Horner backs region-inspired calendar approach
Red Bull's Christian Horner walking through the paddock during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend. Monaco, May 2022.
Christian Horner has said it “makes sense” to group races together based on their location in an effort to cut costs.
If you were to plot the distance from race to race this season, excluding trips back to the teams’ various bases, then after just seven grands prix, the teams have already racked up more than 28,000 miles in travel.
Not only does this have a huge affect on the environment but also on the teams’ budgets and in an attempt to offset this, the team bosses reportedly met with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend to unveil a plan that would alter the schedule.
The proposal would see races grouped together meaning the likes of the Canadian and Miami Grand Prix would be run in close proximity to each other. Currently, Miami was a flyaway race sandwiched between Imola and Barcelona.
Later in the season, the teams will travel from Azerbaijan to Canada and then back to Silverstone.
The team bosses are reportedly on board with this idea which would come into affect for the 2023 season and Red Bull boss Horner said he thinks it’s the logical thing to do.
“If you look at the calendar it makes sense to group some of the races together,” Horner said, as reported by GPFans. “Whether it is some of the American races, some of the Asian races and Europe, obviously.
The 2022 #F1 calendar is here! 🙌
A record-breaking 23 races 🏅
A brand new grand prix in Miami 💜
Australia, Canada, Singapore and Japan all return 👌 pic.twitter.com/khq5lAF1IR— Formula 1 (@F1) October 15, 2021
“Some of the calendar this year when you look at the geographics of it, Azerbaijan to Montreal doesn’t [make sense].
“Going to Australia for a weekend is about as expensive as you could make it.
“Stefano is sympathetic to it but, of course, he has got many challenges with the different promotors to get a calendar that he wants.”
Haas boss Guenther Steiner was another who agreed with Horner and told Autosport that it was also a positive in terms of sustainability.
“As always there’s a lot of people involved, and there’s a lot of work to be done to make everybody happy,” the 57-year-old said.
“But in the end I think for sustainability it’s a fantastic thing. And then if we achieve that, a lot of things go with it, positive ones. There are no negatives to it. It’s just a difficult thing to achieve.
“You have how much time you’ve got that you’re not in the heat, and things like this to think about. Canada you have to worry about the cold, so you cannot take it too early. But it’s good that they work on it, and hopefully in the future we at least can make some steps.”
