NASCAR adopted single-day weekend schedules after its return from a hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic last season. The sanctioning body will continue with single-day weekend schedules, void of practice and qualifying sessions, for 28 of its 36 points-paying NASCAR Cup Series race weekends. For the other eight races, practice and qualifying sessions will be held.
Races for which Cup Series competitors will practice and qualify include the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 14, the March 28 dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the May 23 race at Circuit of the Americas, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 30, Nashville Superspeedway on June 20, July 4 at Road America, Aug. 15 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and the Nov. 7 season-finale at Phoenix Raceway.
Circuit of the Americas, Nashville Suerpseedway and Road America are new venues for the Cup Series. Also, the series has never raced on a dirt surface at Bristol nor the road course at Indianapolis.
The amount of practice time for each of those races and the qualifying format[s] will be announced at a later date.
Without qualifying and practice for most of the races in 2020, blind drawings were used to set starting grids for the first several races before NASCAR adopted a formula that included finishes and fastest lap times from the previous race and car owner points to set grids for the remainder of the season. The sanctioning body has yet to announce how starting grids will be set on race weekends that won’t include qualifying.
