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SPEEDWAY, Ind. — The Formula One Canadian Grand Prix was canceled for the second year in a row a few weeks ago as COVID restrictions in Canada have made it impossible to stage the event.

The cancellation has left a glaring opening on the F1 schedule, that many have speculated might be filled by an event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, which would end up being a second race in the United States this season.

The regular United States Grand Prix is still on for Circuit of the Americas in Texas. Despite the rumors of Indy filling in for any cancellations on the F1 calendar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles said an F1 race at Indy in 2021 is not likely.

“We’d love to host a Formula One race again at some point in the future,” Boles said. “We’re an FIA Grade 1 race track, we’ve maintained that all along for that purpose in case F1 ever needed a place or if we had the opportunity to host an F1 race we could do that.”

In 1998, then IMS owner and president Tony George arranged for Formula One grade garages to be built along pit road and the infield road course was built for the purpose of bringing Formula One to the United States for the first time since 1991.

The first F1 race at IMS was run in 2000 as the United States Grand Prix. But the event at IMS would last only seven years as the race was subsequently moved to Circuit of the Americas in 2012 after a four-year layoff.

Boles said the timing of the F1 calendar and IMS’s current event schedule don’t make adding a Formula One race feasible in 2021.

“We don’t really have any open windows in that time from when they want to run,” Boles said. “We’ve got a big event coming up early in September the SCCA run-offs taking up two weeks. We’ve got the eight-hour endurance race in October.”

Boles said though it doesn’t make sense at the moment for this year, they are keeping conversations with Formula One.

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