During the last few seasons, Formula 1 has noticeably increased its general interest. The teams notice it through the new sponsorship agreements and the organization of the category itself in the huge requests from venues that want to host new races.
Some of these great prizes already have a guaranteed place in the calendar for the next course. Las Vegas, for example, will host a third race in the United States , while Qatar has secured a ten-year contract, starting in 2023.
If to this is added the possibility of returning to South Africa, possibly as early as 2023 as they have recognized from within F1, the number of races adding the return of China to the calendar could exceed 25.
Top-flight CEO Stefano Domenicali has said on several occasions that having such a long calendar is not the intention and that the goal for next year is to run 24 races at most. This means that some rounds that are currently an integral part of the calendar will have to be canceled or moved to the next year on a rotating calendar of sorts.
At the moment, the most notorious case is that of Spa-Francorchamps, which has not yet signed a contract for 2023. This raises the question as to whether circuits like Spa, which are part of the DNA of Formula 1 , should not have assured its hole in the calendar annually.
Team bosses’ reactions to this have been mixed, with Franz Tost being the most direct. “First of all, I am really looking forward to going to South Africa . At the moment we are missing a race on that continent and it would be very important to have it.”
“As for the other races, I don’t want to mention any names, but the situation is quite simple: no money, no race,” the AlphaTauri director said when asked by Motorsport.com . “It’s as simple as that. If they have the money, then we’ll go there. If they don’t, we won’t go.”
Otmar Szafnauer , from Alpine, got a little more wet and asked for the Belgian GP to continue: “F1 has to find a balance, but personally I would like us to continue racing at Spa, because the circuit is fantastic. Hopefully that grand prix can stay.”
Aston Martin’s Mike Krack also threw a cape on the classic circuits and supported the idea of creating a rotating calendar: “We support F1 in finding the right balance. But they know where the fans are positioned and they also know which one should be the proportion between new and classic circuits”.
“If a certain race is not on the calendar every year, I don’t think it will be a drama. We have already seen it in the past, the German GP had this rotation system for several years. In my opinion, we have to go to new venues without ending a calendar of 35 races a year,” he concluded.
A large number of fans at the Spanish GP 2022 F1
