Motorsport Roundup: Notable Highlights From 04/05 to 10/05

To ensure the survival of all the current teams on the grid in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic induced lockdown, F1 has proposed a lower than originally budget cap for 2021 and 2022. MotoGP is abuzz with news of a start date for the season and Valentino Rossi’s 2021 plans being all but confirmed. IndyCar is currently on schedule to get back to racing by the first week of June. Here is a rundown of what transpired in the past week.

Formula One

Ross Brawn, F1’s managing director for motorsport, stated that a 145 million dollar budget cap for the 2021 season, down from the originally planned 175 million dollar limit, is all but set to be rubber stamped into the sport’s regulations. F1 has suffered an 84% loss of revenue in the period of January to March this year, as compared to the same period in 2019. This loss of revenue directly impacts the teams who are awarded money from a prize fund consisting of the money F1 earns through a season. Ending limitless spending - Mercedes and Ferrari’s budgets exceed 400 million dollars - will go some way in easing the blow to F1 teams, particularly the ones in the midfield. F1’s support series - Formula 2 and Formula 3 - are planning to start their seasons on the same date and venue as F1’s proposed season opener, the Red Bull Ring on July 5. For Indian motorsport fans, it would mean Jehan Daruvala - a Red Bull junior driver this season - will get to turn a wheel in anger. 

MotoGP

Dorna Sports, MotoGP’s commercial rights holder, has targeted Jerez in Spain for back to back weekends on July 19 and 26 to get the season started. The other big news coming out of MotoGP is of Valentino Rossi being all but set to sign with the Petronas Yamaha squad for the 2021 season, with an option for the 2022 season too. With Fabio Quartararo coming to the factory Yamaha team next year alongside Maverick Vinales, Rossi’s deal to take the vacant seat is believed to be an all but done deal.

IndyCar

Get latest updates on
the automobile community

Login Now

Fans could be treated to live motorsport action - instead of streams of racers playing video games - in less than a month as the North American IndyCar series announced that it will start its season on June 6 at the Texas Motor Speedway. Lockdown rules in the United States of America vary across the 50 different states. Texas has allowed the re-opening of restaurants and retailers in the absence of a unified national strategy to control the spread of the novel coronavirus. Sports events, however, are likely to be held behind closed doors, with no spectators allowed. 

World Endurance Championship

The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), North America’s sanctioning body for sportscar racing, and ACO - the organizing body for the 24 Hours of Le Mans - have agreed upon a set of regulations for the top category of prototype sportscar racing that will allow teams competing in the DPI class in America and those in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) to compete on a common platform. The new regulations, called LMDh, will be cost-capped to allow privateers and manufacturers to compete sustainably. Teams will be at liberty to use either internal combustion engines or ICE-electric hybrid power units. Porsche, which left the WEC’s prototype racing class at the end of 2017, announced that it had started a ‘formal evaluation’ of the LMDh regulations.

World Rally Championship

The FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) announced the cancellation of Rally Portugal, originally scheduled for May 21 to 24, and the postponement of its rounds in Argentina and Italy. As things currently stand, the 2020 WRC season is set to kick off in Kenya with the Safari Rally Kenya on July 16 to 19. However, this plan is subject to the Kenyan government’s go ahead as it monitors the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country. Kenya has recorded 672 cases of COVID-19 so far with 32 deaths.