Brawn: No fan complaints about too many races

Michelle Foster
F1 managing director Ross Brawn at the Brazilian Grand Prix. November 2019.

Formula 1 managing director Ross Brawn pictured at the Brazilian Grand Prix. November 2019.

The Formula 1 teams may be concerned about next year’s bumper calendar, but Ross Brawn says he has had no complaints from the fans.

This season’s Formula 1 calendar comprises 22 grands prix while next year that will increase to 23, if of course the season is able to go ahead without any glitches.

Starting in Saudi Arabia in March and concluding with the Abu Dhabi GP in November, the teams also have two pre-season tests, one test in February the other in March.

The length of the calendar is a worry for many with Fernando Alonso voicing his concerns while Sebastian Vettel fears it will take its “toll” on the teams’ crews.

“The efforts that are going in by having more and more races and in a shorter amount of time, it is going to take its toll,” said the Aston Martin driver.

“It’s tough for everybody involved. The drivers are at the lucky end but the mechanics…”

And then there is a worry that over-saturating the market could see fans turn away.

Brawn has rubbished that, adamant that fans actually “want more”.

“We are very fortunate in that we have got a lot of interest in promoters and countries having a grand prix,” Motorsportweek.com quotes him as having said during the RACER/EPARTRADE Online Race Industry Week webinar.

“We’ve got some great races coming up, Saudi this year, we had a race in Qatar, they’re looking at what they do with the circuit for the future, next year we’ve got Miami of course.

“But there’s a very welcome upward pressure to have more and more races but there is a limit to what we can achieve, what we can have the teams do.

“What we’ve found is we’re not getting any saturation from the fans; from the bulk of the fans we’re getting no message that we’re having too many, they just want more, so we’re trying to find that balance.”

The Formula 1 managing director acknowledged the concerns that the teams for their crews, hoping that compressed weekends will minimise the burden.

“One of the things we wanted to do was take a bit of load off the teams because with a conventional weekend as we have now they often arrive on a Monday or a Tuesday to start preparing so if you finish a race you’re into the next one if it is a race on consecutive weekends,” he said.

 

“We’ve compressed the weekend so that practice is Friday afternoon, scrutineering takes place on a Friday morning.

“The teams that are willing to can cut down their programmes by a day and there will be curfews to stop them working excessive hours in the lead up to a race at the track, so it’s really just try and make the weekend more efficient and compress the weekend a little bit.”

 

PlanetF1 Verdict

 

Is 23 Formula 1 races too many?

Ross Brawn has claimed that he hasn't seen any fans complain about next years calendar.