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Why motorsport should consider a midweek future

International motorsport has been the preserve of weekends, but the pandemic forced Formula E to get creative with its Berlin season finale as four races were held midweek. Should FE and other series break with tradition and repeat the experiment?

Matt Kew Oct 5, 2020, 3:47 PM

Come the early summer, restlessness had truly set in during the initial coronavirus-enforced lockdown. That bore a growing clamour for sport to return in some form or other. Whether it be the Premier League's 'Project Restart' or for a major motorsport series to hurry together a semblance of a calendar, it was hoped these events might offer some way of a distraction.

Sport has for time immemorial been just that: a distraction, and one that took place at weekends. The first race of the 1931 European Drivers' Championship - the forebearer to Formula 1 - was a non-championship round on the Carthage street circuit in Tunisia that took place on 29 March, a Sunday. Precedent set, motorsport has overwhelmingly taken place at a weekend.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.