Following the announcement yesterday from the promoters of the Australian GP that their 2016 race would be held three weeks later than usual, TJ13 revealed an agenda in play for the future of the F1 calendar in “An F1 season with just 8 non-race weekends.”
published ???? with some interesting information from our sources.
FOM then confirmed, “It would appear that the proposed 2016 calendar has been leaked. This calendar has not yet been approved.”
Here is that calendar.
Whilst this is a draft proposal, the agenda behind the schedule is interesting.
Firstly, the calendar has been compressed creating more back to back races. These are shaded above.
The one weekend where Formula One cannot hold an event is during Le Mans – which next year is sandwiched between Austrian GP and Azerbaijan.
As we revealed yesterday, there is an agenda to shrink and eventually get rid of the summer break.
Also, there is little to no chance Singapore and Malaysia will be back to back, but pressure is mounting on the race promoters of the Marina Bay Street Circuit race to accept Japan as a ‘next door neighbour’ rather than demanding a clear week either side of their event.
Malaysia began its F1 journey in October, however, it could return to the early season slot post China.
The shuffling everyone from Bahrain onwards forward by one week into the back of the Canadian GP – which is capable of being run back to back without too much logistical difficulties – means the season kicks of with a BANG. 8 races in 10 weeks
This document is clearly managing expectations and as the ideas within it become acceptable – will almost definitely push them further in its final version.
37 weeks for 19 races in 2015 has 21 races in just 34 weeks.
Are you a fan of a more Indycar style F1 season which schedules events most weekends during the campaign?
Or will this mean the elongated closed season becomes intolerable to bear?
The thing I mostly note is a better geographical grouping for away races, with only Abu Dhabi being the odd race out, which one would hope some extra travel allowance for the teams comes out of the ridiculous premium UAE pay to go last.
Excuse my ignorance, but since when did Azerbaijan become part of Europe and is now listed as the ‘European’ race? It seems FOM follows the political will of UEFA and Eurovision, madness.
FOM has to since there is a rule that says Europe gets a minimum of 6 races and if Baku is not branded as European than Bernie has a problem when Hockenheim and Italy no longer have a contract to host a race 😉
Whose rule is it Rob?
It’s a rule that was part of the concorde agreements, not sure if it’s still part of the bilateral agreements. It was mentioned some time ago by I believe eddy Jordan and I think Bernie have mentioned it too once. Bit like I said I don’t know if the rule is still there
OK, thanks for that……
It would seem then that given that provenance it really amounts to SFA?
I guess I’m losing interest in the whole thing, as I’ll be trying to kill myself in the mountains most summer weekends.
The risk that I dread most about the compressed calender is that it makes it very hard for teams to catch up. Nowadays you see that teams only bring updates after a car has been back at the factory and when you remove a lot of the opportunities to bring the car back to the factory than some money will be saved on travel arrangements but how do you prevent that money that has been saved to be spent on ways of updating the car when the car hasn’t been home for a while? With the big teams you can’t prevent it and the small teams don’t have the means to use private planes to fly in new parts to the races. Will this create a bigger gap between the have’s and have’s not?
My ideal scenario, 21 races in 28 weeks!
April 3 – Australia
April 10 – China
April 17 – Bahrain
May 1 – Azerbaijan
May 08 – Russia
May 22 – Monaco
May 29 – Spain
June 05 – Britain
June 19 – Austria
June 26 – Italy
July 3 – Germany
July 10 – Hungary
July 24 – Belgium
August 7 – Canada
August 14 – USA
August 21 – Mexico
August 28 – Brazil
September 11 – Japan
September 18 – Singapore
September 25 – Malaysia
October 9 – Abu Dhabi
What’s up with Sochi? Last I heard Sochi promoters went bankrupt shortly after the GP (just like Marussia). Shouldn’t there be a * next to Sochi in the provisional calendar?
voted no. I think the winter is to long as it is. making it longer will be even worse.
Truth be told, with TJ13 winter is so much shorter…
Maybe a bit 😂
too many races. could do without those weird countries.
Always hoping for Spa-Monza back to back. Road trip!
Does the proposed calender for next year make formula 1 more attractive when it comes to tv rights?
In other news, Adam Cooper has reported that the little French guy has taken on his dream job of UN road safety champion
I reckon they finally gave it to him just to shut him up, haha
Indycar is no standard for F1. Jesus, it’s like asking if the Champions League should mimic a high school tournament.
I don’t care about the calendar. Good enough racing solves everything.
None of this will matter if there aren’t enough teams around by the end of the year though.