Something impractical

I understand why major motor racing competitions want to have night races on their schedule. It makes for beautiful pictures, adds to the uniqueness of the circuit and the venue itself, and generally brings a lot of headlines to the front page.

But as the MotoGP race of Qatar has proven, these races are hideously impractical. First they take place late at night, so you can't really move up the race one or two hours. Also you can't really move the race up to the Monday, since people have to go to work. Fans will want their money back.

To a lesser extent the start of the Formula One race in Malaysia was moved up to late in the afternoon to accommodate television channels in Europe, who could then show the race live at a more convenient time. The weather forecast however showed rain, and predictably the race was halted not even midway through. Because of the late hour, it was not possible to move up the remainder of the race. 

I'm quite sure, especially with all the economic difficulties even the premier race teams are experiencing, that these race postponements completely negate all the regulations the competitions have made to make them economically and financially viable.