Motor racing-F1 could handle more than 24 races, says ex-boss Szafnauer

Liberty Media

28/02/2024 24:02

By Alan Baldwin
       LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Formula One's 2024 calendar
has a record 24 races but former team boss Otmar Szafnauer
reckons the limit could still be some way off.
    The American, on 'gardening leave' until August after his
stint as principal of Renault-owned Alpine ended last July, told
Reuters ahead of Saturday's Bahrain season-opener he felt the
sport could manage more with careful planning.
    "For me, if you plan it right, I think between 25 and 30 is
the right number," he said -- a controversial view in a sport
wary of staff burnout.
    "If you go to 30, you really have two teams (within a
team)and each team does 15. That’s an easy life compared to what
you’ve got today."
    Szafnauer, who was previously also principal at Aston Martin
and Force India/Racing Point, said he started thinking while at
Alpine about the logistics of how to keep employees happy and do
more races.
    Since his departure, the Soft Pauer company he co-founded
and that produced the original F1 timing app has launched an
EventR app to help make group travelling easier for racing
teams.
    "I get what Liberty (Media) are doing, it’s the right thing
for the sport," Szafnauer said of the commercial rights holders'
gradual expansion -- particularly in the United States where
there are now three races -- since taking over in 2017.
    "We’re a global sport, truly global and should we be going
to 25, 26, 27 races?"
    Szafnauer recalled how the NASCAR stock car series used to
have more than 40 races just in the United States before the
current 36.
    "If you say 'OK, how about 26 races or 28 races in all the
countries in the world?' Yeah, that’s sustainable. But the
calendar has to allow it," he said.
    "If you can overcome the logistics, which I think you can
with a bit of planning, and then overcome the human element of
it, which I think we’re good at doing, you just have to look at
it in a creative way."
    Under former F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone the
calendar did not go beyond 17 races until 2004. It reached 20 by
2012 and 21 for the first time in 2016.
    Formula One chief executive Stefano Domenicali said last
year, amid concerns the sport's owners wanted to add more, that 
24 races was the right number.
    Domenicali has also said, however, that there is enough
interest from promoters for at least 30 races, with the sport
keen to include a race in Africa and Madrid announced as a new
venue for 2026.
    Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the president of the governing FIA,
sees it differently and told Reuters last October that the sport
needed "more teams and fewer races".
    
    LUCRATIVE RACES
    This year's calendar runs from March 2 to Dec. 8 with three
triple headers including the closing one that takes teams from
Las Vegas to Qatar and an Abu Dhabi finale on successive
weekends. 
    Since Bahrain hosted the first grand prix in the Middle East
in 2004, the sport has become even more global with lucrative
races in countries like Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Qatar.
    Szafnauer said the point would come when teams, now
sustainable with a greater share of the revenues and a budget
cap with headroom for more races, divided up the season between
two crews to ease the load.
    He said he had tried to start the process at Alpine,
offering one prospective strategy hire the possibility of
working 10 races at the racetrack and 10 at the factory with
four 'wild cards'.
    "The wild card means you choose four races that you don’t
either do remotely or from the racetrack," he explained.
    "People look at it and say it’s just taking up too much of
my life and therefore I’m missing birthdays and weddings and all
the stuff I don’t want to miss. There’s a way around it.
    "My way around it was 'OK, out of the 24 you do 20 and get
four wild cards. Just tell us the wild cards in advance and
we’ll work around it."

 (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)
 ((alan.baldwin@thomsonreuters.com; +442075427933;))