 Teams and Drivers

The following teams and drivers are contracted to compete in 2023 in some capacity.

### Team Changes

* After five years with Alpine-Renault engines, Team Impulse will switch to Toyota, who supply the team in the GP1 Championship.

### Drivers Leaving

* Siri Lundqvist will leave the series after two and a half years to join Alpine's LMP1 program in the International Endurance Championship.
* Keisha Fox will leave the series after three years, returning to stock car racing.

### Drivers Joining

* Julia Takani will join the series, racing the #62 for Cherokee GP after two seasons in the Nissan Atlantic Championship.
* Alicja Kowalkiewicz will return to full time Champ Car competition for Cherokee GP, replacing Siri Lundqvist in the #96 Alpine.
* Artyom Kozlov will return to the series in a full time capacity in 2023, after racing twice in 2021, and four times in 2022. They'll replace Sakura Ishibashi for Panasonic Team Impulse.

## Calendar

The 2023 Champ Car schedule will be ratified on 1 December 2022 by the North American Motor Racing Association (NAMRA) and the Federation International Course d'Artificielle (FICA). The season is expected to be contested across 22 race weekends, competing on a variety of track types throughout the season across multiple countries and continents.

### Calendar Changes

* Following a vote from the team owners during the 2022 season, the season was extended from 20 races, to 22 races, the most in a season since the 2018 season. Per Horizon Corporation imposed limitations, the series calendar cannot expand beyond 22 event weekends, meaning any additional events beyond 2023 would have to come from the formation of double-header weekends, where a venue hosts two races in one weekend.
* For the first time in over 50 years, the Indianapolis 500 will not be held on the second Sunday in May. It will now move to the third Sunday in May, where the race was originally held from 1909 until 1941 and again from 1946 until 1970. An additional week of festivities have been added to the "Month of May" scheduling, including more media, dedicated Rookie Orientation Program sessions, and other support events.
* For the first time since the 2009 season, Pocono Raceway will not have an open wheel racing event. Track owners attempted to have the planned Champ Car event at Nazareth Speedway blocked, resulting in Horizon Corporation, Champ Car's parent company, terminating its contract with the facility one year early. The North American Motor Racing Association (NAMRA) also refused to do business with the venue following its attempt to monopolize large scale racing events in Eastern Pennsylvania.
* Nazareth Speedway returns to the calendar after last hosting an event in 2017. The track, which had been revived and restored following over a decade of abandonment, had been blocked from hosting Indycar World Championship events by the nearby Pocono Raceway from 2018 until 2022, when Horizon Corporation terminated its event contract with Pocono (see above). Nazareth will host a 225 mile event on September 17th.
* Old Spice Speedway will join the Indycar World Championship calendar for the first time in 2022, after hosting the Nissan Atlantic Championship in 2020, and the GTPlanet Fandom Series. The Cincinnati-based circuit will host the fifth race of the season, 5 weeks before the Indianapolis 500. As both Old Spice, and Indianapolis, are owned by Citadel Promotions, ticket packages for both events are being made available, a rare occurrence.
* The Pennzoil 600 event at Texas Motor Speedway has been moved from late March to the weekend of July 4th, with the event becoming the second leg of the Triple Crown. The event will be extended from 372 miles/600 kilometers, to 600 miles, making it the longest race distance on the calendar.

### Event Contract Updates

* Phillip Island is in the last of its four year contract to host what has been Australia's only event on the calendar. Despite not having a native Australian in the series since 2021, the 2022 event was a virtual sellout, with the New Zealand-born Hazel Lacasse bringing in a lot of fanfare for the event.
* Twin Ring Motegi enters the final year of its contract in 2023, with Honda Motor Company, the track's owner, uncertain as to continue with the event. The 2022 event was a sellout, with all 45,000 seats being purchased for the event, the first time since the 2015 season. Twin Ring Motegi has been on the calendar every year of the World Championship, making it one of only 4 tracks to do so, along side Auto Club Speedway, Watkins Glen International, and Texas Motor Speedway.
* Kansas Speedway's owners have exercised a fifth year option to host its Champ Car event following the success of the 2022 event. Its contract now runs until the 2027 season.
* Richmond International Raceway is set to host its April event for the third time, with the event contract expiring following the 2025 season.
* Following its hosting of the Nissan Atlantic Championship in 2021, and 2022, Old Spice Speedway will bring the Champ Car World Series to the Cincinnati metropolitan area for 2023 in an experimental two year deal.
* Horizon Corporation, and Citadel Promotions, the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, signed an extension to see the race continue as a part of the Champ Car calendar until at least 2035.
* Belle Isle Park is in its last year of its current contract in hosting the Grand Prix of Detroit. It is expected that a new contract will not be signed, following a rejected proposal that would have seen infrastructure improvements made to the island, on top of decreasing attendance.
* Valkenburg Naval Air Base is expected to sign a long-term contract with the series regarding the Grand Prix of Valkenburg. The former air base was initially planned to become housing development, but the race's success in 2020, and sold out attendance in 2022 have prompted local officials to retain the base's infrastructure for sporting and outdoor events.
* Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours is in the second of a three year deal to host France's Champ Car event.
* Texas Motor Speedway signed a five year extension to host its Champ Car event, which becomes a 600 mile event in early July. The contract expires in 2029.
* Nazareth Speedway, upon returning to the series calendar, signed a three year contract to host its event.
* Dodge Raceway, owned by Arasaka Corporation, is in the second of a six year agreement. Arasaka has signaled intent to take over naming rights of the venue in the case that Twin Ring Motegi does not renew.
* Auto Club Speedway's owners expressed intent to negotiate an extension with the series to continue hosting the series finale beyond the venue's contract expiration in 2025.

## See Also

* 2022 AT&T Champ Car World Series season, the current season of Indycar World Championship competition.