Change is in the air for Formula One. Fans are steeling themselves for the crowning of a new world-champion, and sport’s new commercial rights owners Liberty Media are looking to blow away the cobwebs of the old management style with a raft of new initiatives.
It’s been confirmed that Chase Carey, Formula One’s incoming chairman, made his first appearance at the Formula One Strategy Group voicing his preference for simpler regulations.
It’s a sentiment that will be welcomed among many in the Formula One Paddock after a contentious year of regulatory refinement. Along with the wholesale scrapping of the failed qualifying format, the radio ban and the strengthening of the unwritten rule about moving under breaking, proving some clarity for the fans (if not the drivers themselves) is a positive step.
Liberty chief executive Greg Maffei is also keen to propose changes, although they aren’t quite as rosey.
“There is a general line of interest if you increase the number of races to a point. The FIA makes more money, the teams make more money, we make more money,” Maffei told a conference of financial investors in Barcelona.
Like blind men holding various parts of the elephant, Formula One can be perceived as being whatever you want it to be: a sport, showbiz, an investment.
For the engineers, media and hospitality personnel it’s just a day job, where the travel quickly becomes a grind. That’s before we even get to the drivers.
Many things contributed to Lewis Hamilton’s tantrums over the Japanese Grand Prix this year where he snapchatted his way through one press conference without paying the journalists assembled the time of day, before storming out of another saying that he wasn’t there to answer their questions.
One of the major contributors was the stale format of the press routine that repeats week-in, week-out. It doesn’t help that apart from the pre-season break there have been more Formula One weeks than not.
“Obviously there is a limit on how much you can do. Just getting the cars around the world, but I think we can expect to grow the amount of races to a mild degree,” said Maffei.
Maffai is right that there’s a limit on how many races we can run, and we’re skirting the limit already.
But where would you even find room in the calendar to fit more races?
At first glance it makes sense to simply chain together races that are in similar geographies. This year Malaysia and Singapore were originally supposed to be run on back-to-back weekends, but the move was protested by the race organisers under the perfectly valid grounds that back-to-back races meant reduced ticket sales.
At least if Malaysia is at the start of the year and Singapore is near the end, cash-strapped punters who fancy their chances of attending both can give their wallets a little bit breathing room.
I’m all for more Formula One action, but I’d rather see it achieved through aerodynamic overhauls that lead to more overtaking during the races we do have than adding more processional events to the calendar.
Still, in a year without a German Grand Prix and serious question marks being raised over the future of the Brazilian Grand Prix, Liberty might simply be looking to add races in 2017 and beyond just to keep their shiny new investment afloat.
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