Round two of the NTT IndyCar Series at the Circuit of the Americas will see $100k on offer for the driver who can claim both pole position and the race victory.
Circuit officials put the prize on offer ahead of the IndyCar Classic at the Texas road course as an added incentive for the circuit's inaugural IndyCar event in an effort to try and make it 'special'.
Rick Abbott, Executive Vice President of the circuit told IndyCar.com: "In September, we all kind of got together and started talking about how to make this race really special.
"It was important for us to kind of distinguish ourselves a little bit away from everybody else, and we thought, you know, do something bigger – that's always bigger in Texas, something that's very cool and kind of like something new. And how do we make that makes the qualifying even more exciting?
"So we came up with the idea that if you win the pole on Saturday and win the race, we're going to give you $100,000."
"That's very generous," added Andretti Autosport's Alexander Rossi. “So obviously we have a huge incentive to go and do that as it is. But that makes it very exciting, and I'm sure that some guys will commit pretty heavily to trying to make that happen."
Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsport's Marcus Ericsson finished 10th for Sauber during the Formula 1 race in 2018 and is excited to race at CoTA in IndyCar after the 'Spring Training' test in February.
"It's one of the best tracks on F1 and I think it's great we are going here with IndyCar," said the Swede.
"It's going to be a great weekend. Racing should be very good. It's already good on F1 on this track and from what I've done on IndyCar, it's going to be a really good show from everyone and I'm really looking forward to it."
