Motorsports analyst David Smith laid off by The Athletic a year after his hiring

Late last May, The Athletic announced a motorsports vertical, bringing in Jeff Gluck, Jordan Bianchi, and David Smith. Less than a year later, Smith (an analytics-focused writer who previously ran his own Motorsports Analytics site) has now been laid off, as he tweeted Friday:

https://twitter.com/DavidSmithMA/status/1258728357060947968

It’s certainly interesting to see The Athletic cut a motorsports writer just before NASCAR starts racing again (they’re set to resume from Darlington on May 17), And Smith’s work had a lot of fans, and it wasn’t just numbers; recent pieces like Leap Year (on Furniture Row Racing’s 2016 season) and an interview with IMSA president John Doonan illustrated his ability to combine insightful interviews with analysis and analytics. There are already plenty of people, including other prominent racing reporters, who have expressed how much he’ll be missed at The Athletic:

This is devastating. Your motorsports content is some of the best on The Athletic offers. Somebody hire this man.

— Rob Rich (@robertrich) May 8, 2020

We’ll see what’s next for Smith (beyond continuing to co-host the Positive Regresssion podcast with Alan Cavanna), and we’ll see what the project he has coming Monday is.

[David Smith on Twitter]