Ahead of the release of the 2023 Formula 1 calendar, the sport’s bosses have indicated that they are interested in moving the program regionally. Reducing the sport’s carbon footprint and lowering freight costs were key goals.
In theory, this was to be achieved by grouping them geographically, hoping to cut down on travel distances for all involved. But in the wake of the record-breaking 24-season schedule, such changes have been few and far between.
The season is set to open again in Bahrain, but one of the closest races to that will close the championship in Abu Dhabi in November. Two punishing triple-headers are scheduled: Imola, Monaco and Catalunya, followed by the Austin-Mexico City-Sao Paulo fly-by near the end of the tournament.
Some double headers can cause more problems. Azerbaijan has again partnered with Miami, which requires all employees to juggle significant time zone adjustments and a 15-hour commute, with no direct flights. The much-anticipated new race at the Las Vegas street circuit is the final event of the season, with teams and crews eyeing a 19-hour flight to Abu Dhabi a week later. Logistically problematic.
Was F1’s plan to rationalize, regionalize and reorganize the calendar? F1 say the limited change in next year’s calendar is down for a number of reasons. Contracts with breeders pose some hurdles, and ongoing disruptions in the wake of global climate and the Covid-19 pandemic pose other challenges.
F1 sporting director Steve Nielsen said: “Every year we don’t start with a blank calendar and we don’t have the freedom to put races where we want.”
F1 has a working calendar in mind, but moving one race closer to another to cut travel distances isn’t necessarily something that can be done from one year to the next.
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“Some of our advertiser deals are historic, long-standing, and have clauses in them that don’t give us the freedom we want,” Nielsen said. “So we have to work closely with those promoters and cajoles and convince them that we need to change things a bit.
“I won’t go into which ones, that wouldn’t be right. But again, it’s not just problems, there are other reasons why people don’t want to compete at certain times of the year. It could be weather related, as a particular weekend may have other important events happening around the country at the same time.
“So there are countless influences that determine it, and it takes some time to get to it. The important thing is that we understand and appreciate that the journey has just begun and the benefits of being organized regionally.
Many breeds have disappeared and re-emerged in recent years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some, including Australia, Japan and Singapore, are only back on the calendar in 2022. China is tentatively in line, but with residents in parts of the country under lockdown, the race seems unlikely.
DHL UK’s head of motorsport logistics, John Williams, explained that travel problems caused by Covid weren’t the only problems this year.
“I think there is still a problem related to Covid, but logistically this season has been more than a challenge,” he said. “Unfortunately, in the situation in Russia, in Ukraine, there are a lot of restrictions on the airspace regarding the flight crew.
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I’m sure some members of the team will find that going to Japan this year was a tough trip because if you were traveling from Europe you had restrictions. So it makes it difficult to reach and it is difficult for a person to get from event to event.
But we worked with the Formula 1 cargo and we decided on the aircraft and chartered the aircraft and the time was taken very well.
Still, some aspects of the 2023 calendar layout present clear areas for improvement. In addition to the long journey between the double headers, F1 will make three separate visits to the Middle East
The Australian round, once the regular season-opener, is a stand-alone event in early April. Financially and logistically it would have made more sense to combine that with another event back-to-back, with most teams in the UK facing a 24-hour journey to Melbourne.
“Australia is going to be an example of preparation, which is not where we want to be because of what’s happened with Covid,” Nielsen said. “Usually it was early in the season, he’s not there yet, maybe in the future early in the season, but we’re trying to move him and we can’t do it for next year.”
With four Middle East tournaments on the calendar, two at the start of the year, as well as a pre-season test in Bahrain, Nielsen admits their hands are tied for a more comfortable grouping.
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“After talking to the teams, they weren’t as interested, and there’s a big human element to it. We’ve got a pre-season test in the Middle East, then we’ve got another tournament in the Middle East and then another in the Middle East.
“If you put it all together, the teams weren’t interested in having a tripleheader at the beginning of the year, which worked out effectively.”
Teams will have to consider the budget cap for the 2023 F1 season, which will drop to $135 million, including freight costs. This has forced teams to operate differently this season, and according to Nielsen, has seen teams consider the logistics of turning on new units on the Friday before qualifying.
“We’ve seen the decline, I think teams know how to spend their money and where they can make economies,” Nielsen added. “If you can take a small load and spend a small amount of money, not only is the environmental impact good, but it means you can create a new front wing for the new age we live in.
“So we’ve seen that they’re paying, they’ve never been stricter about it, but they’ve stepped up their scrutiny of exactly what they’re taking and how much they’re taking.
After F1 announced its sustainability strategy in 2019, the sport is taking small steps to reduce emissions. The amount of carbon generated by international travel is a big part of that.
“Logistics is a big part of our carbon footprint,” says Nielsen. “Again, it’s not easy to fix those problems overnight, but we are working to regionalize the calendar. We have a future calendar, we don’t want to tell you what year it is, but we have a future, perfect calendar a few years down the road and we’re slowly repeating it every year.
FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulaiman said recently that the presence of 24 races “is further evidence of the growth and attractiveness of the sport at the international level”. But the downside of that is the loss of workers and increased travel will complicate efforts to hit that net zero target. Steps are being taken in the right direction, and it is clear that further progress is needed in 2024 and beyond.
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