Formula 1 teams would cope better with no races as opposed to eighth in 2020, Haas boss Guenther Steiner says.
Though the first half of the year has been wiped out by the coronavirus, F1 still hopes to put on a 15-18 race schedule between July and December.
However, with the future direction of the pandemic unknown and a minefield awaiting in terms of organising travel, Steiner warns if the sport does ahead with a new season, it must be able to fulfil it.
“If you don’t go racing, I think we can survive,” Steiner told the official F1 Nation podcast.
“I think the worst of all would be if we’ve got only eight races because then you race, spend a lot of money, but you have got little income.
“If you don’t race you don’t spend your money as you don’t go to races and you don’t need car parts.
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“The car [specification] is frozen for next year so I hope the plan works that we go to 15 races, that seems to be the magic number for getting it economically [viable], so hopefully we get that one done,” he added.
“I think everyone’s got the same interest as we have got, we need to get a proper schedule in, or nothing.”
At the same time, the Haas chief does concede it would be detrimental for F1 fans if there was no action for a full calendar year, even if races are held behind closed doors
“Nothing is not good for the sport in general as some fans would work away and just find other things to watch and get enthusiastic about,” he said.
“We owe it also to the fans to go racing, it’s not about us, we always speak about us, we talk about us, how we are getting frustrated, but there’s millions of people who follow us and we need to do the utmost to get them entertained again.
“Obviously they like [F1] otherwise they wouldn’t be watching it! There’s a responsibility there, so hopefully we can get it done.”
