Max Verstappen has criticised Formula 1’s record 22-race calendar next year, suggesting team mechanics should “file for divorce”.
Heading into this season, the sport risked losing five races from the schedule, while only the introduction of the Vietnam Grand Prix was official for 2020.
Now though, only the German GP at Hockenheim will be missing with the Dutch GP confirmed as back on the F1 calendar for the first time since 1985.
“I don’t agree with 22 races a year. I think we should just pick the best tracks out there,” Verstappen said in Singapore.
“I know they [Liberty Media] want to make money, but they also have to think about the mechanics who rock up to the track.
“I mean, they arrive on a Monday or Tuesday to build everything up while the big bosses arrive on a Friday or maybe even a Saturday morning and fly, even during the race, back home.
“For them, it’s not a problem, they can do easily 30 races because they are only away for two days.
“But for most of the people, it’s at least five, six days. And I’m not even complaining about us [the drivers]. It’s more the mechanics; they can file for divorce straight away.”
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To accommodate the extra race, F1 is set to reduce pre-season testing from eight to six days while both in-season events have also been scrapped.
That hasn’t sat well with drivers, with Romain Grosjean summing it up.
“Is there? F**king hell. I’m not aware,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s the right choice. It gives an advantage to the bigger teams. In-season testing I can understand. Winter testing, eight days was already very little. Six days is even less.”
His boss at Haas, Guenther Steiner, played down the concerns.
“Less testing we all agreed on and we all think it’s a good idea,” he claimed.
“If you would ask 10 years ago, doing six days of testing a year is that workable? I would have said it’s impossible, now it’s possible.”