The Race outlines content plans ahead of upcoming launch

The Race have unveiled their plans for the 2020 season, including the championships that they plan to cover in-depth during their inaugural year.

The outlet’s Global Head of Motorsport Andrew van de Burgt took to their opening podcast, available to listen to now, to discuss their plans.

“We’re a new digital motor sport platform that’s hopefully super serving the super fan with world class motor racing content,” Van de Burgt said.

“We’re going to have a web platform [launching first week of February], that will be where you get your traditional in-depth news and technical analysis, but we’ll also be prolific in video through our YouTube channel.”

“We’ll be making a host of different podcasts, much like this one, branching out across the other forms of motor sport.”

“We’ll be prolific across social as well. That’s not just tweeting links to our stories, that’s creating content primarily to exist on those social channels.”

Van de Burgt added that currently a print version of The Race is “not on the horizons.”

Initially, The Race’s content will consist of five key strands:

• Formula 1
  • Led by Edd Straw, Mark Hughes, and Scott Mitchell
• Formula E
  • Led by Sam Smith and Peter McCool
• MotoGP
• IndyCar
• eSports

Three of the five are unsurprising, with IndyCar and eSports the potential two surprises. Van de Burgt sees IndyCar as a “real growth opportunity” overall, also outlining how the outlet intends to cover eSports.

“We won’t be doing the same type of coverage [for eSports] because it doesn’t lend itself to that, but we will be applying the same level of rigour and professionalism to our coverage there,” he said.

“We’ll be announcing a few more details about how that will actually work, but the idea is to try and bring together a defuse world.”

“There’s been a lot of tribalism, for whether you are a console or a PC gamer, or even within the games, whether its Assetto Corsa, iRacing or rFactor. We will be aiming to cut through all of that to surface the best content.”

Van de Burgt is keen to emphasise that the outlet will also cover other events, where there is a clear remit and reader interest to do so, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

“We’ll be very attentive to the fans needs and desires, and if there is a groundswell of interest in something else, then we will expand our coverage to cover that in the future,” he added.

“To begin with, I had to make a call on where to put the resources, and those were the five places where I decided to do it.”

As Motorsport Broadcasting revealed earlier this month, eSports expert Darren Cox formally established the outlet last September, whilst both Van de Burgt and Glenn Freeman oversee the project from an editorial standpoint.

Freeman, Straw and Mitchell join The Race having previously been part of Autosport’s F1 coverage last season.

“I think I’ve been incredibly lucky that the Formula 1 team I’ve got: yourself, Mark Hughes and Scott Mitchell,” Van de Burgt said.

“You’re spanning a whole host of skills there from a profound understanding of how the performance of the cars work, an amazing contact space across the sport, and a news sense that we really need to sniff out the best of those stories.

“Honestly, I don’t think I could have asked for a stronger line-up than that.”

Having spoken to journalists within the industry, the feeling is that the emergence of The Race is good news overall, as it gives fans a different outlet and perspective to get their analysis from.

The Race intends to launch their website in early February, ahead of both F1 and MotoGP testing, which commence later that month, where Van de Burgt says The Race will “be showing our true colours in terms of the depth of the coverage.”

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