Carlos Sainz Jnr suspects the growing size of the Formula 1 calendar may not be helping to make the sport more popular.
F1 has increased the number of rounds to 24, though only 23 are scheduled to happen this year due to the cancellation of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The number could fall further if either of the final two rounds are cancelled.If the final rounds go ahead as planned, F1 will hold nine events in just eleven weeks. Sainz says he would have enjoyed more regular races when he was younger but suspects it may have become a turn-off for some fans.
“I think if I were a fan, I would love it because the more F1 I can watch on TV, the better,” he said. “I remember when I was a kid and there were only 16 races in the calendar, or 18. I used to miss Formula 1 [because it was not on] for a lot of weekends.
“But we also need to consider as a sport if that’s something that maybe is also counterproductive. Sometimes you need to miss the sport to get people engaged. When you get so many races in a row, people or the sport can maybe feel a bit like a league, like the Premier League rather than the Champions League. So maybe you pay a bit less attention to the matches or to the races in this case.
“So, it’s more a philosophy for the sport to consider whether you want to keep having so many races in a row.”
However Sainz, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, is also concerned about the effect F1’s long calendar has on the teams’ staff.
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“More important than that, I think as the GPDA, we’ve been told more or less that 24 races, 25 races is the limit of the championship that they’re willing to go for. I don’t know if that will be the case, the more offers there are to keep increasing venues. But I think that is the limit.
“I think it’s more about the members of the team that are going to spend only three or four days at home, or five days at home every month. And it’s the people in the teams that get the tougher end rather than the drivers. I think we are in a more privileged position in that sense.
“So, let’s see. I have the motivation to do however many races we need to do. I have the will to race. I love racing. But it is true that this end of the triple header, with three triple headers in a row, is going to be tough for the body, tough for the people, tough for the mind.”