Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey insists there is nothing to worry about despite up to five notable races possibly falling off the calendar next year.
This week, officials for the Mexican Grand Prix confirmed they had lost their right to a date in 2020 while Britain, Italy, Germany and Spain are all currently negotiating renewals.
Given the historical importance of all those events, there is pressure to ensure deals are done, but Carey maintains the late nature of the talks is nothing new.
“There’s nothing really unique to this that wasn’t true last year,” he was quoted by GPFans.com.
“We had a number of renewals last year, just as we had a number of renewals the year before. There are different issues for each one.
“That’s the process we’re engaged in now, with renewals for 2020 – we’ll always have three or four negotiations we’ll have to go through [each year].”
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The concern many have is, given the events at Hockenheim, Silverstone and Monza have struggled financially for some years now, the deal that those races want to make with Liberty wouldn’t be appealing as the money being offered by countries elsewhere.
And Carey does admit there are alternatives on the table.
“As we’ve gotten a few years under our belt I think we feel pretty good about the trajectory of the ability to continue to have a healthy business. We think there’s room to add a bit to the race calendar,” he suggested.
“We have places all around the world that would like to add races, including not just new markets, but some traditional markets like western Europe.”
