Organizers for the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the United Kingdom announced Thursday that this year's running, scheduled for July 9-12, has been postponed due to the current Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
The organizers are monitoring the situation and will provide an update on a new date in due course. They are looking at late summer or early fall but the event's running will fully depend on the outcome of the pandemic. Anyone who has already bought tickets will be able to use them for the postponed event.
While the Goodwood FoS isn't technically an auto show, automakers in past years have used it to debut new cars. One of the debuts rumored for this year's event is Volkswagen's redesigned Golf R. Any reveals scheduled for the July running will likely still happen online.
Organizers for the NTT IndyCar Series also announced a major shakeup to the 2020 calendar due to the coronavirus. The big news is the postponement of the Indianapolis 500 to August 23 from the current date of May 24, which will make this the first time the historic race is run outside of the month of May.
The IndyCar Grand Prix also at Indianapolis Motor Speedway will now be run the weekend starting July 4 instead of the current date of May 9. It will be held as an IndyCar-NASCAR doubleheader. Other races on the IndyCar calendar are also being moved, with the St. Petersburg race which was meant to kick off the 2020 season earlier this month now likely to serve as the season finale late this year.
Honda-powered IndyCar at Mid-Ohio, July 2019 (Source: IndyCar)
Numerous other events have either been cancelled or postponed due to the coronavirus. For instance, auto shows in Beijing and New York scheduled for April have been postponed, though Detroit's annual auto show is still scheduled to run the week starting June 8.
Organizers of Formula One have pushed the start of the 2020 season to late May, with this month's Australian Grand Prix cancelled and races in Bahrain, China and Vietnam all postponed. New rules scheduled to come into force next year have also been pushed back to 2022. Formula E, the World Endurance Championship, WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and MotoGP have also postponed or cancelled races, while the Isle of Man TT has also been cancelled.
The Circuit of the Americas also announced that it will close and lay off staff due to restrictions on public gatherings of 250 or more people in Austin, Texas, where the racetrack and events center is located.
Automakers across the globe have also had to close plants, either due to social distancing requirements, parts constraints, or workers becoming infected. It's also happened here in North America, with most major automakers temporarily closing plants.
For a full list of motorsport events affected by the coronavirus, click here.
Update: Information on changes to the 2020 NTT IndyCar Series has been added to the article.
