It’s not every year that you have to wait over seven months to watch the first international powerboat race of the season, but then 2020 isn’t any other year.

In just under two weeks’ time, Tønsberg in Norway will play host to the start of the COVID-19 delayed season when eight plus F2 boats will be competing in a UIM international ordinary event.

Race organiser, Frode Sundsdal announced before the pandemic changed the world as we know it, that the event this year will not hold a round of the UIM F2 world championship.

He had also drawn up an exciting new racing format for the competitors and many spectators that pack into Norway’s oldest city every year to watch the action.

Wind forward seven months and Sundsdal has had to adapt those plans to comply to the new normal.

The famous Tønsberg crowds will be a thing of the past with strict social distancing adherence and other safety measures put into place for the event that was first held back in 2013.

The good news is that Sundsdal has procured a professional live stream that will cover all the action that is due to start on Friday, August 7 with speed runs and match racing openers.

The entry list includes Sundsdal in a newly painted bright red DAC with his fellow countrymen Tobias Munthe-Kaas and Lasse Andresen.

Also from Norway, Christian Carlsen will be making a return to racing for a Danish team.

Two-time UIM F2 European champion, Edgaras Riabko from Lithuania, Austria’s Rupp Temper and Latvia’s Nikita Lijcs will be making the trip to Tønsberg to add some international spice to the event.

It’s entirely possible that the event could welcome some Swedes, seven regions in Sweden are now on the ‘green list’ and are now exempt from travel restrictions between the two neighbours.

With so much uncertainty leading up to the event this year, it’s good to know that some things never change, a cold pint of beer in Tønsberg will be as reassuringly expensive as ever.