Haas team boss Guenther Steiner has played down concerns over Formula 1’s record 22-race season in 2020.
In recent weeks, new deals have been confirmed for Italy, Spain and Mexico meaning only the German Grand Prix falls off the calendar with the addition of new events in Holland and Vietnam.
The debate on expanding the F1 calendar, however, has often centred on several key points, the cost for teams, the extra travelling for staff and fears of oversaturation.
On the first of those, Haas believes in the case of just one extra race compared to 2019, the cost increase is minimal.
“For teams, it’s a breakeven, for FOM it’s more income as they make money, they have expenses, but they will make money,” he claimed.
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“The teams, what we get more, we will spend more to go to the event. I think it’s breakeven – plus/minus. Some will lose 100,000, some will make 100,000 but in the scheme of things it’s very small.
“The big teams who get a bigger chunk, they are more expensive to run as they have more people.”
On potential staff burnout, Steiner also expects the extra race to be manageable.
“At the beginning of the season, people have more energy, I think at the end of the season, you see people getting tired and maybe people wanting to get exchanged,” he admitted.
“We have a team back home, which you could maybe replace some people with at race towards the end of the season, but we need to see how we can rotate a bit to take a bit of the burden off them.
Asked which areas are most likely to need the most managing, the Haas chief added: “It’s more in engineering, there we need the consistency of people, more than with mechanics.
“I’m sure the team manager will look after that and speak with the people if they feel we should replace them for a few races.
“It will be planned before, not just waiting till it goes wrong and react. We will be proactive, we will look at taking the burden of the guys who travel a lot, especially the setup guys, they go on Monday, they are the ones who suffer most.”
