Could F1 expand to a 30 race calendar season???

In a recent interview with SkyF1, Martin Brundle ex F1 driver and British co-commentator sat down with the CEO of F1 himself. Stefano Domenicali. And in the interview Stefano unveils potential plans to see a 30 race season long calendar introduced to the F1 season. In this short blog, I’m going to assess the current potential for this to happen. 

In my opinion that would depend but how on earth would you organize such a long winded calendar is beyond me. Personally I think 30 races per season is stupidly ambitious and how they expect the drivers to cope let alone media, journalists, FIA, team principals and staff is the big question.

With the current state of things in F1 all the teams suffer from fatigue and I’m sorry to say but I just don’t see how it can happen without probably many teams leaving the sport. I think the MOST F1 could ever expand to is 25 races per season but even my gut feeling is even that is being extreme and pushing it. I think it’s all right for the promoters to want, want and want but I think the has to come a point where F1 must say NO. And stop it’s expansion!

The only thing however that is stopping it from happening is the Concorde agreement which is basically F1’s contracts with teams and the FIA and currently this caps the total number of races per year at 24. And currently this deal lasts till at least the end of 2025. So I wouldn’t expect any 30 race calendar before then. And even after 2025 I still wouldn’t expect all the teams to agree to 30 races. I think the most they’ll agree to is 25 if that!

And the problems F1 has in getting a +25 race calendar is quite simple.

  1. Firstly costs 💲and that’s the first real issue.
  2. Fatigue 😴. It would be difficult enough for the drivers to do a 30 race season let alone for teams and it’s personnel.
  3. Cheapen the brand image. More races you add or the more you dilute the less important it becomes.

Firstly let’s start with fatigue. The people involved are only human. They can only take so much stress, pressure, long working hours, not to mention they’re flying around all over the place, and jet lag and the like all takes its toll. In fact some of the accidents, in the latter races of the season, could be contributed to driver fatigue and thus driver safety becomes a factor. If 23 races is pushing it for everyone involved, just imagine what 30 races will do to them. Some of the errors made last season even from Michael Masi wouldn’t surprise me if this had something to do with it. 

Secondly then this all leads to a huge jump in the costs involved. Whether it’s an increase in the transport costs, to paying all the team personnel and drivers more, to needing an extra power unit or two and not to mention a spare transmission or two or not to mention more of everything else that’s required to run a team, as well as two extra cars available as spares. This will increase everyone’s running costs by at least a third I would imagine! Given F1 has been trying to reduce the costs of racing, this seems to contradict everything they’ve been attempting with the introduction of the mandatory team budget. Also with increasing number of events will also potentially increase F1’s carbon footprint which in itself is another example and area F1 has tried to reduces

Thirdly with the third point I make, I want to expand also on that a little about more with diluting. Because if you extend to a 30 race calendar It’ll more or less become a weekly event. Effectively it would mean the would have to be at least 1 race for every 1 and half weeks! And with such a high frequency of races fans are just not going to find the sport as prestigious It once was. What makes F1 special is because of its niche and that niche is the fact that it’s historically the most prestigious global motorsport. And if they expand even more then it will lose that prestigious element about the sport.

So could F1 push to a 30 race season long calendar? Yes they could? But would it work?? 

I think a 30+ race calendar would DESTROY the sport as you, I and we all know and love ❤️.

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