Towards a rotating calendar?
The next season is going to set a new record with 24 races, but a possible increase to 25 is already being mentioned. Where is the limit? A solution could be to alternate the races from one year to the next.
As our Anglo-Saxon friends say “Sky is the limit”. That’s kind of the feeling given by the F1 calendar these last seasons. The trend is clearly on the rise in recent years: 17 races in 2000, 19 races in 2010, 21 in 2019 and so 24 in 2024.
Liberty Media and the teams have every interest in increasing the number of races since each promoter reverses a significant fee to the plateau for the right to host a race. F1 therefore purely follows the laws of the market: what is rare is expensive. The Concorde agreements signed between F1 and the FIA currently limit the hosting of more than 25 races per season. But the alternation solution could allow more than 25 organizers to have a contract to host a race.
At the present time, many countries are knocking on the door of the discipline in order to make a place for themselves on the world stage. The most striking example is the Middle East, which now has four races (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi) because the countries have a financial power almost without equal.
The other major rise in power is obviously to be looked at from the United States’ side. They remain the world’s leading power and are therefore perceived as a priority development area. This is now achieved with three places on the calendar (Miami, Austin and Las Vegas). The teams believe that this is now enough and that a fourth race should not be aimed at, especially since America also has races in Montreal, Mexico and Brazil.
However, there is currently still an entire continent missing, namely Africa. This has not escaped the notice of Mike Krack, the director of Aston Martin, who indicated that to be a true world championship, one must race on all continents.
The management of the calendar becomes an additional element in the power struggle between the FIA (responsible for technical regulations) and Liberty Media (owner of the commercial rights). Thus Mohammed ben Sulayem, the president of the FIA, publicly stated that he would prefer to have fewer races but more teams on the grid. This clearly shows his support for the candidacy of Andretti, which is very freshly received by the other teams.
What emerged from the discussions with the main teams in Austin is that the ideal situation would be to have a rotation of destinations, with a fixed core of about twenty races and an additional pool of eight to ten more races, which could alternate from one year to the next. The remaining challenge is to find a financial equation for these promoters of the “second division” to establish a solid local base while only being present every two years.
From our special correspondent in Austin
