Following the news that a capacity crowd can attend the 2021 Dutch Grand Prix, preparations are ramping up for the September event at Zandvoort.
A return to the calendar was scheduled for 2020, but the race was cancelled due to the pandemic.
In the end, the long-awaited return was pushed back to September in 2021, but there were still doubts about it for most of the first half of the year.
This is because the circuit made it clear they would cancel the race if full grandstands weren’t possible.
As of now, it has been confirmed that fans will be able to attend events without any restrictions or measures of social distancing.
“It is great news that events such as festivals and concerts will soon be possible again thanks to the hard work of Fieldlab Events.
“We now use the insights gained by the Fieldlab organization to adjust the roadmap. If you have been vaccinated, tested negative, or recovered from corona, you can go to a festival or concert as before,” said the Netherlands’ State Secretary, Mona Keijzer.
Zandvoort’s circuit director, Robert van Overdijk, says they have been preparing for a race with fans for the past year, even without confirmation, so there won’t be any major changes to their planning in the coming months.
It is exciting, however, to now know that they will be able to continue their preparation, both for the circuit, the sport, and the event industry in Holland as a whole.
“Of course it is good news that everything is allowed again after June 30, certainly for the entire event sector. However, nothing changes in the way people work towards the weekend from 3 to 5 September.
“We have always said that our preparations were based on a full house and we have never stopped. We have said from the start that an event at one and a half meters is not possible at all.
“We have never prepared for any other scenario and having already confirmed this will apply to all events after June 30 is fantastic news for the entire industry.”
“It is another confirmation that we can continue with those preparations,” van Overdijk told racingnews365.nl.