Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey claims there remains room to expand the calendar despite a record 22 races planned for 2020.
Next year sees the inclusion of two new Grands Prix in Vietnam and Holland while only the German GP will be absent from this year’s schedule.
Already a second US race in Miami appears more likely for 2021 and looking forward Carey does seem keen to reach the 25-race figure that has been previously touted.
“Demand [to hold an F1 race] has continued to be a real positive, really across the world, the number of places interested,” said Carey via MotorsportWeek.
“We have a pretty full calendar and long-term contracts, there are limits to what we can do but we do think there’s opportunity.
“22 [rounds] is a pretty full calendar but we do think there’s room still to add a couple.
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“We want long-term partnerships, but just as we changed this year, we will add races and we will selectively probably end up dropping races.
“There’s a couple of issues we touched on in the past about races we inherited, with agreements we inherited which clearly were not reflecting the value we feel should be.”
The main concern of teams is that the calendar has already reached saturation point and only adding more races will mean having to take on more staff to rotate personnel and avoid burnout.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown has a different idea, however, by keeping the current number but alternating between circuits which would be happy to host bi-annually.
“I’d like to maybe see alternating races as a potential solution,” he told Crash.net. “I think when you have new countries that want to embrace Formula 1, that is a good thing and it exposes us to new parts of the world.
“But instead of having 25 races, which I think is achievable, though it would require doing things differently than we do today, then I think maybe alternating some races on the calendar would be a good compromise to grow the sport without straining the system as much as I think 25 races would.”
