IndyCar's Chinese round called off

The event, which was scheduled for August 19, had been in doubt for some time due to complications with Qingdao city officials, but IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard said that despite ongoing efforts to make the race work, there was simply no time left.

"We wanted to give the China race every opportunity to move forward and be successful, but IndyCar has been notified by the promoter that the event is cancelled for 2012," said Bernard in a statement.

"We were informed that the promoter was trying to move the event to a different date and location. After ongoing discussions regarding alternative dates, as well as doing our due diligence in exploring alternate venues in China, the promoter cancelled the event.

"A decision had to be made to allow IndyCar and its participants to plan accordingly for the second half of the season."

Despite the failure of this year's race, Bernard says that he remains open to trying to get an event in China off the ground in the future. In the meantime, work is underway to find a possible replacement event so that the schedule can be kept at 16 races.

"We are working with our promoters that host events in the second half of our calendar to keep them apprised of how the date of a potential new race could impact our current schedule," Bernard said.

The current schedule has the season finishing at Fontana, however Bernard confirmed in Texas last weekend that there is no clause in the Californian superspeedway's contract that guarantees that it will host the season finale.