INDIANAPOLIS — Last week, the NTT INDYCAR Series announced that their June 6 start date at the Texas Motor Speedway would remain intact. While doubts were starting to surface, both series and track officials decided to make concessions and able to work out a deal for the new 2020 season opener to stay put.

The details in the new deal weren’t revealed, but part of the assumed agreement was a cut in the sanctioning fee since the Genesys 300 (8:45 pm ET/NBCSN/INDYCAR Radio Network) will take place behind closed doors.

No fans, a one-day condensed schedule and a shortened race from 600 kilometers to 300 miles were enough to get this event off the ground.

More: Everything You Need To Know For Season Opener At Texas

Now, the season finale is set in stone too. The Firestone Grand Prix of St Pete will take place on Sunday, Oct. 25. That agreement was an in day on Wednesday.

St. Pete was supposed to be the season opener again, like always. But, that was the weekend when COVID-19 became real here. On the first day of the season, instead of hitting the streets for practice, they hit the exits for home. The race weekend postponed.

At the time, it was widely considered that St. Pete would become canceled for 2020. After all, it’s extremely difficult to reschedule a street race. A race on city streets and in this case, an airport runway too, well they don’t have the luxury of being a permanent venue. The track literally needs to be built from the ground up. Then, you factor in the need to redo permits and zoning as well as coordinating to be sure that the streets can be closed for an extended length of time. That’s why Long Beach and Belle Isle on the INDYCAR side and Australia and Monaco on the F1 side were canceled all together for 2020.

St. Pete though, wasn’t willing to give up. INDYCAR rewarded them for their efforts and said that they hoped to be able to swap them from the season opener in March to the season finale in October as a result. The thing was, no one really knew if the logistics could work.

Now, we know it will. So, instead of ending the year on Sept. 20 in Laguna Seca like initially scheduled, or Oct. 3 on the newly added road course race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway like the backup plan, INDYCAR will end a full month later on the last Sunday of October. It will be just two weeks before NASCAR’s season finale in Phoenix.

More: When can race fans come back to the seats?

Typically, INDYCAR ends their season a full 2+ months ahead of NASCAR. Now, it’s just 14 days apart. That’s because INDYCARs season is ending over a month later in comparison to last years finale as well as NASCAR moving their finale up a couple of weeks too.

A few takeaways are this –

▪️There will be 22 days between the penultimate race of the season and the season finale

▪️The season may have moved back to Oct. 25, but from Labor Day on, INDYCAR only races five times.

▪️The breaks at the end of the year are warranted. They’ll go to Mid-Ohio on Aug. 9, to Indy for practice from Aug. 12-14 to qualifying for the Indy 500 on Aug. 15-16, to practice again on Aug. 20-21, the Indy 500 itself on Aug. 23 to St. Louis on Aug. 30, a breather for a few weeks, then Portland on Sept 13, a doubleheader at Laguna Seca on Sept. 19-20, a week off then to Indy on Oct. 3. In a span of nine weeks, IndyCar will be in action during seven of them including several days during the week.

▪️Qualifying will still be a premium for the finale. There’s been 16 races on the St. Pete street circuit and a driver coming from the Fast Six has won 12 of them. Furthermore, 14 of the 16 race winners of the event have started in the top 10 too. Yes, Sebastian Bourdais came from starting spots of 21st and 14th respectively in two of the last three years, but that was aided by ill timed cautions which flipped the field due to them falling during pit sequences.

▪️As of now, the schedule remains the same. INDYCAR will go to Road America on June 21 then Richmond in June 27. Those two races as well as the one in Toronto could be in doubt though. Road America has postponed everything that was supposed to run there this month and according to their reopening of the state guidelines, it appears no fans can attend next month either. In the case of Richmond, their state has even stricter guidelines in place which will make it tough to race in Virginia prior to July 13. NASCAR already canceled their spring race on the same track. That leaves Toronto who just canceled a large event in Exhibition Place for August. How can they keep an INDYCAR race scheduled when it takes more time to set up for that? All three could be searching for new dates.

▪️The start of the schedule will be oval heavy. Four of the first seven races out of the gates are on them including all six in the opening nine. We also haven’t added any new oval tracks to the schedule, but due to the subtraction of races and the addition of a second race at Iowa, six of the 15 races to run this season will contest on ovals. That’s obviously a bigger percentage than five of 17, an 11-percent increase in fact (40%-29%).

Updated NTT IndyCar Series Schedule

June 6 – Texas Motor Speedway

June 21 – Road America

June 27 – Richmond Raceway

July 4 – Indianapolis Motor Speedway (road course)

July 12 – Toronto

July 17 – Iowa Speedway

July 18 – Iowa Speedway

August 9 – Mid Ohio Sports Car Course

August 23 – Indianapolis 500

August 30 – World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway

Sept. 13 – Portland International Raceway

Sept 19 – WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca

Sept. 20 – WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca

Oct. 3 – Indianapolis Motor Speedway (road course)

Oct. 25 – Firestone Grand Prix of St. Pete