As the world continues to battle the looming presence of the Covid-19 virus, parts of Europe have seen increases in cases once again. Due to these spikes the European Le Mans Series have decided to replace the Barcelona race to a second visit to Le Castellet in late August.
CEO of the European Le Mans Series, Gérard Neveu said, “After discussions with the ELMS teams, the organisation teams in Barcelona and Le Castellet, we have taken the difficult decision to replace the 4 Hours of Barcelona with an event of identical duration in Le Castellet.
“These are complicated and uncertain times which call for us to react to guarantee the safety for everyone who works in the ELMS paddock, which is our top priority. The current situation with regards to Covid-19 in Spain has logically led us to take this course of action.
“The level of risk in Catalunya is high enough to justify the restrictive return travel measures. The teams would not be able to apply those measures such as quarantine only a few weeks before the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Nobody enjoys these kinds of changes but once again the health situation to date is imposing on us some exceptional conditions.
“We would like to first thank the staff at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for their understanding and we can’t wait to go back in 2021 to Barcelona. We would like also to thank the team at Circuit Paul Ricard for allowing the ELMS to have the possibility of holding another meeting behind closed doors at short notice and with the same conditions as last month.”
The Barcelona round was scheduled to be the third event of the season ahead of the rescheduled Le Mans date but with it looming so close it’s a smart to decision to have the teams in the same country as the great race, thus avoiding any travel restrictions or quarantine pre-cautions.
It will be the second time in three races the cars will return to the Le Castellet circuit after the Rescheduled official tests and first race took place back in mid July.