The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are putting racing organizations against the wall to solve their schedule problems, and some series though that trying to solve this with the remaining time in the year would be too much of a hassle, in special for international competitions. The GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS was one of these victims, and while having a plan for 2020, it couldn’t execute it, with SRO Asia deciding to cancel the 2020 season.
The competition in normal conditions requires a lot of long distance travel, as Japan, China, Thailand and Malaysia are included in the regular schedule, and the number of represented countries was cut by half when the Japanese rounds and the Buriram one were axed, leaving only Sepang and Shanghai in the calendar, with a second Chinese round still needing to be confirmed.
The problems that forced Japan and Thailand out of the schedule were extended by a complicated situation in Malaysia regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, which raised the travel restrictions and arrival procedures in the country, putting it on par with the Japanese and Thai territories, and as travel, health and safety burdens piled up, it was decided for the cancellation of the series, citing that SRO wouldn’t be able to run a series living up to its continental status.
Along the series, the teams would have immense problems to go past the travel restrictions depending of their countries, as it would mean the possibility of being blocked in the return, or not even being able to leave the territory, as it’s the case of the Japanese, Thai and Australian teams, and this would cut off at least half of the grid.
The idea for SRO is now to prepare the 2021 calendar, expecting to bring the countries present in GT World Challenge Asia, along with the awaited debut in the competition for the famous Shanghai 888 endurance race.
PHOTO: SRO
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