Photo: LAT Images
W Series has announced an initial calendar for its second season in 2020, with new races in Russia and Sweden.
For its inaugural season this year, the championship ran as a DTM support and visited six of the circuits it raced at. It will continue that relationship in 2020, but with a heavily revised list of venues.
The season opener will take place on May 29/30 at the newly built Igor Drive circuit in Russia, designed by Hermann Tilke.
It is rumoured that the circuit in the far west of the country will take over from Sochi Autodrom as the venue for the Russian Grand Prix once Sochi’s current contract ends.
W Series’ second round will be at Anderstorp Raceway in Sweden on June 12/13, a track that featured in the Formula 1 calendar during the 1970s and is still a frequently visited location for the Scandinavian junior single-seater scene.
DTM will be swapping Misano for Monza on its usual visit to Italy, and W Series will be doing the same on June 26/27.
The remaining three rounds of the season all featured this year. On July 10/11, the grid will race at the Norisring street circuit, with Brands Hatch and TT Circuit Assen swapping places at the end of the calendar on August 22/23 and September 4/5.
?We at W Series are thrilled to announce two exciting and important new countries in which W Series will race in 2020: Russia and Sweden,” said W Series CEO Catherine Bond Muir.
?Our Swedish race, at Anderstorp, will take W Series to the Nordics for the first time, a region that?s home to our Finnish driver Emma Kimilainen, who was one of the stars of the 2019 W Series championship, winning at Assen [Netherlands] last year, as well as one of our new-for-2020 drivers, our recently announced Norwegian driver Ayla Agren.
?Our Russian race, at St Petersburg, will be the home fixture for the youngest driver in the 2020 W Series championship, 16-year-old Irina Sidorkova, from Petrozavodsk, which is also in Russia albeit 266 miles [428km] north-east of St Petersburg.
?Both Sweden and Russia represent important new territories for W Series, powerful economies both, appealing to fans, media and sponsors alike.
?We?ll announce the complete 2020 W Series championship calendar as and when we?ve finalised it.?
The DTM will race at four other locations in 2020, but any additional W Series dates are likely to be ran alongside another championship.
A source close to Formula Scout indicated that a support slot at the United States Grand Prix is being pursued by W Series for next season.