Indianapolis thus joins California's Laguna Seca circuit on next year's calendar although - unlike Laguna - the Indy event will feature all three grand prix classes, with the support 125 and 250cc World Championships also making the trip across the Atlantic.
With Laguna Seca already holding the 'US Grand Prix' title, the new event will be called the '
Red Bull Indianapolis GP' and first take place on September 14, 2008. Red Bull is also the title sponsor of the Laguna Seca race.
In order to host
MotoGP, the previous
F1 road course will be substantially modified. As rumoured, the race direction will be reversed, meaning that the new layout will run in the same direction as the facility's oval events. The new turn one will be tighter than the old final F1 corner, which used part of the oval's banking, while a new section of corners has also been added early in the lap. The new course will feature 16-turns and be 2.601-miles in length.
"We are very happy to be able to add this event to the MotoGP calendar because tradition and history play such a big part in our sport, and nowhere in the world has as much motorsport history as Indianapolis," said Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta.
"The U.S. is obviously a very important market to us, and when we returned to Laguna Seca a couple of years ago for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix, it was an instant success. The next step was to come to Indianapolis, and now to be able to say we have two MotoGP events in the United States shows just how far our sport has come in recent years. We hope that the Red Bull Indianapolis GP will be another success story, and we are already looking forward to next year's first event with anticipation."
