Formula 1 organizers are planning for a later start to its season, even as it announced that the French Grand Prix had been called off because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The French race, scheduled for June 28, was postponed Monday with France’s ban on major events extending into mid-July, the 10th race on the circuit to be canceled or postponed. However, the season will begin shortly after that date, with a race in early July in Austria.

Chris Carey, the organization’s chief executive officer, said in a statement that he was “increasingly confident with the progress of plans to begin the season this summer” with the first race set for July 3-5. Plans call for races to be staged without fans.

“September, October and November would see us race in Eurasia, Asia and the Americas, finishing the season in the Gulf in December, with Bahrain before the traditional finale in Abu Dhabi, having completed between 15 and 18 races,” he said. “We will publish our finalized calendar as soon as we possibly can.

“We expect the early races to be without fans but hope fans will be part of our events as we move further into the schedule. We still have to work out many issues, like the procedures for the teams and our other partners to enter and operate in each country.

“The health and safety of all involved will continue to be priority one and we will only go forward if we are confident we have reliable procedures to address both risks and possible issues.”

Sports events in France have been pushed back, with French Open officials moved the Grand Slam tennis event from May to September and the Tour de France now set to take place Aug. 29-Sept. 20. The Tour originally was scheduled to begin June 27 in Nice; the French Open was originally scheduled to begin May 24 in Paris. It’s unclear whether the French Grand Prix will be rescheduled.

It’s Nadal’s virtual game. And it’s something Tiafoe hopes to pounce on as one of 32 players who will compete in the Virtual Madrid Open, the first virtual tennis tournament to be contested by pros – in this case, as an alternative to the fixture of the European clay-court season that often serves as a bellwether for the French Open.

The novel coronavirus pandemic upended the tennis calendar, and it brought sporting events worldwide to a halt in mid-March. Rather than simply forgo the Madrid Open this year, as the All England Club ultimately did with Wimbledon, organizers are staging a four-day virtual contest with real prize money and a charitable component to help those affected by the pandemic in Madrid and benefit lower-ranked players who have been without income since the men’s and women’s pro tours were suspended.

Nadal, 33, spearheaded earlier relief efforts for his native Spain, which is among the European countries hardest hit by the pandemic, and he was quick to sign up. He’s joined by fellow top-10 players Dominic Thiem, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev, as well as Tiafoe and former world No. 1 Andy Murray in the 16-player men’s field. The women’s field includes American Madison Keys, third-ranked Karolina Pliskova and former top-ranked players Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka.

“It’s wild,” said Tiafoe, 22, who lost to Nadal in straight sets in the round of 16 at the 2019 Madrid Open, in a telephone interview this week. “It’s really outside the box!”

Tiafoe has been sequestered the past two months in his Washington-area apartment, not far from College Park’s Junior Tennis Champions Center, where he and his twin brother, Franklin, learned the game.

He has passed the time by trying to stay fit – doing core exercises, taking shadow swings at cones and running sprints in his complex’s vast garage – as well as streaming shows and checking on his mother, who lives nearby.

Since he received a PlayStation 4 in the mail from Virtual Madrid Open organizers last week, Tiafoe also has been gearing up for Monday’s start of round-robin play with Franklin, who’s the more adept gamer.

“He’s helping me with what buttons to press to win points,” Frances Tiafoe explained.

It was during this stretch that Tiafoe joined roughly 40,000 tennis fans worldwide in logging on for Nadal’s recent Instagram Live chat with friend and rival Roger Federer. Nadal, holed up in his home in Mallorca, hosted the chat.

But the most entertaining part came at the outset, when viewers were treated to a rarely seen side of Nadal – hopelessly lost and utterly bewildered by how an Instagram host adds a guest to his chat. As viewers watched the silent seconds slide by, Nadal peered at his screen, hunting for the right icon to tap. He arched an eyebrow, leaned in even closer and furrowed his brow.

“This man is not easy to find!” an exasperated Nadal said of Federer, who was waiting somewhere in cyberspace, logged on from his home in Switzerland, where he, his wife and their four children are spending the shutdown.

Finally, Federer’s face appeared, and the Swiss was cracking up over Nadal’s ordeal, along with viewers including Tiafoe.

Asked how he thought he will fare against Nadal in the Virtual Madrid Open, Tiafoe said: “If he’s as bad at the game as he was at Instagram . . . that was pretty funny! So that would be pretty interesting! But it would be pretty funny if he ends up being unbelievable at the game as well.”

Other sports have been experimenting with virtual alternatives to hold fans’ attention and give athletes a competitive outlet during the shutdown. NASCAR’s iRacing Pro Invitational Series has fast become must-watch programming for ardent stock-car racing fans drawn by the quality of the simulation – sophisticated enough for many professional drivers to use as a training tool – and the rare peek inside drivers’ homes and temperaments, for better or worse.

Unlike NASCAR’s virtual series, the Virtual Madrid Open isn’t designed to fill the void until professional tennis resumes – currently, no sooner than July 13. It’s a one-off, akin to the recent showdown between Alex Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky in “NHL 20,” which was also staged as a benefit for coronavirus relief.

The 32 participating players received their PlayStation 4 and copy of Tennis World Tour by mail this week. They also were emailed a two-page summary of the tournament’s format, rules and prize-money breakdown.

It will open with round-robin play: 16 men and 16 women split into four groups of four. Play begins Monday and Tuesday. The top eight advance to the quarterfinals Wednesday, with semifinals and finals contested Thursday.

Each draw has roughly $162,000 in prize money. One third of that will go toward coronavirus relief in Madrid. The men’s and women’s champions will decide how much of the remaining prize money is donated to help lower-ranked players through an assistance fund that’s being administered by the tours.

Apart from playing Wii tennis when he was a child, this is the first time Tiafoe has played a tennis video game. And he’s “pumped” that he is actually a character in Tennis World Tour – with a computer-generated look that meets his approval.

“They did a good job!” Tiafoe said. “Looks like it’s one of my 2018 outfits.”

As for the game itself, the simulation isn’t nearly as sophisticated as iRacing, and it got lukewarm to poor reviews when it was rushed into production in 2018.

As Tiafoe explains, competitors select their shots by hitting certain buttons on the controller: “X” for flat shots, “O” for topspin, others for a slice or lob. There are also buttons that control where players move and at what speed.

Tiafoe has practiced only in simulated matches on hard courts. He won’t know until Monday how the game works on the simulated red clay of the Madrid Open’s simulated Manolo Santana Stadium.

“We’ll see if my character can slide,” he said.

With his brother giving him tips, Tiafoe had practiced against the game’s computer-generated Nadal, Federer and John Isner. But he hasn’t faced a real pro.

“I’m wondering how good the other guys are and how hard they’ve been practicing,” Tiafoe mused. “We’ll see the level once the tournament starts next week.”

He needed to put on protective gloves and a face mask throughout three flights that took him from Orlando to Thailand’s capital city in a journey spanning nearly 16,000km last weekend.

The PGA TOUR star is now serving a mandatory 14-day quarantine in a hotel room designated by the local government before he and his wife Tunyatorn can be reunited with their family members.

“We had our gloves and mask on all the time throughout the flights,” said Kiradech, who were part of a group of nearly 140 Thai nationals including LPGA Tour stars Ariya and Moriya Jutanugarn flown out of the U.S. on April 17 through arrangements made by the Thai government.

“In the plane, the passengers were kept apart to observe social distancing. We left our home at 6am on April 17 and arrived in the quarantine centre at 1am on April 19. My wife and I are currently in different rooms due to the quarantine. I’m excited to be able to see my family soon.”

When the PGA TOUR temporarily shut down due to the spread of Covid-19 on March 13, Kiradech initially felt it was best to stay put in his U.S. base in Orlando. As the situation escalated, he tried to leave the U.S. with the Jutanugarn sisters in early April, only to be denied at the 11th hour when Thailand stopped all international arrivals as part of preventive measures.

Kiradech then posted on Instagram a screengrab of him in a video call with the sisters, all of them teary-eyed. He kept in close touch with them and another fellow Thai LPGA golfer Wichanee Meechai and when the Thai government announced a special flight home on April 17, they began the rush to complete the necessary documentation and medical screenings needed to get on the flight.

“We had to submit the paperwork to the Thai Embassy in Washington D.C. and also get a medical certification to be deemed as fit-to-fly,” said Kiradech.

Upon arrival in Bangkok, the passengers were subsequently sent to the quarantine hotel. They are provided with basic needs and Kiradech has spent most of his time watching movies, conducting his exercises and getting onto social media to keep in touch with friends while stuck in his room.

“I have to keep myself all the time. It’s a lock down,” said Kiradech. “We can’t get friends to send stuff over and the food here is okay. However, I can’t wait to eat my mother’s home-cooked food though. I’m going to ask her to make Thai basil pork which is my favourite when I get home.

“I’ve got my golf clubs in the room but I can’t chip or putt as I don’t have any golf balls in the bag! So, I’m just exercising a little bit, resting, playing online games and watching movies to pass the time.”

While the PGA TOUR has announced plans to resume competition in June, Kiradech is unsure of his immediate playing schedule. “I want to work, I want to play but I want to be safe as well,” said Kiradech, the first Thai golfer to hold a PGA TOUR card.

“It’s good to announce we will resume play but I’ll decide on my plans later. Right now, I intend to stay at home for a while and shut down. I won’t go out to practice and will keep safe as I don’t want to affect my parents. It’s an opportunity to also rest my (left) knee and work on strengthening the knee (which he injured last April).”

Thailand has reported over 2,800 cases of Covid-19 and new cases has been on a downward trend over the past two weeks. Being stuck initially in Orlando and now in a quarantine hotel due to health and safety precautions have the burly Kiradech viewing things with a different lens on now.

“This is like a life lesson. I’ve been away from golf for so long now. When we were in Orlando, it was scary to go out to meet friends as we were afraid of passing the virus. Everyone has to be safe. It makes you appreciate life and golf more.”

After the incredible success of MotoGP™’s first ever Virtual Race, a second event was announced and Virtual Race 2 was broadcast on Sunday the 12th of April. From Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) and Fabio Quartararo (Petronas Yamaha SRT) to Danilo Petrucci (Ducati Team) and Valentino Rossi (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP), the line-up was star studded and the race action packed as the grid took on the Red Bull Ring in Austria.

Feedback on the Virtual Races from the MotoGP™ community, fans, partners and more has only continued to grow. 29 broadcast partners showed the second event, with titans of sports broadcasting beaming the race to audiences around the world. Partners such as Sky Italy, Canal+ in France, DAZN (in Spain, Italy and DACHS), BT Sport in the UK, ServusTV in Austria and Germany, Viasat in Sweden and many more showed the event in Europe, whilst the Americas received coverage thanks to the likes of NBC in the USA and Fox Brazil and ESPN in Latin America. Fans further east could enjoy coverage from partners including Motorsport TV Russia, Eurosport India and Fox Asia, with those Down Under covered by Fox Australia and TEN. SuperSport also broadcast the event in Africa, meaning the second MotoGP™ Virtual Race once again reached every inhabited continent on Earth – as did the first!

Reach and engagement were also impressive across social media and online, with a marked increase across the board. 520 pieces of digital content were created around the event – including the full broadcast – for a total of 75 million impressions as teams, riders and MotoGP™ got involved. That’s an increase of 25% on the first Virtual Race, with video views also increasing from 13 million to 14 million and the live second race itself gaining views to hit 3.2 million. Once again, more than 2.5 million interactions were made with content related to Virtual Race 2 as well, with fans finding plenty to talk about! In total, that all adds up to a grand total of 8.5 million minutes of Virtual Race 2 content that were viewed – an increase of over a fifth.

There’s not too long to wait to see more showstopping action, either. On Sunday the 3rd of May – the original date for the Spanish GP – another world first will be broadcast: the Red Bull Virtual Grand Prix of Spain. The event is to show solidarity with and in aid of the Official Charity of MotoGP™, Two Wheels for Life, supporting their efforts in the fight against Covid-19. It will begin at 15:00 (GMT +2) and will see all three Grand Prix classes – MotoGP™, Moto2™ and Moto3™ – compete in a unique three-race online event.

Premier class teams can field one rider each, with the exception of the Repsol Honda Team, who can enter two as reigning MotoGP™ Champions. In Moto2™ and Moto3™, ten riders can enter in each category, with the right of entry given in Championship order following the QNB Grand Prix of Qatar. Who will it be? All will be revealed as the event approaches…

Catch up on anything you missed from the first and second editions, including plenty of behind-the-scenes content, and then stay tuned at motogp.com, esport.motogp.com and across social media for more as the Red Bull Virtual Grand Prix of Spain gets closer and closer and more details are unveiled.

The upcoming event already has a major edge in potential interest over “The Match,” a pay-per-view offering in November 2018 in which Phil Mickelson defeated Tiger Woods head to head for a winner-take-all pot of $9 million. This time, the pair will be joined by two NFL superstars who have had a similarly friendly rivalry.

The addition of Tom Brady, who recently left the New England Patriots after 20 seasons to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Peyton Manning, who retired in 2016, could draw in an even wider audience. That in turn would boost the amount that goes to novel coronavirus-related relief efforts set to be the match’s beneficiaries.

Apart from the parties involved and the designated cause, details were scant in the announcement released Wednesday via Bleacher Report. That platform is owned by Turner Sports, which confirmed it will air the match live on TNT next month.

A spokesman for Turner Sports offered no further comment other than to refer back to the announcement, which stated that details about the date of “The Match: Champions for Charity,” its venue and its specific charities will be revealed in the coming weeks.

“Tournament organizers are currently working with state and local government and public health officials on competition and production logistics to ensure the event follows safety and health protocols,” the announcement stated.

“The Match,” which was held at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, was widely panned for featuring sloppy golf, less banter and wagering than expected and an anticlimactic finish. Mickelson took the one-one-one showdown with Woods after it went to four playoff holes as darkness set in.

“You know, America, you’re watching some really crappy golf,” TNT analyst Charles Barkley said on the telecast at the time.

With Brady and Manning joining the event, it becomes a two-on-two match. The teams have yet to be announced, but the Action Network reported that Woods and Manning, who are both Nike endorsers, probably will partner up against Mickelson and Brady.

The PGA Tour, which called off March’s Players Championship after one round and canceled subsequent events, said last week that it plans to return in June without fans in attendance but with a rejiggered schedule that includes the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, the Masters and the Ryder Cup.

ESPN reported Wednesday that people with knowledge of the event indicated the match probably will take place in Florida around Memorial Day weekend. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has been pushing to reopen his state’s economy, and he recently designated the WWE as an essential business, which exempted it from the state’s shelter-in-place order.

“If NASCAR does a race and can televise it, without large crowds, I think that’s a good thing,” DeSantis said last week (via golf.com). “I’d like to see Woods and Mickelson do the golf or whatever because that’s social distance.”

After this first ever Virtual Race was announced on Wednesday, the feedback from the MotoGP™ community, fans, partners and more has showed an incredible, unprecedented level of interest in the concept, with giants of sports broadcasting set to bring the event to audiences around the world. Dorna Sports can therefore announce another showdown as we await the return of MotoGP™ track action, giving fans some more competition to look forward to: Virtual Race 2.

Another chance for fans to see what many of the premier class riders have in their virtual locker, this second Virtual Race will take place on Sunday the 12th of April, with some competitors returning and some fresh faces from the likes of the Ducati Team and Red Bull KTM Factory Racing also slated to take part. So save the date, and make sure to watch Race 1 to get a first glimpse of how fast – or furious – it gets when MotoGP™ goes virtual!

Between the two events, there’s more exciting eSport action to look forward to as well. The third – and final – Online Challenge for the 2020 MotoGP™ eSport Championship starts soon, taking place from the 2nd to the 5th of April. The details – the track, rider, conditions and more – will be unveiled next week, and there’s lots on the line as it’s the last chance players have this season to move through and book their place in the Global Series. To see the standings after Challenge 2 and find out more, head to esport.motogp.com!

Get ready for that, and tune in on Sunday at 15:00 (GMT+2) to see who will emerge on top in Virtual Race 1 – laying down the gauntlet ahead of the second race.

Originally scheduled for July 23-26, the Evian Championship, held in Evian-les-Bains, France, will now take place the week before the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open, which is scheduled for Aug. 13-16 in North Berwick, Scotland.

“We greatly appreciate the willingness of Franck Riboud, Jacques Bungert and the team at the Evian Championship to move dates and align with our European swing. This adjustment makes for easier travel for players and assists us as we look to reschedule previously postponed events during a crowded summer and fall timeframe,” said LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan. “Like all our corporate partners, the team at the Evian Championship has always taken great steps to elevate the stage for our athletes. This 2020 schedule shift is yet another example of them supporting our players and our Tours during a very difficult time around the world.”

As announced on Tuesday, this weekend will see a MotoGP™ first: a Virtual Race. A star-studded line-up headed by the likes of Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) and Maverick Viñales (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) will get back on track, this time virtually, in a special event played on the official MotoGP™19 Videogame from videogame developer, publisher and longstanding partner Milestone.

The competitors will be taking on the stunning digital rendering of the Autodromo del Mugello and the race length is SIX laps. Before the race begins, a five-minute qualifying session in time-attack mode will decide grid positions.

The event will be broadcast in full on Sunday the 29th of March at 15:00 (GMT+2), with qualifying shown before the race. Fans can watch on motogp.com and esport.motogp.com, on selected TV broadcasters, and across social media platforms including YouTube (via the MotoGP and MotoGP eSport channels), MotoGP eSport Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (via both the MotoGP and MotoGP eSport pages).

Broadcasters will include SKY Italy, Canal+ in France, DAZN in Spain and DACHS, BT Sport in the UK, Servus in Austria and Germany, Eurosport in the Netherlands, OTE in Greece, SwissTV in Switzerland, Viasat in Sweden, Pop in Slovenia, SportTV in Portugal, Sport5 Israel, Sportklub in Serbia, MTV Finland, NBC in the USA and ESPN in Latin America, amongst others.

The riders will each be playing via a private “Race Direction” lobby, set up to invite each rider to the event – and send them the bike settings.

The line-up:

Repsol Honda Team: Marc Marquez, Alex Marquez

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP*: Maverick Viñales

Aprilia Racing Team Gresini: Aleix Espargaro

Team Suzuki Ecstar: Alex Rins, Joan Mir

Petronas Yamaha SRT: Fabio Quartararo

Red Bull KTM Tech 3: Iker Lecuona, Miguel Oliveira

Pramac Racing: Francesco Bagnaia

Make sure to stay tuned across social media platforms as the riders get ready to race and the countdown begins, with plenty in play on Sunday – not least a little pride, and the first win of the season so far!

A whirlwind 24-hour period started Sunday with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach issuing a letter to Olympic athletes, saying for the first time that the IOC was considering delaying the Summer Games because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. He said canceling the Olympics altogether had been ruled out and said the IOC would consider different scenarios and make a final decision within the next four weeks.

That long timetable led Canada to call for a postponement Sunday night and say it would not send any athletes to Tokyo this summer. Australia and Germany followed with similar announcements Monday, and other countries, such as Brazil, Norway and Slovenia, have either urged a postponement or said conditions must improve if they’re to send athletes to Tokyo this summer.

Later Monday, Dick Pound, the longest-serving IOC board member, told USA Today “postponement has been decided,” though the IOC gave no indication Monday that a delay was certain. In a request to comment on Pound’s assertion, an IOC spokesman said, “It is the right of every IOC Member to interpret the decision of the IOC [executive board] which was announced yesterday.”

Pound, who did not return phone messages Monday, is one of 100 IOC members, having joined the committee in 1978 but is not one of the 15 members of the IOC’s powerful executive committee, the decision-making body that plays a pivotal role in all important Olympic matters. He did speak to the Canadian Press, striking a less-definitive tone.

“You’re looking at a postponement,” Pound said. “I think that’s out there now.

“We’re all reading the tea leaves and so on, but the Japanese themselves are talking about postponing. A lot of National Olympic Committees and countries are calling for a postponement,” Pound said.

IOC Executive Board member Nicole Hoevertsz said in an email that the board “discussed and took a decision about” postponement Sunday. She pointed to the portion of IOC’s official statement that said the IOC would start discussions about postponement scenarios and was confident those discussions would be completed within four weeks. Postponement of any length has a variety of ramifcations, internationally on various sports calendars and locally on the availability of various venues and facilities in Tokyo, with a full year’s delay preferable for some constituents and a shorter duration for others.

On Monday, Japanese authorities acknowledged for the first time that postponement was a real possibility.

“What we are going to do before anything else is to start by simulating about whether we postpone one month, three months, five months, one year,” said Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee. “We need to make a simulation about the various scenarios.”

Japan had insisted until now that the Games must go ahead, although Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said last week the priority must be to hold the Olympics in a “complete manner.”

On Monday, he told parliament this might mean the dates would have to change.

“If that is difficult, we would have no choice but to decide to postpone, with athletes as the first priority,” Abe said, underlining that an outright cancellation is not an option.

Olympics Minister Seiko Hashimoto said she was “glad to hear” that the IOC did not believe cancellation is an option.

Mori said the IOC and Japan would like to “closely examine” the various scenarios open to them over the next four weeks, adding that they would not start with the assumption the Games would definitely have to be postponed but couldn’t avoid discussing that possibility.

For each scenario, organizers would have to work out whether they could still secure the Olympic venues for all 33 sports, as well as for the Paralympics, and what the costs would be.

“We have to go through each of them one by one,” Mori said. “Considering just these things alone would take an enormous time.”

Mori hinted that organizers would prefer to keep the Olympics within this calendar year when he said: “We are 2020, so that is the direction for now.”

But Mori and Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto stressed that the cancellation was not in the cards, and they were happy to have heard the same message from the IOC.

“Probably, the IOC was thinking that cancellation would not be desirable for athletes and all the stakeholders,” Muto said. “And this is what we have been saying all along. We totally agree with that.”

Japan’s official budget for the Games is around $12.6 billion, but some estimates suggest the total cost could be twice that amount.

Germany became the latest country on Monday to announce that it would not send athletes to Tokyo this summer. Alfons Hörmann, head of German’s Olympic committee, made the determination Monday, said Michael Schirp, a spokesman for the German team.

Schrip said about 200 German athletes participated in teleconference Saturday evening with the country’s top Olympic officials to voice their concerns. They were given a survey to complete, gauging their willingness to compete this summer. Their feelings were supposed to guide the German response, Schrip said, but after the IOC said Sunday it could take another four weeks before a decision on postponing the Tokyo Games is made, Hörmann decided he had to act sooner.

Hörmann has indicated to the IOC that he hopes a new date in 2021 could be identified and intends to send a more formal notice to Bach after the athletes have all submitted their surveys later this week.

Postponement would be an enormously complicated undertaking, involving serious residual effects on the global sporting calendar and forcing broadcasters to renegotiate with advertisers.

There are also doubts about the availability of some venues, including the Olympic Village, where hundreds of apartments have been sold by a consortium of real estate developers for occupancy after the Games, as well as the need to secure the planned media headquarters at the Tokyo Big Sight, a tightly booked conference center.

For now, organizers say they will push ahead with the torch relay, which is due to start on Thursday in Fukushima in northeastern Japan and is meant to symbolize Japan’s recovery from a 2011 tsunami and nuclear accident in the area. Mori said the prime minister was unsure if he would attend the start of the relay, as the government wanted to discourage crowds forming, although Mori said he himself would attend.

Mori acknowledged the relay route may need to be modified and said organizers were studying how it should be held given the fast-changing situation with the virus.

Tens of thousands of people flocked to a stadium in Sendai north of Tokyo to see the Olympic flame burning in a cauldron over the weekend after it arrived from Greece.

“We had a turnout nearly 10 times that we had estimated,” Muto said.

Muto said organizers should be happy with the turnout “in and of itself” but had placed risk as their top priority and has changed arrangements so people simply passed by the flame without a crowd forming.

And Dale Earnhardt Jr., who retired from full-time racing in 2017, has been back behind the wheel in his home’s computer room, getting up to speed once again with the layout of Homestead-Miami Speedway.

With stock-car racing’s elite series parked until at least May 9, Hamlin, Earnhardt and 32 fellow racers will strap in Sunday – at least, in a virtual sense – to compete in the inaugural eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series.

Ginned up by NASCAR and iRacing executives to feed fans’ appetite for stock-car racing and give drivers something to do amid the hiatus, the idea of a simulated racing series with top drivers got immediate buy-in.

Many NASCAR drivers, after all, raced on computers before getting their driver’s licenses. And many still do, even after establishing themselves in the Cup Series, whether for kicks or to hone their skills on less familiar tracks.

“It has the potential to really be fun over the next month or so,” said Hamlin, 39, in a telephone interview Friday. “Hopefully, we can do this on Sundays to keep some fans entertained. Along with that, it gives us something to practice on and keep from going stir-crazy.”

Though it’s not official, NASCAR’s hope is to stage weekly iRaces for as long as its Cup Series is on hold.

Fox, which holds the broadcast rights to the first half of NASCAR’s season, will air Sunday’s leadoff race at virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway at the same time the actual race was to have started, 1:30 p.m., on Fox Sports 1. The action also can be streamed on the Fox Sports app.

The regular Fox broadcast team of Jeff Gordon and Mike Joy will call the action, with Larry McReynolds providing analysis. NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer will play dual roles, providing “in-car” commentary as he races an iRacing simulator in the Fox Studio in Charlotte.

“If this is entertaining and people enjoy it and it fills the gap, I think Fox will want to do more,” Earnhardt said in a telephone interview. “I’ll be sitting here racing in the middle of the house. I might not do every single one over the next several weeks, but there are a lot of other drivers who have similar rigs at home, like me.”

Sunday’s field of 35 includes regular Cup Series front-runners such as two-time and defending champion Kyle Busch, 2018 champion Joey Logano, 2012 champion Brad Keselowski and 2016 rookie of the year Chase Elliott.

In NASCAR’s ideal world, the iRacing Invitational would prove more than a stopgap measure and, over the coming weeks, attract the younger audience NASCAR has been chasing since it ventured into esports more than a decade ago.

Stock-car racing’s TV ratings and attendance have declined steadily since the sport’s peak in 2005. Diversifying an aging, increasingly alienated fan base is essential to NASCAR’s survival.

Noted Tim Clark, NASCAR’s senior vice president and chief digital officer: “We’ve seen that not only the participants in esports but also the viewers have skewed significantly younger. Like other sports and media properties, we are looking to engage newer fans and younger fans.”

In that sense, there may be serendipity in a temporary shift to virtual racing.

“We have talked about this as making lemonade out of lemons,” Clark said. “If we can provide a distraction, a form of entertainment – that’s what we’re looking to do.”

Nearly every pro sport has an esports platform, from the NFL to Premier League soccer. On Friday, Monumental Sports Network and NBC Sports Washington announced that they will broadcast hour-long simulations of the Wizards’ and Capitals’ previously scheduled regular season games using NBA 2K20 and NHL 20, respectively.

But in the view of Earnhardt, an avid sports fan, nothing puts participants in the seat more authentically than iRacing, which was co-founded in 2004 by racing enthusiasts John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, and Dave Kaemmer.

What makes iRacing so true-to-life, Earnhardt said, is the granular detail and precise rendering of NASCAR’s track, each of which is laser-scanned to capture every bump and imperfection in the asphalt, every detail of the grandstands and billboards to the drivers’ right and the pit-road entry and exit to their left.

“If you said, ‘Hey, I’ve got $1,500. What can I do with this that will give me a pretty good understanding of what a Cup race is like?’ this is what I would tell you to spend your money on,” Earnhardt said. “Obviously you’re not driving a real car. You don’t have the G-forces and don’t feel it in the seat of your pants. You totally go by visuals and the feedback you get from the steering wheel. And because you’re at home and can take a break, it’s a very comfortable experience – other than the mental stress of trying to be the best there is out there.”

That’s what Hamlin relishes.

As he was climbing the ranks on Virginia’s short tracks, hoping for a shot at racing in NASCAR full time, Hamlin made a name for himself as a hellacious “sim-racer.”

That’s how he and Earnhardt met more than 15 years ago.

“I’ve known him in a virtual sense for a very long time,” Earnhardt said of Hamlin, who’ll drive the familiar No. 11 FedEx Toyota in Sunday’s iRace. “He was always very fast and hard to beat.”

Earnhardt will compete in a new-look car bearing the No. 8 and advertising FilterTime, a home-delivery air-filter company he started with a buddy.

Sim racing was a huge part of Earnhardt’s adolescence, too. A third-generation stock-car racer, he started when he got his first computer at 16.

“My sister Kelley had to buy it because I didn’t have credit,” he recalled.

As the technology progressed, so did Earnhardt, who quickly found a community of friends online – “guys you’d want to hang out with,” as he described it. Later in life, he hired several to work for his own NASCAR team, JR Motorsports, including his former spotter, T.J. Majors, and late-model driver Josh Berry.

Now 45 and married with a toddler and another baby on the way, Earnhardt said he’s not as hardcore an iRacer as he was a decade ago, when he battled to win every race. These days, he might hop on for an hour or so in the middle of the night, if he can’t sleep. “Just trying to have a little fun,” he said.

Hamlin claims he’s a bit rusty, too. That’s why he’s been working to regain his edge in his media room, where his iRacing setup shares space with a golf simulator, a big-screen TV for movies and a pool table.

Like Earnhardt, Hamlin has three adjacent screens that form a semicircle in front of his racing seat and steering wheel, showing the views out the windshield and to either side.

Being fast at iRacing isn’t simply a matter of talent, he explained. It’s steering the absolute, perfect line around the oval; hitting each visual marker for optimal braking points; and mastering a hundred tiny details by endless repetition.

Asked how much competitive fire he expects to bring to Sunday’s race, Hamlin said: “The same amount I would have on any Sunday! No doubt!”

His first goal, he said, is beating Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Busch.

But first, he believes, he has to qualify in the top 10.

“If you could somehow get in the top 10, you’d have a chance,” Hamlin said. “Outside of that, it’d be tough because there’s liable to be a lot of wrecks early on.”

Of course, wrecking this Sunday won’t hurt, nor will it tear up any car owners’ expensive equipment.

Only pride will be at stake. But for most racecar drivers, pride is worth wrecking over.