Rejoice. The racing world has returned to normal. Something like.
With the return of Formula 1 after the coronavirus pandemic on July 5, the weekend of July 4 is the first weekend in 2020 that includes F1, NASCAR and IndyCar races. Fans of American racing will not only have a three-day weekend, but they will also be able to watch four major races and five if they want to count the IMSA race on Saturday night at the Daytona circuit.
Both Saturday and Sunday they have two races each. The IndyCar series begins on Noon ET on NBC at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway circuit. That race is followed on NBC by the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on the same track.
It will be the first time that the Xfinity series has run on the IMS circuit instead of the oval. The change was made because, well, Xfinity racing at the IMS oval had gotten really boring. After trying aerodynamic tricks to keep the cars closer together on the track, NASCAR and IMS decided to make the switch to the track. The mere presence of cars on the track should improve the default race.
F1 is in Austria on Sunday morning (9am ET, ESPN) for the first of two races over two weekends at the Red Bull Ring. Circuit hours are set throughout the summer on tracks across Europe as the world’s top motorsport series try to make up for the races that were lost during the spring. F1 runs eight of 10 weekends through September 6 with more races to come after that.
The Cup series then completes the free weekend (4 pm ET, NBC) on the IMS oval. It is the first time that the Cup Series has run in Indianapolis over the weekend of July 4. Daytona’s traditional race over the holiday weekend is now the final race of the regular season as NASCAR tries to conserve the juice left in the Brickyard 400.
Thanks to the pandemic, it is also the first time that the IndyCar and NASCAR Cup series compete in the same facilities on the same weekend.
It is important to note that all of these races will happen without the assistance of fans. While IMS says it is still committed to trying to celebrate the Indianapolis 500 Miles in August with 50 percent capacity, there will be no fans watching the weekend race in person.
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Nick Bromberg He is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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