IRL and Champ Car teams paired up

The series has paired each Champ Car team with one of the existing IndyCar squads, and in the coming weeks the pairs will work together to prepare cars for the season opener at Homestead on March 29.

The pairings have been based on previous relationships, geographical proximity, and similar team size.

The IRL's vice president of competition Tony Cotman said: "The difficulty for any new team to come along at this point is a lack of information. We'd like to see the whole field within a second.

"If we can help them get to a point to do that by sharing information through partnering teams, that's what we'll do."

Multi-car teams have had to relinquish some of their spare cars for the early part of the season, and teams will share spares during the early races of the year.

Series organisers believe that they can have enough cars and spares for every team around the time of the Indianapolis 500 at the end of May.

Despite the existing IRL teams having to compromise their own preparations for the new season, they have apparently been happy to do it.

President of competition Brian Barnhart said: "Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi and Michael Andretti all said 'What can we do to help?' It shows their view on how important this is for the good of the sport."

Not all of the Champ Car teams that have been paired up have confirmed their participation in the unified series this year, but they have been assigned a partner team regardless.