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

LONDON – 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, said ahead of the March 2 Bahrain season-opener that 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.

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,” he added, 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... 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.

F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali said in 2023, 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”.

This season’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. REUTERS