Richards: Now is the time to assess UK motorsport’s future
Motorsport UK chairman David Richards believes that, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, now is the right to time to look at the way in which motorsport operates in the UK, including reducing the number of events and making it more accessible.
The governing body suspended all event permits on the eve of the season beginning in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
That suspension ends this weekend and a limited number of meetings are now allowed to take place in July, but national championships cannot resume until August.
Richards feels the time is right to reassess UK national motorsport to ensure that it can thrive. “I think we’ve got to take a fresh look,” he told Autosport. “We’ve got to use this opportunity to look at our calendar, to look at rationalising certain things. We’ve got to look at our customers more and understand exactly what it is they require.
“There had been a plethora of events around the country – too many events, too confusing – so it might not be a bad thing to restrict some of the calendars and have fewer events for people to go to but make those events more attainable and more affordable. That’s got to be one of our goals.”
He adds that it has been encouraging to see more clubs working together as events restart after the hiatus, saying it “always disappoints” that “clubs are very territorial at times”.
One of Motorsport UK’S priorities now is to get rallying restarted. Unlike circuit racing and other disciplines, traditional rallies cannot take place from this weekend as social distancing measures have prevented drivers sharing a car with co-drivers. Instead only rally time trials – where a driver is alone in the car, tackling the same short stage a number of times in a bid to complete it the quickest – are allowed at this point.
“The next thing we’ve got to do is get rallying back up and running,” Richards said. “It’s somewhat illogical that if you can get in a taxi with a taxi driver, and I believe driving lessons are coming back, and if that’s the case – to my mind – there’s no problem with bringing rallying back.”
A test event, using new procedures, is set to take place in conjunction with M-sport next week. It will be filmed and used as a template for how events can be run, Richards adding that he hopes to be able to give a timeframe for rallying’s return in the “next couple of weeks”.