Roger Penske, owner of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway along with Team Penske says that Kyle Larson will be a great asset to the Indianapolis 500 next May.
Larson will compete for Arrow McLaren with Hendrick Motorsports.
Speaking about the addition of Kyle Larson who recently completed his Rookie Orientation Programme, Penske said:
It’s a great question. We are so excited to see Larson come to the speedway. I know Rick talked to me about running Larson and we hadn’t had the success for a couple years and I said, ‘Look for us to take on a fourth car, ‘ and then of course McLaren did and we just applauded that all the way along, and I think that his skill and his fan base in the midwest is amazing, and he went out there and did his rookie test – bang, bang bang. Kurt Busch has run there. Think about the other people who have come from Formula One – Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill and other people like Nigel Mansell have been successful. I think that he comes with a tremendous amount of talent and it’s something that he wants to do. It’s interesting. Blaney said to me at some point over the last several weeks that he would like to go to Indy. I was like, ‘Whoa, slow down a little bit.’ We’re good to have everybody come to Indy, but if we can have the double and really play up Memorial Day at both Charlotte and Indianapolis it’ll be great. The interest from the fan base with him coming, we can see it already in our ticket sales. He’ll be a great asset to Indianapolis and the 500.”