NASCAR Whelen Euro Series announces a series of changes in their sporting regulations to adjust the championship format with 2020’s shortened schedule as well as announcing how the series will handle the COVID-19 safety procedures over the course of the season.
With 10 days to go until the 2020 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series season starts with the Delphix / NSR American Festival of Rome at Vallelunga, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series has released an announcement regarding the sporting regulation changes and safety procedures that the series will obey in the 2020 season.
“We are all eager to return to the track and to our passion for pure racing, but we must also recognize the responsibility that comes with returning to compete in an environment that remains uncertain,” explained series President and CEO Jerome Galpin in the official announcement.
“As many sports and series, Team FJ, founder and organizer of the NWES, has to adapt to this exceptional situation and modify some rules and procedures to ensure the maximum safety of everybody involved and make the EuroNASCAR events more condensed, cost efficient and easy to operate for all stakeholders.”
The shortened 2020 season, which now consists of 10 races in 5 rounds instead of the initially planned 13 races in 7 rounds, will be adopting a slight variation to the championship format that is initially planned for this year. The double points-paying Playoffs, initially scheduled for the last 3 rounds of the season, will now be only applied to the final round of the season, the EuroNASCAR NASCAR Finals at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
The shortened season will see all race results count towards the final championship classification. Previously, it was planned that only the 12 best result counts – The best 6 from the first 7 non-Playoff races, followed by all results from the Playoff races.
In addition, as previously seen with the race weekend schedules for Vallelunga and Zolder, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series will be preparing two Race Weekend formats. The traditional race weekend format – Practice on Friday, Qualifying and Race 1 on Saturday, and Race 2 on Sunday – will be used in Zolder, a shortened two-day format that is used for Vallelunga will see each class hosting all their on-track activities in a single day – EuroNASCAR 2 hosting theirs on Saturday, while EuroNASCAR PRO will host their activities on Sunday.
The race weekend schedule that will be used for Most and Valencia’s Super Speed Week will be confirmed at a later date.
Regarding the safety protocols, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series will be mandating two primary standard safety protocols: All teams must limit the amount of team personnel that they can bring for each car, and all driver briefings are now confirmed to be held remotely via a digital platform.
Other protocols that are going to be imposed is going to be different on an event-to-event basis and it will be based on the protocols that the series, local authorities, and track partners will be agreeing with in compliance with the local situation and regulations.
Team FJ will continue to work together with NASCAR, racetracks, and local authorities to monitor the situation and react quickly to any potential change that can happen before each NASCAR GP’s.
Disclaimer: Unless noted, all photos used in this article are courtesy of NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Stephane Azemard.