Chief technical officer at Team Lotus, Mike Gascoyne, has lambasted the ‘boring desert’ races, which he believes F1 should stop visiting every year.
Much discussion took place after the Bahrain GP in 2010 in which a processional race took place, leaving many to think the entire season would be of a similar entertainment level.
Nonetheless, the race was in a minority, with most circuits producing close racing. That was until the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi. Again, a processional race was the reality due to the limited overtaking areas.
Gascoyne believes these circuits should be cut from the calendar, especially considering they had blank canvases to create ‘absolutely anything’.
“You can make an argument that says, ‘we had a cracking season last year and why would you want to change anything?’,” he told Reuters.
“Then you could say, ‘yes but we had three or four incredibly boring races’. If on certain circuits you have cracking races every year then why don’t we stop going to boring racing circuits?
“The shame is that, Monaco apart, a lot of the races now that are really boring are all the purpose-designed tracks built in deserts where you could have done absolutely anything that you want.”
He highlighted the opening and closing races as the worst offenders.
“Bahrain and Abu Dhabi were the two most boring races [of the season].
“It’s pretty disappointing that you’ve got two massively boring races on circuits where you had literally carte blanche to do anything you liked. You could have had elevation change or moved sand wherever you want it,” he concluded.
