Last Updated on October 15 2024, 12:51 pm

This year the Formula One teams will compete over a record breaking 24 race weekends and with a new Concorde Agreement in the offing the issue of extending the maximum allowed events above 24 is rearing its head.

It would be logical to believe that Formula One Management (FOM) would like as many races as possible on the calendar, given each event pays a large hosting fee.

Stefano Domenicali, the CEO of FOM, last year mooted the idea that F1 could have even up to 30 hosts given the levels of interest he has had from potential new race venues. “I would say there is potential to go to 30,” said Domenicali indicating the high level of interest from new race venues.

 

 

 

New Madrid race in trouble

Earlier this season the FIA/FOM announced a new race contract for organisers in Madrid, which would see the city replace Barcelona as the hosts for the Spanish Grand Prix from 2026. Since then no race promoter has been found which has thrown into doubt the future of the new Spanish F1 venue.

Were the Madrid GP to fail make it across the start line the would be disastrous for FOM and raise questions about the level of scrutiny their application was given. In recent memory new F1 hosts do not fail before they’ve even started and Madrid withdrawing its application would cast doubt on other potential new F1 event hosts.

The high hopes for a revival of the South African Grand Prix were dashed this summer, when the promoters and the South African government failed to agree who would fund how much of the required investment.

Rwanda and Thailand have been suggested as potential hosts, but as of yet nothing more concrete has emerged.

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The challenge of the 2024 F1 schedule

As the 2024 season comes to a close, the FIA and FOM have experimented with the schedule to see whether they can lessen some of the intensity seen over the closing events of last season. Drivers arrived in Abu Dhabi with fatigue related symptoms many of them having mild coughs and colds due to the punishing schedule of five Grand Prix across just six weekends.

This year the calendar concludes with two triple header events and a two week break before the second run begins. Further, the teams have also had no F1 racing for the previous three weekends to the run in, which was almost as long as the regular F1 summer.

Even so one of the back to back races will remain a challenge for the F1 folk as they pack up after Las Vegas on what will be Monday morning at their next stop in Qatar. Some then face an eighteen hour flight (with connections) to the middle east and throw into the mix a ten hour time difference before they start setup and the media day on Thursday.

With one eye on the up coming Concorde negotiations, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has set his stall out on the future number of events on F1’s calendar speaking to Autosport.

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“You cross a barrier where you need two teams. We can’t have [more]. Can the drivers take it? I just want to know. Let’s just be sensible and logical about it. Can the drivers take it physically and mentally? This is a question I will ask the drivers. And what about the teams?”

Ben Sulayem adds the FIA has been forced to change the way it operates to accommodate the lives of its various regulatory officials.

“As for the FIA, we cannot do it with this one team. We have to have a rotation of two teams when it comes to the staff on the ground.”

The FIA president then discussed the potential for FOM to extend the F1 race calendar beyond the current limit of 24 events. He revealed the sport’s commercial rights owners are not at present pushing for an increase in the number of Grand Prix weekends but instead concentrating on the “quality” of the events currently on the roster.

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Ben Sulayem won’t stop “25 races”

Yet should the request come from FOM for more F1 events, Ben Sulyem won’t stand in their way.

“I mean, I will not stop [them] to go to 25, because it is their right, OK? [In the end] it’s up to them. But they are the ones who don’t want to add [more races at the moment]. Because they know that it becomes [a matter] of fatigue then. So, they have their own reasons [for keeping the number of races on 24],” he concluded.

Formula One cars are often at their best racing on permanent racing circuits yet there is also concern FOM’s long term plans include more and more city based street circuit events.

Just ten years ago the only temporary tracks were Australia, Canada, Monaco and Singapore. Were the Madrid race to find the financial backing it requires, this would see for 2026 a huge rise to nine F1 weekends taking place on circuits which are not permanent.

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The rise in F1 non-permanent circuits

Jeddah, Miami, Azerbaijan and Las Vegas are all new editions although Saudi Arabia eventually proposes creating a purpose built facility with a dramatic turn one rising to a height of fifteen stories.

There have been suggestions that even were more F1 hosts with the proper backing to be found that they may rotate with another circuit on a year on/year off basis. This was the case at there German Grand Prix for many years with Hockenheim and the Nuremberg ring alternating each year.

This meant the regional government funding required from tax payers to pay for the Grand Prix only fell biannually as a sweetener to the tax payers.

Yet with no serious new F1 project currently in the pipeline the likes of Belgium and the Netherlands are safe from the alternating proposals for now.

Fans of F1 will always want more of their racing fix, but as the sport enters the final stretch of its longest ever season, it feels as though 24 race weekends is probably enough.

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COTA stewards to defy FIA crackdown

The 2024 Formula One Singapore Grand Prix will be predominately remembered for two significant instances. Firstly, it was the first time since the inaugural running of the modern event in 2008 where race control did not deploy the safety car.

Secondly, the weekend was dominated by Max Verstappen being sanctioned for swearing in the FIA press conference on Thursday. The world champion was ordered to perform a day of ‘community service’ which as yet is to be defined by the FIA.

Prior to the Grand Prix weekend, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem had angered certain paddock folk when he took a stand on profanity from the drivers… READ MORE