How Many is Too many F1 Grand Prix ?

[rev-erend]

I've just seem a new article that Bernie want to see F1 GP's return
to South Africa and also Mexico ..

Two schools of thought :

Creates competetion amoungst country / venues and only the best (or richest) get selected

or

Lets have them all and have 25 races a year ... or something like that number.

What's your opinion of it all ?

[RenesisEvo]

If you add many more GPs you are going to need a second lot of race team personnel - it's a stretch for the mechanics and engineers who fly out to the races already, if there's a GP getting on for every other weekend for the entire year, that's just too much - what about their holidays, seeing their families? The cost and issues in having a second set of personnel would be immense, IMO. Logistical costs. Then there would be the issue of having more overlap between running the existing cars and developing them or next year's car.

I imagine there will simply be more competition with those circuits failing to draw in decent crowds (Shanghai?). There's also an issue of weather with long calendars, you'd have to be sure to be the right places at the right time. Races are often shuffled about to avoid monsoon/v hot /v cold conditions, not just because it's dangerous but also because no-one will attend.

[DanDC5]

19-20 is the most reasonable to have and I believe what Bernie wants to cap a season at, new races will come in as replacements for older ones, let's be honest, if Bahrain and Valencia were replaced with 2 good race circuits with big crowds in South Africa and Mexico it can only be a good thing for F1.

[rev-erend]

They could get rid of the boring Valencia right now. IMHO.

[28jaguar]

I think even 16 was too many, 16 would be the limit though. If it were up to me, with a clean sheet of paper, I'd have 12 to 14, still plenty of races for the season to be a hard grind but also makes every race count. I think would add value to each GP, it'd be a shorter season too (in terms of period of time). With 14 races, maybe a 7/7 Europe/RotW split (8/6, 9/5 is OK too), at least one race on each continent, maybe 2 in both South/North America. You could have 5 permanent in both Europe/RotW and 2 each are rotated. The most deserving, legitimate motorsport countries having a permanent annual race.

Something like...
Europe
Monaco, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, +2 wherever , or France and Spain instead.
RotW
Australia, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, +2, or USA +1, USA and Argentina or 2 in the States...whatever.

[Rude-boy]

20 is a good number to have the old guard there and the new ones.

[scubadude]

Should have 32 rounds over 2 years, would also allow some races which always seem to be at the wrong time of year to be moved, they should also include a oval and 6hr endurance round with double points, grand finale in Monaco with LeMans start, the World Champion gets to push Bernie into the Red Bull pool to find Eddies mobile :-)

[Eric Mc]

Back in the 1960s there were often over 20 F1 races in a year (although as few as 10 counted for the WDC).

In 1964, the UK had FIVE F1 races

As well as the British GP at Brands Hatch

Daily Mirror Trophy Snetterton March 14
News of the World Trophy Goodwood March 30
Aintree 200 Aintree April 18
BRDC International Trophy Silverstone May 2

[skinny]

each circuit should have to pre-sell 75% of the tickets before the start of the year. those with the highest fan attendance get to host the race, and places like bahrain have to refund the 20 people that applied.

has the benefit of ensuring F1 only goes to places where there is an interest in racing, and that ticket prices are kept low

[TheArchitect]

Less races and only attend the lower attended circuits Bi-Yearly, this way it gives more opportunity for the good races to keep going and the poor low attendance races to become more special (by occuring less often) and new circuits get a chance.

I want an oval race too!

[rev-erend]

I want one round the local one way system .. some on the local cabbies for thrash those F1 boys

[mmm-five]

To answer your original question, I guess that 366 would be 'too many' as you'd only fit them all in once every 4 years.

If you only did one a week, then I guess 53 would be too many.

Depends whether you expect the team (who have day jobs as well) to have any time off, or time to do their day jobs.

I'd be happy to watch a race every weekend, but I'd like to see communication between the different 'big race' organisers so that I could watch Le Mans, N24, BTCC, WTCC, DTM, etc. without having to miss one.

I'd also like to see Kyalami back on the calendar, but we know it's about the money not the racing.

[Fire99]

There are races?? With all the other nonsense going on and squabbling about everything squabbleable, I almost forgot there were actually races.

[Spiritual_Beggar]

Manx TT GP!!!!!


Go on Bernie!! You know you want to

[craigjm]

IMO you can't have too many GP

[Fire99]

Spiritual_Beggar said:

Manx TT GP!!!!!


Go on Bernie!! You know you want to

I hope Bernie leaves that place well alone or half the Island would need to be demolished for run-offs and Hotel complexes!!

[rdjohn]

40% of my weekends taken up watching F1 is probably too much.

20 GPs, preferably with about 50% based in Europe where the fans are, is about right.

Bernie is the problem; not the solution.

[AJS-]

Logistically it strikes me that they could group them a bit smarter to have Asian, European and American seasons. They seem to dot around quite a bit at the moment, which must add to the logistic costs and buggeration factor.

Australia - Asia/ME - Europe - America - Season finale in Japan follows the same basic format, but you could tidy the calendar up a bit for example by having Malaysia and Singapore (about a 4 hour drive apart) together, rather than having them at opposite ends of the season. No reason not to do these on consecutive weekends, earning a longer break for the next race.

I don't see a problem with having them year round really, with decent breaks in August and December, that allows more down time than many professions get. True it's still a difficult job for someone with a family etc, but it is a dream job for many and not much more burdensome than working on an oil rig or similar.

One thing that might be worth considering would be having a few of them as non-championship races, which could encourage more lively racing, rest some of the staff and let teams try out new drivers, pit crew and car developments without betting the farm on it.

[Jasandjules]

26 is about it to my mind. Every weekend and other weekend for say 8 months, which then gives the teams time to have holidays etc..

[Logie]

I think it should run over an 8 month period, so makes it about 19~20 races. Like said above, staff and drivers need holiday time, companies need to design and test stuff (although R&D goes on through out the season)

Too many races would make it borring, have a limit would mean tracks would have to make an effort, if your GP is st, your going to lose it to someone who wants it more etc