Recently, I have been thinking about how to increase the reputation of open wheel racing in the States, and recalling how popular it was when former WDC's like Mansell, Fittipaldi and Andretti drove in CART. Not that it's realistic that MS should come out of retirement only to win Indy 500, but I still have dreamt about some drivers that would highen the appeal of IndyCar (both in the US and abroad).

Heikki Kovalainen
Jarno Trulli
Nelson Piquet Jr.
Scott Speed
A.J. Allmendinger
Paul di Resta

How do your lists look?

Hamilton, Alonso. Just to see what a WDC in F1 truly means in other open wheel series.

Can't say I really want to see him in any form of motor racing.

I'll rather see some Indy car drivers in F1. F1 drivers such as Glock/Doornbos have already tried Indy cars.. I'll like to see Graham Rahal try for the US F1 team and perhaps see Dixon and Franchitti drive for one of the new F1 teams.

None.
Not until they have a formula car chassis that is not oval centric and with engines that are identical.
Doesn't matter anyway, no former F1 driver would join a series where they would have to buy their ride.
The irl does not equal what the CART series was when there were a flock of F1 drivers giving it serious consideration.

hamilton

Since I'm a fan of Dixon, it would really prove that Dixie is one for F1, when he beats Piquet big time in the championship, along with Dario and Briscoe

The perfect scenario would be if the Monaco Grand Prix was brought back one week, and IndyCar chassis had F1 safety specification, with a bit of free manufacturing and badging, following clear rules. Then IRL could invite the top seven F1 teams (the year before) to Indy, imagine how cool that would be?

Penske
Castroneves (defender), Briscoe, Power

Ganassi
Dixon, Franchitti

AGR
Danica, Kanaan, Marco, Mutoh (not three of those in a perfect world ), I'm not talking about TK!

Newman/Haas
Bourdais, Rahal

Ferrari
Alonso, Massa

McLaren
Hamilton, Räikkönen

Brawn
Button, Rosberg

Red Bull
Vettel, Webber

Toyota
Glock, Kovalainen

Williams
Barrichello, Hülkenberg

Renault
Kubica, ?

That would be a cool Indy, right?

PIQ jr and Fisichella.

Anthony Davidson.

Time for 'Lil Ant to give up the F1 dream and go kick some arse in America.

Barrichello would do well there I think

Given his 17 crashes in F1 in 1.5 seasons Piquet would kill half the field

Would love to see Hamilton in IRL to get rid of him from F1

Ana Beatriz

Looking better than Danica, that's for sure

Paul Tracy
A.J. Allmendinger
Scott Speed
J.R. Hildebrand
Jonathan Summerton

Sutil
Fisichella
Barichello
Kovalainen
Trulli
Nakajima

There are plenty of examples already, LH or FA isn't going to prove anything.

Ana Beatriz
Wade Cunningham

Hamilton and/or Alonso would make a mockery of the Indycar gang. That's not snobbery, because if you think they'd be mixing it up in the pack with Danica et al. you need your head testing.

if they are not with one of the top team I highly doubt they would be able to challenge Franchitti/Dixon for the title ..

The regular NASCAR guys, and among them of course Juan Pablo Montoya

Ana Beatriz
Arie Lyundyk jr.
Sebastian Bourdais
Adam Christodolou
Kyle Busch

OMG, that would be funny

Jacques Villeneuve
Dario Franchitti
Juan Montoya
Paul Tracy
Michael Andretti
Adrian Fernandez
Gil de Ferran
Jimmy Vasser
Greg Moore

Haha, if only turning back time would be possible! Moore is dead, man