Which F1 races to be dropped? Part1

[WhiteBlue]

Ecclestone wants to add races in Rom, India, the US, Russia and other countries. He suggests to drop existing races for this purpose. This is the list of races:

Part 1
Bahrain Grand Prix, Sakhir
Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne
Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang
Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai
Spanish Grand Prix, Catalunya
Monaco Grand Prix, Monte-Carlo
Turkish Grand Prix, Istanbul
Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal
European Grand Prix, Valencia
British Grand Prix, Silverstone

Part 1 is voted in this poll. You can click as many races as you want to skip. Because we can only have 10 options per poll there is also:

Part 2
German Grand Prix, Hockenheimring / Nürburgring
Hungarian Grand Prix, Hungaroring
Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps
Italian Grand Prix, Monza
Singapore Grand Prix, Singapore
Japanese Grand Prix, Suzuka
Korean Grand Prix, Jeonnam
Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Yas Island

Part 2 is voted in a second thread.

Make sure you also vote there.

[WhiteBlue]

I have only one race in each part which I would like to see dropped because they are boring. Hungary which could be replaced by Russia and Valencia which could be replaced by a US race.

All other races make sense to me. They are either on good tracks (Turkey, can be run in the off season (Yas Marina, Bahrain) or they have their specific charm (Monza or Monaco).

[donskar]

Apparently Bernie's goal is 20 races (or as many as he can possibly get). The bottom line for Bernie is the bottom line. F1 is his personal goose and he'll get all the golden eggs out of it that he can.

The scenario I envisage: In order to get a race in Carjackistan or the Eastern Erewhon Republic he'll threaten to drop Spa or Silverstone. There will be a lot of uproar, then ultimately he will get his way -- and his money.

I commend WB -- these polls are a good way for us to release some stress, but is there an effective way to oppose Bernie? Thank God he is rather old. One of my goals in life is to outlive him. I'm an old dinosaur who remembers Jim Clark, but I sincerely believe Bernie's net contribution to F1 is negative.

[Dukeage]

Bahrain, Shanghai and Valencia can all go as they are soulless circuits. Istanbul is better than some of the Tilkerings, but bearing in mind the lack of interest in motor racing there.

I'd replace them with returns to the US and France, plus a race in Finland.

It's a shame about the way motor racing works, few sports have the stupid situation where a separate commercial rights holder can sell events to wherever they can cream off the biggest sanctioning fee, not where is in the interests of the sport.

[DaveKillens]

Apparently Bernie's goal is 20 races (or as many as he can possibly get). The bottom line for Bernie is the bottom line. F1 is his personal goose and he'll get all the golden eggs out of it that he can.

The scenario I envisage: In order to get a race in <deleted> or <deleted> he'll threaten to drop Spa or Silverstone. There will be a lot of uproar, then ultimately he will get his way -- and his money.

That's the root of the problem. For us fans, we want exciting tracks, historic tracks, tracks that most of us can visit.

But for Bernie, it's all about only one thing.. money. Right now he is playing tracks and nations against each other. He threatens to drop Silverstone and put in it's place some track that happened to make a higher bid. So in the end, Silverstone has to give him the money he wants. Same with Canada, he dropped the race because of a financial dispute. And in the end, the only way the governmant and organizers could finally get a race back was to give Bernie his money.

The guy is playing everyone against each other, forcing the bidding higher and higher only to increase his income.

That is how tracks and the schedule is determined. if you want to see what the future holds, just examine what each track offers Bernie, because it has nothing to do with what the fans want, or history, or anything but money.

[ESPImperium]

If I had my way id have a F1 calendar like this:

Last week in January = TEST 1: Spain - Circuit Ricardo Tormo **OR** Ciudad del Motor de Aragón [[3 Day, Single Car Test]
First week in Febuary = Test 2: Spain - Circuito de Jerez [3 Day, Single Car Test]
Second week in Febuary = Test 3: France - Circuit Paul Ricard HTTT [3 day twin car test]
* Drivers limited to 7 days total testing before each season out of a potential 12 test days (if you take Test 3 as 6 days due to dual car status)
* Teams limited to a maximum of 5km total pre season testing as well.

Season starting on the nearest Sunday to the 7th march for the race day.
01] Bahrain - Sakihr
02] Australia - Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit (Street)
03] Malasia - Sepang International Circuit
04] Qutar - Losail International Circuit
---------------------------------------3 development week break--------------------------------------------------------------------
05] Spain - Circuit de Catalunya
06] Monaco
07] European GP - Floating track
08] Canada - Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (Street)
09] USA - Float between 2 tracks ideally.
---------------------------------------3 development week break--------------------------------------------------------------------
10] France - Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours (If they pit facilitys are upgraded)
11] Great Britian - Silverstone
12] Germany - Hockenheimring/Nürburgring (Grand Prix)
13] Portugal - Autódromo Internacional do Algarve
14] Hungary - Hungaroring
---------------------------------------3 development week break--------------------------------------------------------------------
15] Belgum - Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
16] Italy - Autodromo Nazionale Monza
17] Singapore - Marina Bay (Street)
18] India - Jaypee Group Circuit
19] Korea - Korean International Circuit
20] Japan - Suzuka
21] Abu Dhabi - Yas Marina Circuit
22] Brazil - Autódromo José Carlos Pace

* 2 week break unless stated, Red races mean back to back races.
* Where 3 week breaks take place, aero development homologation takes place at these points. In other words, updates are allowed on cars during these breaks
* At 14 of the races, during FP1, one driver shall be subtitled for a test & reserve driver or development driver, a race driver may not be subtitled more than 7 times.
* Driver replacements shall only take place during the 3 week breaks.

Last week in November/First week in December – One 3 day dual car test for test & reserve drivers and Development drivers at Circuito de Jerez or Circuit Ricardo Tormo, the second being a three day single car test at Circuit Paul Ricard HTTT for young drivers only.

* First test for any drivers that have taken part in FP1s only and drivers that haven’t taken part in 2 GPs in the previous 2 years at the start of the season.
* Second test for development drivers that are under 24 and haven’t taken part in any GP at all.

All this equals a 35 week season with a 3 week test season before with a 2 weeks after the season.

[hecti]

If I had my way id have a F1 calendar like this:

Last week in January = TEST 1: Spain - Circuit Ricardo Tormo **OR** Ciudad del Motor de Aragón [[3 Day, Single Car Test]
First week in Febuary = Test 2: Spain - Circuito de Jerez [3 Day, Single Car Test]
Second week in Febuary = Test 3: France - Circuit Paul Ricard HTTT [3 day twin car test]
* Drivers limited to 7 days total testing before each season out of a potential 12 test days (if you take Test 3 as 6 days due to dual car status)
* Teams limited to a maximum of 5km total pre season testing as well.

Season starting on the nearest Sunday to the 7th march for the race day.
01] Bahrain - Sakihr
02] Australia - Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit (Street)
03] Malasia - Sepang International Circuit
04] Qutar - Losail International Circuit
---------------------------------------3 development week break--------------------------------------------------------------------
05] Spain - Circuit de Catalunya
06] Monaco
07] European GP - Floating track
08] Canada - Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (Street)
09] USA - Float between 2 tracks ideally.
---------------------------------------3 development week break--------------------------------------------------------------------
10] France - Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours (If they pit facilitys are upgraded)
11] Great Britian - Silverstone
12] Germany - Hockenheimring/Nürburgring (Grand Prix)
13] Portugal - Autódromo Internacional do Algarve
14] Hungary - Hungaroring
---------------------------------------3 development week break--------------------------------------------------------------------
15] Belgum - Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
16] Italy - Autodromo Nazionale Monza
17] Singapore - Marina Bay (Street)
18] India - Jaypee Group Circuit
19] Korea - Korean International Circuit
20] Japan - Suzuka
21] Abu Dhabi - Yas Marina Circuit
22] Brazil - Autódromo José Carlos Pace

* 2 week break unless stated, Red races mean back to back races.
* Where 3 week breaks take place, aero development homologation takes place at these points. In other words, updates are allowed on cars during these breaks
* At 14 of the races, during FP1, one driver shall be subtitled for a test & reserve driver or development driver, a race driver may not be subtitled more than 7 times.
* Driver replacements shall only take place during the 3 week breaks.

Last week in November/First week in December – One 3 day dual car test for test & reserve drivers and Development drivers at Circuito de Jerez or Circuit Ricardo Tormo, the second being a three day single car test at Circuit Paul Ricard HTTT for young drivers only.

* First test for any drivers that have taken part in FP1s only and drivers that haven’t taken part in 2 GPs in the previous 2 years at the start of the season.
* Second test for development drivers that are under 24 and haven’t taken part in any GP at all.

All this equals a 35 week season with a 3 week test season before with a 2 weeks after the season.

-3 three week breaks!!! are you kidding!!!, i hate three week breaks, theyre so un eventful
-do we really need 3 races in arabia?
-let them run a third car on fridays
-most teams have limited budgets and adding so many races will really put stress on how money is spent on travel and accomodations, etc...

-the A1 ring!!!!

[WhiteBlue]

Back to back races only make sense when they are fly aways in the same or similar time time zone. Teams have no trucks and motor homes to transfer and personnel need not go home between races.

European races should never be back to back for the same reason. Hospitality transfer takes time.

Arabian races make sense. They bring in money and can be run in the winter months when no other race venues are feasible. Better Arabian races than no races. They should also add Marocco and South Africa again. They used to be popular and in the European time zone.

Turkey is a very nice track. Who cares if there are viewer spectators. Most of us watch the races on TV. So in reality it is only an issue for the commentators who wax about this without end.

[Dukeage]

We don't really need twenty races though - it's actually harmful to other levels of motor racing.

While the Arabian venues are nice and toasty in the winter months, you could adequately run races in Southern Europe at that time. Indeed, there are actually races in the UK at that time. No other sport prostitutes its events out for the highest sanctioning fee. Which countries have GPs should be a sporting decision, but the irritating court decision giving Bernie free reign to do this was unfortunate. Ideally the FIA would make the calendar decisions, the teams have the TV issues, and Bernie would have diddly squat.

[WhiteBlue]

We don't really need twenty races though - it's actually harmful to other levels of motor racing.

That is debatable. Why would an F1 race harm other motor races?

[alelanza]

Oh but I already voted for this idea here
Do I have to do it all over again?

[Giblet]

Unless there is a conflict of scheduling for some reason, I see mostly positives:

1 - New F1 tracks can be used by other disciplines for 25 of the 26 weekends of the year, weather permitting, creating more places for everyone to race.

2 - Any support race prior to and F1 race will have a greater number of viewers at the track.

3 - More races for everyone means more chance for more drivers to turn a wheel

4 - Money brought in to each local area, also feeding the sport

5 - Increased sponsor TV time might make them more akin to sponsoring lower end series.

Negatives:

1 - F1 races could take away from television viewer-ship of other series.

2 - 3rd drivers would be available less for Le Mans races and whatnot

That's all I could think about without really grinding the gears.

[ESPImperium]

The three week breaks are essencial to my callender, reason being is that the teams need some time when they come back to europe to get things back on a even keel. and for the reason that one of them each team has to take as their "official holiday" where theres total inactivity at the factory appart from an admin supportive side. In this week, all CFD and Wind Tunnels etc... are switched off to figuritivly speak.

Ideally id like to have 3 more races if i could, one in South Africa would be one id go for if theres a good suitable track thats over 1:14.000 in lap time. Id also like one more Latin America race as well, and a roaming Europen Street Cuircit race that starts at 4PM or later for the American audiences.

Id like to have Istanbul on the callender, but the local attendances just dont cover it for me. A Track needs to have over 65% of its seats sold for my liking to be a success.

Id like to make each race on the callender a fixed price for each track, meaning that all the tracks pay arroun $15million a year with a 5% accumulator year on year.

[ESPImperium]

One other thing id like F1 races to be is either 250Km, 300Km or 400Km long races, ideally five 250Km ones with another five 400Km races. With that the rest would be 300km races. And what i mean by KM, is the nearest whole lap to that distance and not short of it.

250s would be: Monaco, Hungaroring, Austrailia, USA and Singapore
400s would be: Belgum, Canada, Silversone, Brazil and Japan

This is to provide different technical challanges for car and driver.

One other thing id like to see is that tracks that can have their layout changes like Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, have the layout changed every year so to provide tracks where only partial knowlege is known, and theres an air of the unknown on those tracks.

[Dukeage]

400km races would have trouble with driver fatigue, or would often just run to the two hour limit (removing that would have even more driver fatigue problems).