Joe Blogs F1: What does Formula 1 need to do to get a more sensible calendar?

The Formula 1 calendar has never been an easy thing to organise. Under Bernie Ecclestone the calendar was put together based on whatever deals he was working on at any given moment and very little thought went into whether the dates made sense. 

Under his system, there were any number of stand-alone flyaway races, which makes no sense at all, and the Formula 1 circus would flit about the world, going east one moment and then west the next. Ecclestone and his chums at CVC Capital Partners never had to live the calendar because they did not travel to all the races, and when they did, it was by luxury private jet! 

At the end of the day, they were simply collecting the cash and were happy to watch the racing teams running around. But if the primary goal is not to go down the get-rich-quick route, but to rather to have a more structured series and thus fit in more races and make more money, as seems to be the case with Liberty Media, then there are going to have to be some changes to the Ecclestone Method. 

This is no bad thing…

Grouping races in a most sensible fashion makes sense on a number of different levels not just because it would make life easier for those who are creating the show. It is also a good way to concentrate promotion into specific time zones, generating more interest and more viewers as a result and, hopefully, creating more fans as a result. The more fans you have, the more money you can make from the different revenue streams: TV revenues, ticket sales (and thus sanctioning fees) and merchandising. It would also help if the calendar could be agreed and published a lot earlier than it is because that would give promoters more time to promote and to organise things to drive interest forward.

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But what a pickle the current calendar is… 

Trying to look at things logically is not an option, given all the current obstacles, many and varied as they are. Then there are existing contracts, each with their own peculiar riders and demands, some that were built in to entice the venues to pay more. 

Australia is contracted to be the first race of the season (until at least 2023) and Abu Dhabi has a contract to be the last race (until 2021). Monaco is Monaco and always wants its event when it wants it, while the Mexicans want their race on the Day of the Dead holiday weekend and the Chinese wants to avoid having their race on the weekend when Tomb-Sweeping Day falls. And so it goes on…

Then there are national and religious holidays elsewhere as well and even presidential birthdays and, of course, the sport has to work around all the other big sporting international sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games, the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Indy 500 and so it goes on.

And then there is the weather… 

Canada wants a race in June because it's the start of summer and the crowds which flock to Montreal for the party are huge. And it is impossible to run Grands Prix in the Middle East in June or July because of the extreme heat. Other races are influenced by typhoon seasons and monsoons, although Ecclestone would happily send the Formula 1 circus into the typhoon season in Japan, in the hope that a wet race might liven things up a bit.

Liberty Media's idea is to do things in a more organised fashion, by putting races into the same time zones into a more organised form, which they believe will help to create new fan bases by making the sport more accessible for a certain period of the year. If one examines the time zones and the spread of the races, it makes sense to have the European races in the summer, when the weather is at its best.

It is logical to hold the Asian races in the spring or the autumn, but not both, and it makes sense for the races in the Americas to be at the end of the year. If one is looking to get the biggest TV audiences in the richest countries, the best possible place for the World Championship showdown is in the Americas, although as far to the east as is possible in order to be delivered to the maximum number of time zones at hours at which people will be available to watch live. 

Having World Championship showdowns at four in the morning in Europe makes no sense at all. It is impossible to avoid some late night or early morning events in some of the time zones, but spreading these in a more ordered fashion is not only good for building the fan base, but also for the logistics as cars, equipment and people can go from race to race with relative ease. The first steps towards this are already happening. The word is that next year will see Australia and Bahrain go back-to-back events next year, with the new Vietnamese Grand Prix in 2020 expected to be back-to-back with the race in Shanghai.

The European season is fine but the Asian/Middle East races (in this I would include Baku and Sochi) need to be at the same time of year (in the Spring). This is probably a problem for Singapore, which is a pretty big event at the moment. The other big problem is Canada, which would be best for F1 in the autumn, before Austin, Mexico and Brazil and before it is too cold in the year… 

Taking all this into account and looking back at things now, I almost (yes, almost) might have had some sympathy for Bernie…

This feature first appeared in issue 262 of our sister publication Motorsport Monday, which is released every Monday and can be read for free! You can sign-up below to have it delivered to your inbox every Monday or click here to read the latest issue.