Beth Paretta’s Grace Autosport team targeted early March as a date to secure its engine lease for the Indianapolis 500.
If it’s done in mid-to-late February, it would put the team ahead of schedule.
Paretta, speaking on Inside Indiana Business with Gerry Dick, would hope to announce an engine deal shortly for the race. The full interview is here, hosted by Bill Benner.
Dick noted it would be a Chevrolet, although a tweet he’d posted about that has since been deleted.
The first all-female @IndyCar team, @GraceAutosport, partners with IUPUI to promote women in STEM fields #IIBTV pic.twitter.com/nEvumXs8ug
— Inside INdiana Business (@IIB) February 21, 2016
Once an engine deal would be confirmed, it would answer one of the outstanding questions for the team, and the number of engine leases likely available, ahead of the 100th running of the race.
If it’s Chevrolet, in looking at the number of Chevrolet teams, Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing are already at four cars, KVSH Racing has two cars accounted for (KVSH Racing for Sebastien Bourdais and PIRTEK Team Murray for Matthew Brabham), Ed Carpenter Racing also has two set (Josef Newgarden, Ed Carpenter) and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing has a single car for Sage Karam.
Meanwhile on the Honda side, extra cars could be available from A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports or Andretti Autosport, each of whom have fielded extra cars for the race in the past. Dale Coyne Racing is expected to field a four-car lineup.