Race start, Jeddah Corniche Circuit, 2022

Should F1 and its teams lift the cap of 24 grands prix in a season?

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The 2022 Formula 1 world championship was originally planned to include 23 grands prix over the season – the most races ever held in a single year.

At present, there are 22 confirmed races this season with the cancellation of the Russian Grand Prix. However, F1 will almost certainly announce a replacement for Sochi to fill its vacant September 25th date as Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has said it would be “no problem at all” to find a alternative host.

With the sport’s popularity enjoying a boom in recent years, it seems as though the demand to host a grand prix has never been higher. Just in the last week, a third race in the United States – the Las Vegas Grand Prix – has been confirmed. And with Domenicali saying that the sport has enough interest to hold up to 30 events a year if they wanted, it shows that expanding the calendar beyond the current 23 races in future is not a question of finding enough willing venues to play host.

Currently, there’s a hard cap on the number of ‘events’ that can been held in a Formula 1 season, set in stone in the Sporting Regulations. To change it, the teams would have to agree with Formula One Management to lift the cap when negotiating the next Concorde Agreement – the most recent of which came into effect last season.

Getting the teams to approve an increase in races will be no easy task, given the reservations some in the sport have had over the current size of the calendar. But should F1’s calendar be allowed to grow even further into the future?

For

As the pandemic-affected 2020 season demonstrated all too powerfully, race weekends are vital to the financial health of Formula 1. Fewer races means less revenue for the sport, meaning that it is in F1 and the teams’ financial interests to race as much as is reasonably possible in a season.

With so many races held across Europe and now three in the United States, regions of the world that do not have any races – such as the entire continent of Africa – only stand out more because of it. Increasing the number of races in a season could make a return to circuits like Kyalami in South Africa more plausible.

There is also the inevitability that with the sport expanding into so many new territories and countries, some mainstays of the calendar may have to be dropped to make way for new venues. There is already no German Grand Prix and the Chinese Grand Prix has not yet returned since the onset of the Covid pandemic. Increasing the maximum number of races could help ensure that much-loved circuits remain on the calender in seasons to come.

Against

Expanding the calendar beyond a maximum of 24 races may seem like an obvious way to increase F1’s profitability, but it comes at a very human cost for the team members who have to work long hours preparing their garages and cars so they are ready for racing on Sunday.

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost described 23 planned races as “the absolute limit”. Some team principals have suggested that they would need to hire more staff to cover an increase in races – something that is complicated by the financial budget cap restrictions. Then there’s also the increased costs of running teams, with more power units, components and monocoques needed.

With so many races, following a full season of 23 rounds asks fans to dedicate 40 percent of their weekends to the sport – a huge commitment in these modern times with so many other forms of entertainment vying for the public’s attention. Adding yet more races to an already packed calendar could end up pushing viewers away and squandering the momentum the sport has built up over recent years.

I say

It’s great for the sport that demand for hosting grands prix is so high as it is perhaps the greatest indicator of the long-term health of Formula 1. For teams and for fans, it’s preferable to have too many venues wanting to hold races and not enough slots to fill than the other way around.

However, the same reasons that led F1 and its teams to impose a 24 race cap on the calendar in the first place are still present today. With so many voices within the sport expressing how physically and mentally taxing it is to compete a full season to racing across the globe, it’s important that F1 listens and does not place too much of a burden on team personnel, lest the brightest minds in motorsport begin to take their talents elsewhere.

But there’s also sporting reasons why expanding the current calendar would be less than ideal. On pure mathematics, with every race added to the calendar, the importance of each individual grand prix to the overall championship is reduced. Fans surely want every race, every retirement, every mistake, every pass to matter. Growing the calendar beyond 24 races risks diluting the significance of an individual grand prix too much.

There’s also the inescapable reality that being a Formula 1 fan in 2022 can be a major slog. To watch every practice, qualifying and race day this season requires 69 days of dedicating at least some of your time to watching F1 – beyond the commitment required to follow a team in the Premier League.

It’s almost certain that Formula 1 will hit the maximum 24 race threshold in the near future. But for the sake of the sport and those who work in it, let that be as far as it goes.



You say

Do you agree that Formula 1 and its teams should lift the upper limit of 24 races in a season?

  • No opinion (0%)
  • Strongly disagree (74%)
  • Slightly disagree (12%)
  • Neither agree nor disagree (3%)
  • Slightly agree (2%)
  • Strongly agree (8%)

Total Voters: 212

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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98 comments on “Should F1 and its teams lift the cap of 24 grands prix in a season?”

  1. Yes, the more the merrier.

    1. @proesterchen More isn’t automatically better.

      1. But more chance that at least x races are better if there’s more.

        1. @esploratore1 if you are just relying on sheer quantity to generate more memorable races, that is not exactly a sustainable strategy and kind of suggests you’re throwing stuff at the wall in the hope that you randomly succeed enough times.

  2. Yes more races.

    Teams make more cash, so rotate employees. Only the drivers and senior management need to be at all races.

    That’s how hospitals, airlines, supermarkets manage to struggle with being open for more than 23 weekends a year.

    I’m sure a rocket scientist could explain it for them too.

    1. @Depailler
      Rotation is doable, but only to a limited extent, especially in the budget cap era, so easier said than done.

    2. While i would love racing every weekend but with the budget cap rotation is something they can’t afford.
      I think the operational workforce during a GP is 20% of the total workforce so you need to have atleast double that amount (even more if the amount goes above 30)

  3. 20 is bloody plenty enough

    1. 20 is too many IMO.

  4. My wife will divorce me if i stay on the tv every weekend for F1..
    On the other hand, that’s good? Right? :)

  5. Tim (@tsgoodchild)
    3rd April 2022, 15:26

    I grew up thinking 16 races was never enough, then it got to 20 and thought it was a nice number, but the thought of 24 and even higher doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

    If I was the rule maker I’d have 50% of the races as core, tier-1 grand prix weekends/festivals following the format as it is now – 3-days of action and a fan day. The other 50% are tier-2 grand prix weekends, scrapping the Friday action with countries on a two-year rotation allowing for greater variety each season.

    It’ll never happen of course.

  6. Adding any more races would require at least one of the following:
    – The budget will have to increase significantly (enough to pay for more team members and cars to rotate), making it less attainable to a new team.
    – Many more parts would need to be moved to “standard supply” or at a minimum “transferrable”, including many currently differentiating parts. Closer to Indycar as a “spec” series, though I doubt we’d ever see a spec chassis – maybe transferrable though.
    – The race weekend would need to be shortened, which might not be a bad thing.

    Personally, even if none of the above happened, my viewership would not increase correspondingly with the # of races, it would hold steady or decrease. Each event will be less meaningful, and thus I’ll feel less obligated to watch any given event.

    1. RocketTankski
      3rd April 2022, 15:59

      If they allowed each team to double up (including 4 drivers and 2 reserves), so personnel could be rotated throughout the year. They could then increase to 40 – 45 race weekends.
      Individual drivers and staff could be limited to say 35 weeks a year “on tour”.
      Drivers could swap in and out, like some Indy teams.
      Teams would probably need a fair increase in cost cap and revenue share. Maybe crowdfunding too.
      But on the plus side, lots more employment opportunities and advertising available.

    2. – F1 teams have ample budgets that cover many hundreds of staff already, @nanotech. Give them more money and they’ll still cry poor because they spend it all on making the car faster instead. Budgets require sacrifice and compromise. The best thing about the budget cap is that it allows teams to make those choices and set their priorities themselves. Poor HR management will bring teams undone no matter how fast their car is.

      – No parts need to change to run more events. But it wouldn’t hurt to simplify the cars and technical regs anyway. Doing so brings a multitude of other benefits.

      – Same as above; nothing needs to change for more events, but it should change anyway for other reasons.

      The benefit of more events for you, then, is that you can choose which ones to prioritise. Your time, your choice.

    3. @nanotech @RocketTankski @S I doubt the budget cap gets increased, so effectively a non-option.
      Everything, including rotation, is easier said than done & something like 40-45 would mean nearly nonexistent off-season.

  7. If the quality of the events is high enough, then the quantity should also be high.
    When the quality is low (as it often is in F1) then there are too many at 16. Or 10.

    Everyone can eat one or two or five more chocolates, but nobody wants more brussels sprouts…

    1. I will happily take any Brussels sprouts no one else fancies.

      1. Just to clear up: do you mean “ANY Brussels sprouts” or “ALL Brussels sprouts”? I understand that opinion here varies as to whether that means the same thing.

        (I’ll see myself out)

      2. … being a genuine Belgian, I totally agree with Will’s POV.
        People should learn how to cook/prepare them before emitting a poor comment about that magnificent vegetable.
        It’s similar to ‘porpoising’ though. You only enjoy it when you mastered it…

      3. Can I have your chocolate then, @willwood?

      4. @willwood I love brussels sprouts (and i am Dutch) so i agree with your POV.

    2. @S Your argument is weird.

      1. How so, @jerejj?
        If you like something, you want more of it. If you dislike it, you’re content with less of it.

        Additionally, if there are more events on the calendar, there is a fair chance of there being more good ones.
        10 good events out of a 30-event season is better than 7 good ones out of 21.
        10 is greater than 7, and the rest would be just as easily forgotten regardless of how many there are.

        1. If you like something, you want more of it.

          This is not always the case. I can enjoy the meal I am eating, yet be unable to finish it. It can eat so many chocolates I don’t want any more. I can go on holiday, love it, but be ready to come home by the end and not want to stay any longer.

          Also, given the amount of extra pressure the longer calendar will put on teams and staff, I don’t see the proportion of “good” races staying the same. Burnout is real, as is a general decline in productivity with greater hours. We would be likely to see more mistakes, more problems for staff, and generally a lower average quality of everything. If someone told you that you had to work 30% more hours in a week, do you think you would be able to do 30% more work in that time?

          1. I can enjoy the meal I am eating, yet be unable to finish it.

            The great thing is F1 isn’t food, @drmouse. Regardless of whether you consume it yourself, someone else can and will. Everyone has a different appetite – some want less, some want more.
            If there’s too much, everyone can be satisfied and stop consuming when they wish. If there isn’t enough, many will be hungry for more, and F1 would be crazy not to provide it for them.

            Nobody would be working 30% more hours in a week if they are already at their personal and/or legal limit.
            For that work to be done, it would need to be done by another person.
            That’s HR management at work.

            As for whether a longer calendar would negatively affect racing – that’s debatable of course. Personally, I like seeing an absence of perfection in sport. The human element is imperfect and I want to see more of that in F1.
            If it leads to more slow pitstops or strategy blunders, then yay. Wins all round for viewers.

          2. The great thing is F1 isn’t food

            True. It doesn’t matter if you eat all the food on your plate, it doesn’t reduce the enjoyment you have of that you did eat. F1, on the other hand, is not as enjoyable unless you can see it all, at least to me. Every race missed reduces the enjoyment of the ones watched, because there are gaps in the knowledge.

            At 20+ races, it can be a struggle to watch them all for me and many others. Increase it to 30 and many will be unable to watch them all. For myself, and other people I have spoken to, this is likely to lead to fewer races watched in total as those watched are less enjoyable anyway.

            You can have too much of a good thing. For me, increasing the calendar would lead to a decline in my interest.

          3. I’ll say it again – if you are lacking enjoyment or reward watching F1, then it is the quality that is the issue, not the quantity.

          4. Even if the quality were massively improved, my enjoyment would be significantly reduced if I couldn’t watch all of them, and at 30 races I (and most other people I know) wouldn’t.

  8. I’ve gone strongly against for a number of reasons. Not least of which is the insane amount of transportation involved which benefits neither our ecology nor the workforce.

    I also feel that the more is NOT the merrier ( sorry @proesterchen ;) )
    Let me try to explain it this way.

    I lived in New Zealand for many years.
    When I first moved out there (from cold rainy England) it felt pretty cool to be having a barbecue on the beach at the weekend.
    Trust me – after a few months a barbecue on the beach every weekend gets very dull.
    Unless you have the IQ of a slug it rapidly loses its appeal and becomes something to avoid at all costs.

    I feel that Liberty should aim to strike a balance between entertainment and anticipation rather than just milk F1 for every penny that they can get.
    Unfortunately it is pretty obvious what Liberty want and I’m convinced that they have zero interest in what the fans think.

    20 race cap would suit me. With only one allowed per Nation.

  9. 16-18 races is enough. But I bet the American management will push for even more than 24 races. Maybe, up to 30.

    1. @Sviat Won’t happen simply for impracticality.

    2. Only if all f1 drivers were black then they’d push it to 82.

  10. Well unsurprisingly I voted strongly disagree. I would like there to be a maximum of 20. But it should not go beyond 24. I don’t mind the addition of a few more sprint races.

    The reasons being, the more race weekends there are the less important an individual race becomes, the extra costs involved, the time commitment involved as a spectator/fan and my feeling that more races just makes each event seem less special.

  11. 20 was enough. 20 races should be the limit with deals in place to rotate venues. Too many takes away the special feeling of a race, Also with 25 plus, it means seasons like 2009 or shakeups like this year could mean nothing, as teams like Mercedes could come back from bad starts and win anyway

  12. The most common response in this echo chamber will of course be “Strongly Disagree.”
    That’s cool and all, but it isn’t representative of what ‘all’ viewers think. Nor is it a very good response – rather selfish, really.

    The bottom line is always that F1 is optional. You can skip as many as you like, and watch only the 16 or 20 or however many you prefer.
    And if you feel like you’d be missing out – then watch them all. You do like watching F1, right?
    Record it and watch it when you have the time.

    1. S, that seriously is the worst comment you’ve ever made. And I say it as a big fan of your commentary.

      1. The survey question is “Do YOU agree”, not “Do you think all people agree” which would be a silly question to ask in the first place. The problem you have with people’s answers makes no sense at all.
      2. “The bottom line is always that F1 is optional.” – well whoopty do, Captain Obvious ;) If they started adding salt to milk making it undrinkable, saying that “You are free not to buy milk any more” would neither help people who like to drink milk, nor would it help save milk producers from diminishing sales of milk. So the cynical statement that you’ve made is an anti-discussion move that serves no purpose and has no value here.

      Increasing the number of races will either make fans enjoy F1 more or less and that’s the question here. People don’t suddenly enjoy something less because they chose to enjoy it less. If it becomes less enjoyable they do. And if that’s the case, it’s bad for them and it’s bad for F1.

      1. 1. The two extremes in answers have very different consequences, amian.
        If I say I want more, it means more could become available. People can choose what they watch.
        If I say I want less, and then F1 provides less, then there are no options to watch more. It’s taking people’s choices and preferences away.
        If you want less, just watch less. You don’t have to watch it all.

        2. In your example you suggest changing the product, not changing the amount of it.
        If there is too much milk, you don’t have to drink it all. But some people might like more than they currently have.

        Whether there were 20 events or 30 doesn’t make a real difference to how much I enjoy, say, the Japanese GP, for example. It is what it is. Same goes for Silverstone, or Spa, or Brazil. Each event remains the same. There would just be more of them each year.
        Sure, it’d be pretty unfortunate if the extra ones were as boring as Monaco or Barcelona, but I’d have the choice to skip them, and nothing would be lost.

        1. To some, watching all the races is part of the experience. Having races they are unable or unwilling to watch vastly dilutes the experience.

          So, let us say there is someone who, right now, is watching every session. That’s a big part of their enjoyment, but they have to do a lot of juggling of work, family life etc to fit in the current 20+ weekends.

          Now say calendar is increased to 30 races. It becomes impossible for them to juggle that many weekends, so they have to skip several, maybe just watching the race (or even just highlights) for many of the events. That will significantly reduce the amount of enjoyment they get out of it, even though they are watching the same number of full weekends, and has a good chance of seeing them watch less overall (if they are missing some anyway, it becomes much easier to miss more when something else comes up). They don’t get as much info about what is happening anymore, feel less involved.

          It is nowhere near as simple a choice as you make out (and that’s without even considering the massive toll it would take on staff and/or the huge increase in staff costs, and so many other elements).

          1. It is nowhere near as simple a choice as you make out

            Sure it is.
            You either want to watch it or you don’t. Is it worth the sacrifice or not?
            Modern technology grants us the opportunity to watch it on a Tuesday or Wednesday, as I usually do now that my work schedule has increased.
            Knowing the results and incidents before watching the whole thing doesn’t change it, because I watch the race for the racing and action and how it all unfolds, not just to find out the results.

            To me, this poll, subject and many of the comments equate pretty directly to: “I like this many races, so I think there should only be this many races.”
            Or, to use a different subject, it’s like saying: “I have enough money. This is the right amount and I think nobody should have more than I have.”
            If you want more money, who am I to stop you from having more, even though I think it’s too much?

            As for those in the game… I’m getting tired of saying “HR management” about teams with over 700 employees, as it really should be self explanatory.
            They have enough people by far, they may just need to slightly alter their current training and deployment methods.

          2. So, say I want to watch every single session of every single event, including all the buildup and programming around them, as I did last season. This makes the whole thing way more exciting. However, I’m having to juggle my family life to do so.

            However, F1 increase the number of races by 30%. I still want to watch every single session, but I physically cannot because of family and other social commitments, even work commitments. I no longer have the choice to do so (unless I want my relationships with family and friends to break down).

            30 races per year is over half of all weekends having significant proportions of over half of all weekends taken up. Few people can commit that much time to watching a sport. However, missing even one session, for me, would have massively decreased my enjoyment of the sport, and would be the start of a slide from dedicated to casual fan. If I am willing to miss one practice session, why not more? Why not make my life easier by cutting down to just Qually and Race, if I can’t see all the sessions anyway? In fact, you get a summary of qually on race day, so why bother with watching qualifying? It would be a slippery slope for many fans, leading to them watching less F1 in total and being much less connected to the sport.

            Now, you could say this is a “choice”, but it is one which was forced upon them, not one they willingly made. It is by no means as simple as you make out.

          3. Choice is a luxury for those who want less in this case, @drmouse.
            ‘Person A’ can watch as much as they want to, up to 100%. They can choose 80% if they wish.
            ‘Person B’ can only watch 100%, even though they may want more. They can’t choose more, because there isn’t any more.

            Life is about making choices, unless there are no options available.

            So, should there be an over-supply with accompanying choices, or an under-supply?
            Should casual and prospective viewers, advertisers, sponsors and F1’s potential media reach be restricted just because some people feel uncomfortable about choosing to watch an extra event or two?

          4. I get that you want more races. I don’t, and I am confident that I would end up watching less and enjoying less if it was increased very far beyond where it is now. This article is about how people feel about such changes. You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but the vast majority on this site feel differently.

            I don’t want you to be denied any choices, but I also don’t want my own enjoyment of F1 spoiled (any more than it already has been by recent events), and a 30% increase in the number of races certainly would, even without considering the effects on staff, drivers, team budgets etc. Your opinion is perfectly valid, and in these kinds of polls we are encouraged to share them, but mine is on the opposite end of the spectrum and equally valid.

            On a side note, a small under-supply is often much better in business than an over-supply. It drives demand and allows higher prices for the same product, whereas an over-supply leads to saturation.

          5. I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually said that “I” personally want more races – but I certainly support the idea that many people do.
            I don’t feel that it would be right to deny them, just because “I” am already satisfied with the current quantity or think it is already an over-supply.
            Just like I don’t eat the last biscuit, as I assume someone else may want it more than I do.

            It depends which part of the food chain you are at as to whether an under-supply is a good thing or not.
            For a consumer, over-supply is generally much better than under-supply. Nobody misses out and price pressures can ease.
            Not that prices will be lowering for F1, of course….

          6. When changes are made to improve enjoyment for others, but they reduce my own enjoyment, I will not be happy. If I am unable to watch every race, my enjoyment of the remaining races will be vastly reduced, because I gain massive enjoyment from being able to see the whole picture. Therefore, while an increase in the number of races beyond what I am able to watch (without drastically impacting my own social and family life) might be good for some, it would be bad for me and I will vote and argue against it.

          7. When changes are made to improve enjoyment for others, but they reduce my own enjoyment, I will not be happy

            Right, @drmouse. As I said way above – it’s a selfish response.
            It’s great that we agree.

            It’s cool, though. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t put ourselves first sometimes.

    2. but it isn’t representative of what ‘all’ viewers think.

      It actually more than likely is as internal surveys that both F1 & broadcasters have done going back to the late 90s have consistently shown a majority of those who watch at least 50% of the races think 18 is the optimum number of races.

      There was also some additional bits of data that showed that as you add more races you end up with smaller percentage of fans who watch everything with a larger percentage of the audience picked & choosing what to watch & dipping in & out.

      Bernie was always hesitant to go above 18 races in part because of what the data was showing & the only reason the calendar ended up expanding beyond that was because CVC were adamant they wanted more than that.

      I’ve always found it telling that in the more recent officially backed public fan surveys when asking about the number of races the options tend to go no higher than 13+. They don’t want to start asking questions that give options in the 17-19 range or about going above 20 because they know what the answers will be because of the internal private data they have.

      1. It actually more than likely is as internal surveys that both F1 & broadcasters have done going back to the late 90s have consistently shown a majority of those who watch at least 50% of the races think 18 is the optimum number of races.

        The thing is that only certain types of viewers will usually seek out these polls, @gt-racer.
        I’ve never found one without looking. None of my family or friends even know they exist.

        They target existing viewers – mostly the more dedicated ones – because they give the answers they are looking for.
        They won’t ask Joe from next door what he thinks about F1 as he’s never heard of it. They won’t take old Betty’s opinion into account because she thinks it’s just polluting, noisy nonsense. Nor do they want to ask for Harry’s take on F1 because he used to only watch the race start then switch over to the football – but he doesn’t even watch that much any more because he doesn’t have Pay TV…

        There is certainly some decent data in most polls, but there’s always going to be that element akin to asking church-goers if they believe in Jesus.

        Bernie kept the number of events down for another reason too – so he could play promoters off against each other.
        Deepest pockets wins.

    3. Nor is it a very good response – rather selfish, really.

      I voted strongly disagree precisely for entirely unselfish reasons – the teams and their employees don’t want 30 races.
      Wanting more entertainment at the cost of the contentment of who is supplying that entertainment seems to me a pretty good definition of selfishness.

      1. The more events there are, the more staff will be working @david-br. Rotation becomes even more important than it already is now. I’d suggest that right now it’s not enough of a priority for the teams – and if it takes further calendar expansion to show how vital it is, then that’s a huge positive.
        You seem to forget that F1 is an entertainment and marketing business. Where there is demand, you create supply. Where there is no demand, create that too.

        I’m sure if they think about it, the team members will be satisfied that they have employment. In F1, no less… What a perk!

        1. If they have the budget, maybe – but there will be key workers who can’t be rotated and teams without the cash to expand as much as needed. (Thanks for tagging me, but as I mentioned before, tagging doesn’t seem to work unless the tagger is logged in too! No notice appears to tell you that you’ve been tagged, so you have to remember where you commented to see any replies.)

          1. tagging doesn’t seem to work unless the tagger is logged in too

            It still highlights you in blue text. Presumably you would come back to the comments section anyway if you wanted a conversation.

  13. if the calendar was organised in a sensible geographical order, you could fit loads of races in.

    Bring it on!

    1. @napierrailton Everything has a limit in any case, so still impractical.

  14. petebaldwin (@)
    3rd April 2022, 16:25

    We’re already at a point where F1 races aren’t “must-see.” The more there are, the more that becomes the case.

    1. Josh (@canadianjosh)
      3rd April 2022, 20:43

      COTD

    2. @petebaldwin spot on.

      This season and last season is the first time ever that I’ve deliberately not watched some of the races and I’m sure we’re not the only ones. I’ve also dropped off most of the practice sessions because of the sheer volume of race weekends.

      From a broadcast and advertising point of view, that presents problems – advertisers will have to try and anticipate which events are likely to get them the most exposure rather than rely on all races being a good source of eyeball for their products.

    3. If they aren’t “must-see” then there is clearly something wrong with their quality, @petebaldwin.

    4. Indeed @petebaldwin, I also think we are getting to a point of saturation of the want to watch.

  15. What is the Premier League?

    1. Top level of English football but it’s followed worldwide.

      1. Thanks, that was a joke since a true racing fan lives cars 24/7.

  16. Well, it is a bit booring, obsessing over F1, while, there is no race this weekend.. But idealy there should be a race every two weeks with rest over the winter… So about 20-22 races.

    24 this is about right. We can expect 1 or 2 races to be canceled per year going forward.

  17. Thankfully the majority of fans have a heart.

  18. 18 or 20 are more than enough. With more races any given win is devalued

    PS- more races = more waste of time with silly stats like “most points ever in a season”

  19. I once thought that more would always be better, that a race every week all year round would be perfect. But I have started to believe the perfect amount is when you feel that it’s just short of perfect. That feeling of wanting a bit more is what keeps the interest up, what builds the anticipation and drives you to spend your valuable time on it. As humans we always want more, but when we get it we just want something else instead.
    I find myself not wanting much more now, so what we currently have is probably really close to pushing it too far already.

  20. I find this pole slightly weird, but ‘strong disagree’ was an easy choice. 23-24 is more than perfect for income & everything else (even 20-21 like before), but the relevant point is no team has enough individuals to really cover any more events in a year (even less so in the budget cap era), so practically pretty much the absolute limit.
    Losing certain tracks for compromise purposes might be a pity, but not the world’s end.

    1. I forgot to add: I doubt the upper limit gets increased for the next (2026-) Concorde stint.

    2. but the relevant point is no team has enough individuals to really cover any more events in a year

      You know that’s not true @jerejj.
      A supermarket can trade 7 days a week, 10+ hours each day for 362 days each year with less than 50 staff members.
      You can’t possibly convince me that F1 teams employing the best part of 1000 people can’t rotate 40 or 50 race-operations staff around throughout the season.

      More than that, I’d bet they’d easily find a lot of people who’d be happy to do it for free.

  21. Seems like a good time to get rid the brutal dictatorships and the blood money races. China, SA, AD, Bahrain, Russia, etc should all go. 18 -20 would be ideal.

  22. Personally, once we got past 18 or 20, I was past caring. “They” will run the number of races that they want, and I will watch the number of races that I can be bothered to, and that will fit in with other things that I do. And frankly, adding more races will only increase the difference between those two numbers.

  23. I wish there was a more hard option than ‘Strongly Disagree’! There are so many reasons not to add more races.

    Firstly, what happens to the team members? They’re already stretched and rarely able to be home. Adding more races means either even more time away from home or an increase in budgets to accommodate substitutes or full ‘second teams’ with regards to pit crews, catering, marketing etc. It’s not reasonable to expect a team member to be at 25-30 races a year (remember it’s not just Friday-Sunday for a Grand Prix, but usually Tuesday-Monday to set up etc.).

    Secondly, from an obsessed fans perspective, I feel obligated (and enjoy to) watch every race, usually live and really enjoy almost centring my weekend around the action. But I also enjoy my F1-free weekends and don’t want to feel like I’m on constant catch up with the sport. As much as I enjoy football, I lose track of all the games, goals, results etc. because it’s just always on… especially as I get older, I just have better things to do. Selfishly, I don’t want that to happen with F1. I love feeling like a part of it, watching most interviews, practices, qualifying, all building up to the race. I don’t think I could do that every weekend. Though of course, I wouldn’t expect everyone else, much less Liberty or the FIA, to feel the same.

    My main reason though is actually the saturation of the very product Liberty is trying to sell. Simple mathematics dictates that the more races you add, the less likely it is that we’ll get an end of season showdown for the World Championship. Some years (like last year), it’ll work out fine, but others will see even very close battles fizzle out before the last race.

    The desire for more races frankly seems greed-driven when you see countries with questionable human rights records like Saudi Arabia, Russia or China being given races simply because they have a fistful of cash.

    1. from an obsessed fans perspective, I feel obligated (and enjoy to) watch every race, usually live and really enjoy almost centring my weekend around the action. But I also enjoy my F1-free weekends

      Bingo. Even if they are physically able to dedicate most of more than half of the weekends of the year to F1, many would have to sacrifice other things to do so, even more than they currently do. But, for an obsessive fan, just missing the odd race here and there to try to reclaim some balance isn’t an option. For those like me, as soon as they are not watching all of them, their obsession will fade and they are likely to end up watching fewer races overall than before.

      It’s similar to collectibles. If you are trying to collect all the items in a set, you’ll go out of your way to do so. Even those you don’t really care about in themselves, you will attempt to collect to complete the set. However, if you are not trying to complete a set, you will only collect those few which you care about, maybe only the two or three you particularly want, and even those you are not going to be as obsessed over as you would be with a completionist mindset.

  24. 18 is enough for me. I’m already picking and choosing what races to watch and I’ve still got some from last season recorded that I never watched. As the number of races has increased it’s gone from must watch to might watch if it was a good race.

  25. 24 is more than enough. F1 fans now have from March through to December always with a race or two to look forward to. Making it a nearly year long event will remove some of the magic I think, the anticipation as you move from one season to the next if it’s just an endless slog of race after race with barely any break.

    And yes it absolutely dilutes the importance of each race, not just points wise but viewing wise. I’ve already had to miss the second race live this season due to work, if there ends up being so many races that I struggle to watch most love then I absolutely will start falling away from the sport. It’s just way too much commitment.

  26. I dislike double headers, not to say triples. Still in a 52-week year you could fit 26, now take away a few for the winter between seasons, say 4, and 2 for the summer, make it 20, a perfect round number for me, anything else feels like too much of a good thing

  27. It doesn’t matter what we think. As always, F1 will do whatever it thinks is ‘best’.

    (NOTE: Best equals whatever generates the most money for Liberty Media)

  28. They could save on air freight costs by becoming the open-wheel NASCAR and having 47 races, all in the States…that seems to be the way it’s going

    I’m glad of the break before Melbourne. Builds a bit of anticipation and reminds us it’s not all some dumbed-down Title Battle narrative for Sky or Netflix suckers.

  29. Oh, another thing: 69 days to watch every practice, quali and race? To me practice can be cut, I see no point to watch practice as a fan, those times say nothing regarding performance, so should be 46.

    1. Can you cut the Friday sessions without allowing the teams more track testing time?

  30. I strongly disagree. I’d like to go back to 17 races or at least under 20.

    A GP is something special, but now there is one almost every weekend.

  31. Voted strongly disagree, as I feel the calendar is already too long.

    20 races.
    With 25pts for the win.
    Maximum 500pts on offer for the season.
    Ditch sprint races and PTs for FL.
    Rotate half a dozen races on a two-year cycle to allow more venues to host.

    F1 hasn’t been to Melb since the abandoned race of 2020 and general interest and ticket sales for next weekend are at an all time high. Says something to me !

  32. Thirty races a year would be a dream come true. The problem is when we wake up from the dream, reality is looking us in the face.
    Twenty-four? Okay. But let’s stabilize for a while and see how it’s all working.
    More might work if an effective plan involving financing, additional costs, event foremats, staff rotation, etc. could be developed.
    That’s not going to happen overnight.
    Gather data for a few years and see how it plays.

  33. In the past I did actually think that more races would be cool, A race every weekend. But in reality I found that when we got above 20 it just started to feel like too many & as i’ve said before I found that when the season hit 20/21 I was starting to feel a bit burnt out by the end & less engaged in those final few races even if the championship fight was still on.

    For me the perfect length of the season would be 18/19 races max, I think 20+ is too many partly because it just starts to make each race feel that bit less special but also because it just starts to become frustrating to have to dedicate so much time/so many weekends to F1.

    I also hate the argument that you don’t have to watch them all. Yes fine that is true but I love F1 & have been super passionate about it since I discovered it in 1989 & I don’t want to feel like I need to or am been forced to have to consider starting to skip races or not watch live. I want to watch every session/race & I want to watch them live because that gives me the most enjoyment/excitement.

    I hate that the options that we have are to continue watching everything but feel burnt out & less engaged later on with double/triple headers feeling like a slog i’m forcing myself to watch. Or to start skipping things or watching the shorter highlights or DVR’d live coverage (Which i’d be more likely to skip through rather than watching in full) resulting in me enjoying the sport less anyway.

    1. +1
      I hate it that I’ve already had to skip some races and to be honest I’m feeling less and less inclined to watch at all.

      I used to get excited waiting for the next race but now its just “meh there’s a race on” this weekend.

      Like you I get the enjoyment out of watching it live – anything else just doesn’t cut it. Shifting the start times certainly hasn’t helped either in that regard as for me it means later nights. couple that with an overload of races in places that I’m not interested in and its no longer the F1 I watched religiously from FP1 to Race but instead has become something I’ll watch way less often.

      The only thing that will change the way its becoming a saturation game is if the numbers start to drop in terms of viewers and I’m not sure that’s going to happen as I suspect they treat anyone that watches a 5 minute You Tube clip as a viewer these days.

  34. The number of races may not matter much to the more casual fans who dip in & out or who don’t watch everything live, It’s the most dedicated fans who want to watch everything & want to watch it live who are been hurt by the expanding calendar.

    But I think it’s clear that Liberty don’t care about us fans & are simply chasing the casuals. And there’s nothing wrong with trying to attract more casual viewers but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the most dedicated/passionate fans who are going to start to feel pushed away by the Liberty calendar.

  35. If they just keep adding street courses, no thanks. If they go to proper circuits then yes please and even better, if they build some circuits to be modern versions of old classics, like the Nordschleife, then OH HELL YES!!!

    1. My thought is for every new street course added, two other street courses from the calendar must be removed. Road courses provide a superior venue for F1 racing and the last thing F1 needs are more street courses.

  36. There are more races than cars.

  37. Oh no, I misclicked and accidentally voted the exact opposite of what I wanted.

  38. IfImnotverymuchmistaken
    4th April 2022, 11:13

    No. It’s enough that utterly uninteresting venues and tracks are becoming more common than historically significant GPs much more suitable for racing. We don’t need any more watering down of F1.

    1. If the calendar were to expand, perhaps they could include more of F1’s ‘classic’ circuits….?

      1. But they won’t. They’ll go to more places which either pay them lots or which expand into the markets they want to, and they’ll get Tilke or someone like him to make more generic tracks with no character in the places they want them. We won’t see an expansion of races at classic tracks, because classic tracks won’t be able to afford it.

        1. Yeah, that’s most likely @drmouse.
          But with only 20 slots on the calendar, who would those places go to?

          Yep, still the highest bidders.
          So, same same.

  39. I’m in two minds about this. There are already too many races. I don’t see how anyone can honestly say a capacity grid is “dilution” but handing a Grand Prix to anyone with a heap of cash and access to 5km of road is “growth”.

    That said, if the limit is adhered to, we all know which races will get the chop, and I guarantee that your favourite track is unsafe. The very suggestion that Monaco isn’t safe (whatever you may think of it) shows that no race is safe.

    I worry that F1 is putting too much value on the Drive to Survive buzz, which can’t last forever. It won’t keep adding new fans, and there’s no guarantee that the latest crop are going to stick around.

    I can’t help but draw parallels to NASCAR in the 90’s, when it started to go through a similar boom in popularity and expanded outside its traditional core fan base – best summarised with the unceremonious dumping of North Wilkesboro (one of its oldest and most beloved venues) in favour of a much larger and more profitable Texas Motor Speedway. The buzz eventually died (as it always does), the casual fans lost interest, and NASCAR then feels the need to introduce all sorts of stupid gimmicks to try and bring them back. Meanwhile its lifelong fans are left alienated, and a community loses its biggest revenue stream.

    Not only does F1 need its heritage circuits, these circuits desperately need F1. Could Silverstone survive losing the Grand Prix? Could the town of Monza cope without the tourism the race brings? Because let’s face it, if F1 has to choose between a race in New York City or Spa-Francorchamps, do we really think they’ll go with sentimentality over profits? Las Vegas has coped just fine without a Grand Prix, and I certainly don’t want to see a circuit or town that depends on F1 to lose their slot to it.

  40. I agree provided there is a full stop at 25.

  41. March 1 to November 30. Dec and Jan is the off-season. Preseason testing in Feb. Summer break in August. Done. Fit the 25 in there.

  42. Just smacks of more opportunities to make money for the Rights Holders at the expense of teams. Diluting the show does not tend to improve the spectacle. Greed is the name of the game!

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