Simon Pagenaud, Penske, Indianapolis 500, 2019

104th Indianapolis 500 could be first held outside of May

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: IndyCar chief executive Mark Miles had conceded this year’s Indianapolis 500 may have to be postponed.

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Comment of the day

Are you watching ESports for the first time due to the lack of motor racing?

It’s funny how only a week after the Australian Grand Prix was cancelled (and its felt like a very long week), we’re almost already at saturation point with ESports!

I get it, but it’s almost turning into a bandwagon that everyone feels they need to join to stay relevant. I’ll probably still check out maybe one race of each flavour, but for me, ESports fall into the category of things I like to ‘play’, but would never watch, like snooker, chess, golf, tennis and cycling.
@Eurobrun

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On this day in F1

  • 50 years ago today a late ignition problem robbed Jack Brabham of victory in the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. Jackie Stewart won in his March, leading home Jochen Rindt’s Lotus by 36 seconds.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on “104th Indianapolis 500 could be first held outside of May”

  1. Please no.

    The Indianapolis 500 runs on Memorial Day Weekend. It should not have a flexible day, especially outside of May.

    If they can’t run it in May, it should just not be run.

    1. No worries, @neiana, it won’t be. It’s the 2021 Indy that will be the concern.

    2. I say if they can’t race in May, move it to whatever date works. Everyone would understand if the date needs to move, and running in September (or whenever) is much better than no Indy 500 for 2020.

  2. James Coulee
    22nd March 2020, 1:13

    I looked at the online racing thing as a brilliant outlet for the racing fix, but now that I’ve seen a few I think it’s underwhelming.

    First there’s a huge fragmentation: races all over the place, a sprinkle of interesting racers here, another sprinkle over there… some announce they’ll participate and then don’t…

    It’s a great effort, but I don’t think it’s being properly executed.

    There are established virtual racers and that’s a sport in itself.

    For us that follow F1 and not virtual racing, the prospect of swing our heroes racing each other is great! Seeing one or two lost in a field of unknowns, eliminated in the qualifying races and then nothing, it’s a bore fest. To make it worse, now we never even know were the guys will be racing with the dozens of virtual racing series popping up.

    For me this would work if we only had real world racers (F1 and ex-F1 drivers only would be great) in ONE virtual racing series of their own (virtual racers are on their own league and I’m afraid I don’t follow them), with a proper simulator, proper commentary, and maybe use a real F1 director for the stream.

    1. PatrickMccarty
      23rd March 2020, 11:35

      If it is not ran in May, it should not be ran!

  3. Juan Manuel Correa in the all star battle?!
    Great to hear he’s getting back into the swing of things bit by bit!

  4. So five current F1-drivers are now into iRacing. I would’ve expected the fifth to also be from the younger generation(s).

    I agree with the COTD in that some things I also prefer to do myself rather than watching and virtual-racing is an example. I prefer doing 100% races on F1 2019 as sort of my #NotThe series than watch these ESports-races or others doing them on YT.

  5. The problem with the eSport racing right now is the ‘TV’ direction is fine for watching replays of yourself at home but it just doesn’t cut it for proper presentation compared with the real thing. The first system that introduces a system where it can be hosted centrally and have what shown controlled by an actual TV director is going to make their product shine.

    They should really be able to show the real thing what’s needed as there’s unlimited possibilities for placing camera on track, in car, tracking drone style…just about anything you can imagine

    1. The allstar race was shown on Dutch television (Ziggosport, the Dutch F1 broadcaster) yesterday and I must say they did a pretty decent job. They did have a guy dedicated to directing and a decent commentator (and a clown, but even that guy was better than he usually is in F1 broadcasts).
      Of course it was not perfect and not even close to the real thing, but I enjoyed watching it for a while.

  6. you’re missing a lot not watching top level tennis, COTD

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