Brawn attentive over calendar expansion

Ross Brawn has admitted that he is wary over the possibility of expanding the number of races on the Formula One calendar. Brawn, now Managing Director of Motorsports, says Liberty Media must balance "quality and quantity".

F1's new owners have previously proposed the idea of adding more races to the calendar, keeping with a common theme developing in recent years. The F1 calendar has grown massively in the last number of seasons with 2016 hosting a record breaking 21 Grand Prix.

"They [Liberty] asked me what I thought was the maximum number of races, and first of all I said we've got to balance quality and quantity," Brawn told ESPN.

"We've got to make sure we don't just have races because we can increase the number, the races have to be of good quality, in good places and in exciting places. We also need to think about the frequency of races because the nice balance of a race every other weekend is perfect."

Brawn says that is it is very possible that more races could be added, but teams would have to adapt to the profuse pressure and workload.

"There is a point where you need to join in with the teams to help them and support the extra number of races," he said. "Because 20 or 21 is pretty tough on the crews and tough on the engineers, tough on everyone who travels.

"But if you then set yourself up with two sets of crews and two sets of engineers and all the rest of it, which I believe is what NASCAR does, then you can do it.

"There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have more races, but you can't have more races with the same structure that teams have now, because it would just break it."

Fergal Walsh