(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden
The last year has been one with more darkness than light.
From March on we’ve all collectively been trapped in a fight against a pandemic that’s either very serious or entirely overblown depending on who you ask, with opinions differing drastically even among those sharing space at tracks. During the same timeframe multiple countries have fought through civil, political and cultural reckonings tied to executive leaders, the treatment of minorities and what is or isn’t true about varying sectors of science.
Through this all, the motorsports industry has somehow marched on. At risk of financial turmoil, racing tours across the world mitigated but ultimately accepted the risk of COVID-19 exposure while racing wherever they could find opportunities to do so.
At first those races came virtually over iRacing, rFactor 2 and other esport options. Then came the steady return of real-life racing in radically-altered schedules.
NASCAR stayed within driving distance for weeks while running on any and every day of the week. Formula 1 kept within the realm of Europe for the brunt of the 2020 season, while Formula E completed what remained of its season all at the Tempelhof Airport. Short tracks and the tours that compete in them adapted to local legislation and did or didn’t race. Every series relied largely on the growing broadcast services to access a crowd that couldn’t or wouldn’t make a voyage to the track.
The challenges were immense. But over time each series found a way to complete its slate of races. Champions were crowned — some feeling more appropriate than others, but all ultimately deserving — and the racing industry quietly settled into the traditional holiday break to fight new battles like determining whether or not they’d see family for Christmas.
While some of the struggles remain, the turning of a new year has brought glimmers of optimism and a renewed focus on the next season. The Tulsa Shootout has already been held, while the Dakar Rally is currently underway in Saudi Arabia. From the Chili Bowl to the Rolex 24 at Daytona and Daytona 500, some of the biggest races in America are days or weeks away.
With them comes the start of the 2021 racing season in full and the arrival numerous new storylines to track, particularly in the early months.
Here are a few of the key things to follow as auto racing gets back under way.
Returning to Normalcy…?
As much as we all collectively looked to 2021 as the potential end to the current mess back in the spring of 2020, COVID-19 remains a significant issue at the moment. A few people have been vaccinated, but we’re largely still weighing the risks of daily life amid a pandemic in the short term – particularly with reports of a new strain of the virus emerging.
That’s going to be one of the key stories through the early stages of 2021, as tours work to compete amid the same logistical challenges they faced at the end of 2020.
Some races have already been shifted as a result of the pandemic.
The NTT IndyCar Series has moved its historic Grand Prix of Long Beach from the spring to September, which would hurt more if it hadn’t been canceled outright last year. The season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg has also been shifted back, altering the planned opener to Barber Motorsports Park. F1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix is reportedly being pushed back, making an early trip to Bahrain the new opener. Preseason testing may shift with it as well, while other races remain at risk of postponement or cancelation.
Formula E’s Santiago E-Prix’s not going to be possible early on, causing a shift to Saudi Arabia as the season-opening location. NASCAR has pushed its planned spring show at Auto Club Speedway to the Daytona International Speedway road course. Super late model fans will have to look to Showtime Speedway in Florida instead of the usual Watermelon Capital Speedway for this month’s CRA SpeedFest event.
All of these moves have been announced in recent weeks, with many of them coming just in the past few days. That’s a sign of continued schedule difficulties that could plague the industry through the early stretch of 2021, with potential to drag on longer if the coronavirus remains an issue in the long-term.
Beyond the teams and officials, this will also affect fans, sponsors and even media members like myself. Getting closer to capacity crowds could remain difficult for months, while sponsors and media used to garage access and opportunities for activation with fans may have to go many more weeks for an opportunity to talk face-to-face in with the people they look to engage with.
“The hallmark of our sport is about accessibility to the garage, accessibility to the drivers, the crews,” NASCAR president Steve Phelps said in a November state of the sport address. “We don’t have that. We don’t have that because we need to keep people safe. That’s the only way we’re going to run a race is if we’re going to keep people safe.”
We’re all far from returning to regular life. So you can write your favorite series’ schedule down in your planner if you’d like – but I’d use a pencil.
Ripple Effects
Tied to the pandemic struggles in something that could prove even more menacing for the industry: the long-term repercussions of this global setback.
A few programs, tracks and sponsors limited their efforts or stepped sway from racing altogether in 2020, even as government loans and pre-existing contracts kept others afloat. The most notable of them was the historic Williams family in F1, who remain only in name after selling the team to American investment firm Dorilton Capital. But the financial difficulties that caused those initial layoffs and shutdowns have only continued through the fall and winter.
It stands to reason that we could continue to see organizations struggle to limp along through the next 12 months or longer as they slowly try to push back toward normalcy. There are some that will never properly recover financially from the setbacks they’ve faced during this time.
This will be a particular challenge for tracks, who will need to sell once annual attendees to return to their old habits of coming out to races with their habit now broken.
“We feel like we need to remind everybody that we’re still here,” WWT Raceway president Chris Blair told The Indianapolis Star for a September story. “You work so hard to earn a spot on someone’s calendar as a fan, and then one year everything changes. It’s going to be a true effort to win people back and make them feel comfortable coming.”
Will more teams pull out of racing? Could we see additional tracks shuttered? What of the thousands of sponsors in racing – could a key partner cost a driver their livelihood along the way?
We’ll find out over the next 12 months.
This time hasn’t been easy on any of us. Climbing out of the hole we’ve collectively dug won’t be a walk in the park, either.
Social Reckoning
If there was one key surprise that came of the surreal roller coaster that was the 2020 racing season, it was the prevalence of social justice efforts in a few prominent racing tours.
F1 was the most obvious among the group given its stature within the industry, electing to adopt the “We Race As One” campaign while coming together at times to support champion Sir Lewis Hamilton’s efforts to use his platform to rally against racial inequality.
Hamilton, the lone Black driver in the series, was outspoken in his calls for equality and justice for the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and others in altercations with American police – even allowing the moments to overshadow a historic season in which he passed Michael Schumacher to stand alone at the top of F1’s win list.
The series allowed Hamilton a brief moment before each race to kneel in support of black lives around the globe, with many drivers joining him. The organization he drives for, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, also supported Hamilton by adopting a new black livery for its traditional ‘Silver Arrow’ cars.
Across the pond in NASCAR, Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace Jr. became a key sports figure in the civil rights movement. While most sports lay dormant, Wallace also called for racial justice and rallied the rest of the Cup Series field behind him. Months after fellow driver Kyle Larson was suspended indefinitely for the use of a racial slur in an iRacing event, Wallace was piloting a car with a Black Lives Matter scheme and trading Twitter barbs with President Donald Trump.
NASCAR supported Wallace and the field, making an apparent move to embrace diversity through issued statements and pre-race moments of tribute merchandising and outreach as part of the “I Am NASCAR” movement while finally banning the Confederate flag from being flown at races it sanctioned.
Both efforts were well-intentioned and seemingly successful, but neither came without controversy.
Hamilton’s decision to kneel before wasn’t reflected by all of his contemporaries, and he generated controversy by wearing a shirt that said “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor” at the Grand Prix of Tuscany in September.
Wallace’s move raised awareness, caused change within the series and made him a household name, bringing in sponsorship and helping him secure a ride at the newly-formed 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan and Joe Gibbs Racing ace Denny Hamlin. But it came with taunts and vitriol from those that disagree with him speaking out, particularly after what was perceived as a noose in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway generated national headlines but turned out to have been an unfortunate coincidence after being tied during the fall 2019 race weekend.
As the racing world heads into 2021, the success (or lack thereof) of both drivers figures to be a key storyline in each series.
After years of wondering what he could do with top-tier equipment, Wallace is seemingly stepping into a major opportunity with 23XI Racing. Expectations will be heightened — whether fair or not — and Wallace will need to prove capable of living up to his end of the deal on the track. Assuming Hamilton returns to Mercedes (he hasn’t re-signed yet) his social justice efforts will continue to steal headlines around the world.
But they won’t be the only ones forced to reckon with their social initiatives.
After his NASCAR exodus last year, Kyle Larson will be back in 2021 with Hendrick Motorsports. This is seemingly the best opportunity of his stock car racing career, but the Californian’s success will be driven as much by what he does or doesn’t do off track as it will be any wins on it. We’ve already seen his team go through a minor controversy, hiring and quickly firing spotter Chris Monez over backlash tied to his usage of social media.
The tours themselves will also be challenged this year.
NASCAR’s Confederate flag ban was well-intended, but easier to pull off in a time with minimal or no allowed attendance at its tracks. With a return to normalcy could come increased pressure to enforce the ban it elected to enact.
F1’s “We Race As One” initiative didn’t even make it through 2020 before being put to the test. Incoming Haas F1 Team rookie Nikita Mazepin was filmed inappropriately touching a young woman in a car around the time of December’s season finale in Abu Dhabi.
The team issued a statement on the matter and promised to take it seriously and enforce discipline behind closed doors, but neither it, F1 or the FIA have done much of anything publicly about the matter.
Based on Mazepin’s funding situation and previous history of issues — punching another driver and knocking a position bollard in the direction of a driver with his car heading to the podium celebration among them – the seeming lack of accountability has stood in stark contrast to the message the series tried to pitch throughout 2020.
Fans on social media have responded accordingly, claiming they aren’t in favor of the Russian’s 2021 drive with a campaign signified by the hashtag #WeSayNoToMazepin on social media. But with nothing likely to be done, it’s all proving to be an empty effort that could expose the worst of the industry’s dependence on funding.
Looking Toward the Future
We’ve spent the majority of the past year looking fondly at the future, but many racing fans are going to have to keep doing that for at least another year.
Once slated for earlier releases, many prominent forms of motorsport will be preparing for the launch of new cars and concepts over the next couple seasons.
NASCAR is among the leading tours working on a Next Gen car, with intentions to make a 2022 debut after initially planning to launch it this year. The sanctioning body has yet to have more than two cars at a test, but drivers that have driven the cars have largely had positive feedback about them to date.
The two keys for the new cars will be their look — we’ve yet to see any of the 2022 body styles from manufacturers — along with the way the cars can handle around each other amid aerowash. Questions also remain about affordability and distribution of parts from vendors chosen to sell them.
Also facing key changes is the world’s most popular motorsport, F1. Having also shifted back plans after COVID-19 hit, the open wheel single-seater tour will launch an all-new regulation set in 2022 geared toward reducing downforce and improving the racing. Also factoring into the move are the introduction of a budget cap and reallocation of prize money in an apparent effort to level the playing field among teams.
These changes come at a time when the tour has been utterly dominated by Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, which has won every driver and constructor title since 2014. It has left 2020 and ’21 with a lame duck feeling, as teams eye the future even as they engage in interesting battles for third and beyond in the constructors’ championship.
Sports car racing is due for a seismic shift at the top of the grid, with IMSA and the FIA coming together to launch the LMDh platform. Technical regulations for the cars were confirmed in September ahead of the delayed 24 Hours of Le Mans, with plans for a launch as soon as 2022. The hope of the rule set is to allow teams to compete in both the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship, which together contain some of the biggest endurance races in the world.
That’s not all WEC has to offer. The Hypercar category will launch in 2021 with entries from Peugeot, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus and ByKolles Racing.
This move comes in a time of shifting focuses in the sports car ranks, with a particular change in the GT category. The GTLM category in IMSA seems to be marching toward its conclusion, with president John Doonan claiming “the market will speak” on the future of the series and convergence options. With Porsche out of the category and others potentially following suit, it could be gone in IMSA by as early as 2022 and elsewhere in future years.
Meanwhile GT3 racing has shown potential for growth, with the struggling DTM series notably shifting to the use of current-spec GT3 machinery for what should be a critical 2021 season for its future.
The all-electric Formula E series is working on its Gen3 cars, with ABB set to supply charging technology for them. New to the electric racing world in 2021 is the rally series Extreme E, which will feature unique male-female driver duos and recognizable teams. James Glickenhaus is keen to field a hydrogen car in rally circles in the coming years and was even willing to challenge Tesla leader Elon Musk to a race against the brand’s Cybertruck in the 2023 Baja 1000.
These all come at a time when the esports side of racing is also growing, with brands like Ferrari and Porsche running esport tours and series’ like Formula E offering new initiatives with real-life rewards.
Through all of the challenges of this year, the racing industry has adapted and found ways to overcome. With new cars and emerging stars on the way, there’s even a bit of brightness to look toward in the future.
That said, the short-term still provides numerous financial challenges and the long-term setbacks of an industry dominated by funding remain there to conquer.
Amid a changing culture and evolving racing market, this industry promises to adapt and look for ways to stay ahead of the shifting tides. As racers, doing so is instilled in the very soul of those that compete in each tour around the world.
Just how they go about doing so promises to be something worth tracking in 2021 and beyond.
(Sources: Julia Ries / Healthline, IndyCar.com (x2), Luke Smith / Motorsport (x2), FIAFormulaE.com(x4), NASCAR.com (x5), CRA-Racing.com, F1.com (x4), Nathan Brown / Indianapolis Star, James Galloway / Sky Sports, Hendrick Motorsports, Jim Utter / Motorsport, Valentin Khorounzhiy / Motorsport, Twitter, Matt Weaver / Autoweek, IMSA.com, FIAWEC.com, John Dagys / Sportscar365, Daniel Lloyd / Sportscar365, Extreme-E.com, Ronan Glon / Autoblog)
