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Williams opposed to more than 21 F1 races per season

Published on 12 Aug 2019 15:48
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By: Fergal Walsh

Williams team principal Claire Williams admits she is against Formula 1 hosting more than 21 races in a season.

Next year's calendar is set to feature 22 events, following confirmation that the Mexican Grand Prix will remain on the schedule for at least another three races after 2019.

Liberty Media, F1's commercial rights holders, have often spoken about its desire to expand the calendar, signing deals with The Netherlands and Vietnam for 2020.

MORE: Russell: Williams difficulties improving my technical feedback

But Williams thinks the calendar is already at bursting point, and questioned if adding more races is "sensible" for the teams or not.

"As long as we keep a cap on the number of races, 21 is about the maximum number in my opinion," she said. "Personally, I would like to see fewer races because you take down supply and increase demand, that's basic economics.

"It's the same for racing almost. You put too many events on the calendar and it's a lot for people to consume when there's so much competition in the market when it comes to other sporting events or other media etc.

"The other consideration is personnel. If you increase the number of races, [there's] the pressure that that puts on your team from a performance perspective and what they're capable of doing.

"How often they want to be away, a work/life balance is difficult. But with smaller teams, like ours, with smaller budgets, it's difficult to think about how we manage a calendar with north of 21 races on it.

"You've got the increment of costs that you think about swapping personnel out, do you we need four races engineers rather than two?

"You can't send two engineers to 25 events, it's not fair. You've got those costs, the costs of transporting your freight around the world, etc.

"And then you've got to think about how much those races are being sold for. Does that put more in the pot which is shared equally?

"I would be opposed to having more races on the calendar. It's important to have different markets, different territories, but we need to look at what's sensible and what's not."

F1 News Williams

Replies (3)

calle.itw

Posts: 8,527
"you take down supply and increase demand, that's basic economics."... That's only true to an extent. One cannot really compare the economy of items, where lower availability of e.g super cars or anything Nintendo (cheers scalpers!) can drive sales and increase visibility, with the economy of shows and sports, where visibility and accessibility is at play. More venues=more visibility, more races=greater accessibility. IMO, the sweetspot is 19-22 races, 23 is borderline, anything past that is excessive. I mostly think Claire says this to protect the team's interest, chiefly keeping costs for them down, and perhaps even in regards to prevent overworking of staff. The latter especially is a concern, since crunch sucks.
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- Aug 12 2019 - 17:08
- ajpennypacker
  
  Posts: 2,475
  As far as I am concerned, Williams' opinion carries as much weight as their performance on track. I haven't met a single fan who wouldn't love to have 21 races. Will it make the winter shorter? Sure. But if we don't tinker with the damn regulations constantly they wouldn't have to be reinventing the damn car every winter.
  
  At any rate, I just don't want to hear anything from Claire. I hate what she's allowed to happen at Williams. She's primarily to blame. No question about it
  + 0
  
  Aug 13 2019 - 05:48
Sadtomato

Posts: 48
I think we can safely assume that Claire will not be taking over from Chase Carey when he retires! Ironically this is a job that she would probably be very good at but I digress.
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- Aug 13 2019 - 10:49