How IndyCar is nurturing young talent

Moving up the racing ladder is never easy for young drivers. The recent global economic problems have made it even more difficult to find budgets than it was before, and there are so many junior categories out there that it's difficult to know where your best opportunities to move forward can be found.

But I think that for young drivers, especially those in Europe, the US is a great place to learn their trade and advance their careers. We have a lot of unique things that other forms of motorsports, and especially open-wheelers, don't have.

In our 'Mazda Road to Indy' driver development programme we have three fantastic series - USF2000, Star Mazda, and Firestone Indy Lights. The champions each receive a scholarship to the next level. We see each year the kids that move up are very well-prepared for that next step. There are a bunch of people who have jumped from Indy Lights to the IZOD IndyCar Series in the past two years who are doing great in IndyCar today.

The Road to Indy wasn't just started to develop American drivers. Sure, that's a large part of it - we could definitely use more Americans in the series. We're largely a domestic series, and if you need domestic sponsors and domestic fans, we think you need domestic heroes that will attract the hearts and minds of the American population and really, really get behind the sport.

But we also want the best drivers in the world. A lot of them have dreams to come to Indianapolis, and I think that with a European-style background, running on road courses... coming over here, jumping into an IndyCar and learning to race on ovals at 230mph is pretty difficult. USF2000, Star Mazda and Indy Lights provide drivers who don't have that experience to come over and learn to race on ovals at a slower speed, at a much lower risk, at a much lower budget and allows drivers to work their way up to IndyCar.

What we sometimes see is a young driver with a big sponsor who comes over and goes straight into IndyCar and crashes in their first few races on ovals, and then their sponsor leaves the sport, and the kid leaves the sport and never gets his or her career started. That's not good for anybody. Fixing that is really what the Road to Indy was created to do.

Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe all raced in Star Mazda © LAT

IndyCar is about versatility - having cars and drivers that can race on road courses, street courses and ovals - and that's reflected in the calendars for our junior series.

For Indy Lights, the ratio of roads to ovals is about 50:50, and we'd like to keep it around 50:50. It's possible that we'll add a few more road courses in the future, but ovals will remain an integral part of what we do. The reality is that if you want to race in America and you want to race at the Indianpolis 500 and you want to be an IndyCar Series champion, you have to win on ovals. For us not to have that kind of mix in our development system... we'd be wasting our time.

Compared to most European categories, budgets for the Road to Indy categories are very competitive. For USF2000, it's about US$150,000-200,000 for a season. They race four or five double-header road-course weekends, and then they have two ovals. They are small ovals; they're not super-fast, and they race the night before the Indy 500 at Indianapolis Raceway Park, which is just a 10 minute drive from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

We make sure that all of our series are involved in the lead-up to the Indy 500. The two smallest series don't race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but they still play a large part - they come to Carb Day with us, we put on the Road to Indy Summit, which includes media training, networking for the young drivers where they can meet Indy Lights team owners, partners and officials. It is a great opportunity for us to reach deep into the roots of the sport and make them part of IndyCar.

Star Mazda races about 12 weekends a year with three ovals, so you bump up an oval or two, and those budgets are approximately $350,000-450,000. From there, you move up to Indy Lights - 13 races with seven roads and five ovals, and budgets there are about $750,000-850,000, and that's for championship-winning-calibre teams.

The prize money offered at each level of the Road to Indy programme is significantly more than other open-wheel series. USF2000 offers over $487,000 in scholarships and prize money. Star Mazda features $1.5 million in prizes, which includes the champion scholarship up to Indy Lights and all other series awards. Indy Lights awards $3million in prize money plus up to $1million champion scholarship to the IndyCar Series.

Tony George Jr has created a clearer path to IndyCar for youngsters

The entire ladder offers a chance to race on IndyCar weekends. Indy Lights joins every IndyCar weekend except for Sao Paulo, Motegi, Texas and Sears Point. Star Mazda races with us six times this year and USF2000 races with us four times, both including Memorial Day weekend at Indianapolis.

In order to have that galvanizing force that's going to capture the minds of fans, you have to be investing in the future. So by having these series on our race weekends, getting them used to the same tracks that the IndyCar Series races on in front of the same fans, some day a kid will be able to watch IndyCar and say, 'Wow, I saw that guy's first race at Baltimore, or St Petersburg or whatever, and he was really kicking butt back then and now look at him'.

It's about building brand awareness for all of our drivers and putting them in front of our fans and teams as soon as possible. So I really think it's good value for what it costs, and the experience that you gain from being in the same paddock as the IndyCar Series and racing at the same tracks is invaluable.

I think there is real a opportunity for European drivers over here in the US right now. The new IndyCar chassis is going to be really awesome and we're going to have a lot of manufacturer support and competition. You can have a very successful career racing in the United States and in IndyCar. Formula 1 is incredible, but it's almost on another planet. If you want to be a professional driver, you can realise your dream with the Road to Indy and IndyCar.