2020 Circuit Series

The 2020 Circuit Series is a sports car racing series organized by the North American Production Car Championship Association (NAPCCA), in conjunction with the Stephane Ratel Organisation (SRO), and Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It features grand tourer (GT) racing cars based upon production road cars that comply with the FIA's GT3 regulations.

This was of many motorsport series affected by the 2019-20 COVID-19 pandemic. The original starting date of the 2020 season, April 9, was delayed due to many international travel restrictions and social distancing regulations being put in placed by the WHO in order to reduce spread of the virus. Up until August of the same year, no plan was put in place for reopening the series for competition. That was until a September joint press conference held by SRO founder Stephane Ratel, FIA president Jean Todt, NAPCCA president Christopher Diakiw and WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed plans for the 2020 Circuit Series season.

A plan for a slightly shortened calendar was in the works up until then, and was confirmed as such. Races would be held without fans, and strict social distancing regulations would still be held. Along with that, non-essential personnel of the teams would not be a part of the series that season. The calendar was reworked to remove countries not adhering with the Circuit Series' plans, and change the order of the races to fit a realistic timeline, and to work around world current events, such as the aforementioned COVID-19 pandemic and May-July protests of the murder of George Floyd around the United States.

Teams and Drivers
Sixteen teams took part in the 2020 championship. Two teams were entered by each constructor, with three drivers taking part per team, for a total of ninety-six drivers.

The SRO disclosed a statement regarding comments from the general public in August 2020 right before the start of the season. It cited, "regarding comments from the general public [about a smaller list of entries], we asked all participants for their compliance and received it from all of them, thus leaving us to go ahead with the season with all sixteen confirmed participants."

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 * ✝ MARC Cars entered the 2020 Circuit Series with a modified GT3 version of their MARC II V8 car to comply with Circuit Series regulations.
 * ‡ Spanish car manufacturer SEAT used a special one-off version of their Cupra TCR DSG car, made to comply with Circuit Series regulations.
 * ↟ Toyota Gazoo Racing announced that they would enter two modified GT3 versions of their GT500 Supra cars under two teams: Toyota Gazoo Racing and TGR Team SARD.

Schedule
Fifteen rounds were confirmed separately by both the NAPCCA and the SRO on January 1, 2020 and January 5, 2020 respectively. The calendar was a shortened version of the 2019 calendar, designed to accommodate the conditions and infrastructure of the countries invited to host rounds of the series.

Calendar changes

 * The round at the Sachsenring in Germany was cancelled and was instead moved to the Hockenheimring amidst concerns of rising COVID-19 cases in the state of Saxony where the Sachsenring is located. This was made public by a statement made by Hohenstein-Ernstthal mayor Lars Kluge via the FIA on December 22, 2019.
 * The originally scheduled 8 Hours of Buriram in Thailand at the Chang International Circuit was cancelled due to travel restrictions put in place used to restrict spread of COVID-19 by the Thai government on March 5, 2020.
 * On April 20, 2020, the Hungarian government released a statement announcing that the scheduled round in Budapest had been cancelled with no rescheduling due to fears of the COVID-19 pandemic increasing amongst members of the Hungarian government and general public.
 * The Municipality of Imola in Italy announced in February 2020 that they would be rescinding their support of the 6 Hours of Imola that was to be held at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. This reason was unknown until the FIA confirmed that it was "out of lack of financial stability and concerns for the public amidst the pandemic taking place in our region."
 * The Sepang round at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia was swapped with the Dubai 24 Hours to accommodate teams with the logistical aspects of the series (transport, financial management, planning, etc.) as a way of easing transitions between rounds.
 * FIA president Jean Todt immediately published a press release after the announcement of the 2020 Circuit Series calendar on behalf of the 8 Hours of Shanghai event organizers that the round set to take place in the latter half of the season was to be cancelled. This was due to China being a primary source of COVID-19.