Monday, January 18, 2021

Musings From the Weekend: Realigning the Formula One Calendar

Stéphane Peterhansel won his 14th Dakar Rally, his eighth in the car class, by 13 minutes and 51 seconds over Nasser Al-Attiyah. The Dubai 24 Hour completed exactly 600 laps. Toyota unveiled its Hypercar competitor. It was a dream debut for one manufacture in Supercross. There was a long wait for the Chili Bowl. Daniel Suárez has a new co-owner. Indy Lights lost a team it never had. Marco Andretti is stepping back from full-time competition. Ryan Hunter-Reay has a new contract. Dale Coyne Racing is going through its Rolodex. Daniel Ricciardo is apparently living in Los Angeles. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.

Realigning the Formula One Calendar
With all that has been changing in the last year due to the pandemic this is a time for shaking things up. If there is ever a time in our lives to make wholesale changes this is it and motorsports series fit in this boat as well. 

For all these series, Formula One included, many decisions were dictated by decisions made decades ago. Everything from how the money is split between the teams to the points structure to the weekend schedule stem from what was done 20, 30 and 40 years ago. There might have been slight evolutions, but for the most part they rather similar to what was done two generations ago. 

The Formula One calendar fits this description. Way back in the 1960s there were so few grand prix that there were months of open space and as more and more races were added to the calendar, the new races filled the gaps around the existing races. As we entered the 21st century, the calendar start approaching maximum capacity. New races were slotted into open weekends, but some were not as much of a logical fit and strained the teams in terms of travel. 

We have already had to flip the 2021 calendar around due to the pandemic with Australia set to move from the season opener in the middle of March to the antepenultimate round in the middle of November. China is on standby in case another round is cancelled. Bahrain will open the race and Imola will return for a race in April. There is a TBA slot set for May 2 and all signs point to Portimão taking that date. 

With future plans of expanding the Formula One schedule to 25 races, Formula One has to create a more logistical calendar in hopes of reaching that goal. This pandemic has accentuated some of the calendar absurdities and these should be addressed ahead of the 2022 season. To go back to how things were done prior to the pandemic, especially with scheduling, is foolish. 

As expansion has brought more Asia-Pacific rounds to the calendar, Formula One has found difficulty fitting those in. Twenty years ago, the only rounds in the Asia-Pacific region were Australia, Malaysia and Japan. The former two were the first two rounds of the year. Japan was the season finale in the middle of October, two weeks after the United States Grand Prix and a month after the Italian Grand Prix, the final European round. Slowly the calendar expanded to China and Singapore, South Korea and India. Two of those stuck, the other two have been gone for longer than they were around, Malaysia fell off the calendar and there were hopes Vietnam would be the next destination, but those have hit a snag in the form of local political corruption. 

Two separate Asia-Pacific legs of the calendar are difficult to manage. The 2021 calendar were supposed to see the first four races at Australia, Bahrain, China and Vietnam with Singapore and Japan running back-to-back in October. Teams would have to make one trip to Australia, fly from Australia to Bahrain, return home for Easter weekend off before flying to China and then having a week off before Vietnam and a week off after that before Spain commences the European portion of the season. Then the teams make a two-week trip to Asia five months later. 

Formula One's only real international contemporary is MotoGP, which has an exceptionally organized schedule. MotoGP starts in Qatar, has two rounds in the Americas and then spends May through September in Europe. October is where all the Asia-Pacific rounds take place and then Valencia caps off the season. It is still a lot of travel and the Asia-Pacific leg is taxing on the teams, but it is one go. Most of the season is spent on the European continent where rounds are in close proximity and race weekends are more weekends and do not require a full week away from home to acclimate a body clock to compete. 

I think Formula One should look more like MotoGP in 2022 with its schedule segmented nicely according to world regions. That will cause a few difficult decisions. All the Asia-Pacific rounds will have to be together. Melbourne has been in March since it joined the calendar in 1996. Japan has always been at the end of the calendar, as has Singapore. Somebody will have to change and that might not be desired change, but it is almost necessary. 

The same goes for the Middle East rounds. It makes no sense to have Bahrain between Australia and China, but Bahrain has always been in late March or early April. Abu Dhabi has always been at the end of the season and has become the regular season finale over the last decade.

The Americas is going to have get its act together. Canada can no longer afford to be on its own at the start of June when the United States, Mexico and Brazil are in October. Many of these changes could be unpopular. 

What could a more balanced calendar look like? 

I think all the Asia-Pacific rounds have to be at the start of the season. One, too many series use October and November for their trips to Asia. I think Japan has famously had the Formula One race, MotoGP race and FIA World Endurance Championship races on three consecutive weekends. There might have even been a year when MotoGP raced Motegi and WEC raced Fuji on the same day. 

It is unclear if Vietnam gets off the ground but there will still be Australia, China, Japan and Singapore. We could be looking at a new swing of races. Australia has long been the season opener, but wouldn't this lineup perfectly for Singapore to begin the season with a night race? It could even work out where Sepang hosts a preseason test ten days before the Singapore season opener. Let's have a little fun with this hypothetical 2022 calendar realignment:

March 13: Singapore
March 20: Australia
April 3: China
April 10: Japan

There we go. Four races in five weeks and all the travel to Asia is complete before the European swing begins. April 17 would be an off week, but it could even be a two-week break and the teams could get off April 24 before assuming a rather traditional schedule, but I think there is another pair of races we can get out of the way:

May 1: Sochi
May 8: Azerbaijan

Why is one of these races in the June and the other at the end of September? There are only 568 miles between these two locations. I would not shed a tear if either of these races were no longer on the schedule, especially Sochi, but if we got to have them, let's just have them back-to-back. Boom, the Caucasus region is out of the way. Now we are onto Europe:

May 22: Barcelona
May 29: Monaco

This is where we are going to see another change. I get why Canada is at the start of June. Canada has four months for racing because of its climate. You can get 200,000 people to travel to Montreal in a blink for a race at the start of June, but we cannot have a trip for one North American race. Austin is not moving to the middle of June. Mexico City is not moving to the middle of June. Don't worry. I think I have a good answer for Canada, and we will get to that in due time. 

With Canada moving, June is open to European rounds.

June 12: Austria

Austria's date is subject to change depending on when the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans will be. If Le Mans is June 18-19, then Austria would be June 12. If Le Mans is a week earlier then I expect, then Austria will be June 5 and run a back-to-back-to-back with Spain and Monaco. Let's pencil in Le Mans for June 18-19.

June 26: France
July 3: Great Britain. 

Let's pause and take a count, because Great Britain is typically about the halfway point of the season. We have 11 races down. That's the halfway point and we are about two weeks ahead of the original 2021 schedule. 

July 17: Hungary. 

And then we have the summer break. Everyone gets a month off.

August 21: Netherlands
August 28: Belgium
September 11: Italy

That is the conclusion of the European schedule. A back-to-back before a week off and then the Italian Grand Prix in its traditional spot on the calendar. That is 15 races down and we have seven races to go, which brings us to the Americas portion of the calendar. 

September 18: Canada
October 2: United States
October 16: Mexico
October 23: Brazil

This does setup a trans-Atlantic doubleheader, but it gets Canada in at the end of the summer, which is when it starts getting hairy. In 2020, the final weekend of summer in Montreal saw highs only in the high 50s. However, the following weekend saw highs in the 80s. In 2019, the highs for the final three Sundays of September were 63º F, 77º F and 54º F. You can see why this might be the one trans-Atlantic doubleheader that is worth it.

To give the teams a break, they get a week off between Canada and the United States, then a week between a Mexico-Brazil doubleheader and we are done with the North America portion of the calendar before we even get into November. 

I did forget something about 2022. It is a World Cup year, and Formula One normally adjusts its calendar when the World Cup comes around. It avoids racing on the day of the final. It will move races around if the World Cup host country has a race around that time of the year. It will adjust race start times for England. However, the 2022 World Cup is scheduled to be in Qatar, and, unlike a traditional June/July tournament, the 2022 World Cup begins on November 21 and will run until December 18. 

Formula One has gotten used to ending the season at the end of November and pushing into December. I don't know how Formula One is going to handle ending its season in the Middle East with a World Cup hosted in the Middle East and the television conflicts that are bound to happen. 

However, Formula One could have a mad dash in 2022, end the season with three consecutive races and finish before the World Cup even begins:

November 6: Bahrain
November 13: Saudi Arabia
November 20: Abu Dhabi

Obviously, that three-week run would be a one-year thing, but I think we have found a schedule structure that is better for the teams. There would be long trips away from home, but it could reduce costs, it would mean the teams would basically get to stay in Europe from the middle of April through the middle of September and the teams still get their summer break. 

There is even a little room in case this schedule wants to expand from 22 races to 25. Come 2023, the Middle East rounds could be spread into December as it would not have to worry about a World Cup. We could start a week or two earlier to fit in Vietnam or another Asia-Pacific round. There is some room for another two European rounds, whether that be Imola, Portimão, Nürburgring, Istanbul or any other venues. 

We are on the limit in terms of time when it comes to the Formula One calendar. For a 25-race calendar to work with at least five races in the Asia-Pacific region, four races in the Americas and three races in the Middle East, the calendar will have to encompass all of March into the start of December. That only allows for a two-and-a-half month offseason, a tight window for teams to get new cars built and tested. I think a 22-race calendar is tough enough, but Liberty Media will continue to squeeze out every last drop from this cash cow. They might just need to consider moving a few pieces around to make it work. 

Winners From the Weekend
You know about Stéphane Peterhansel, but did you know...

Other Dakar Rally class winners:

Bikes: Kevin Benavides won by four minutes and 56 seconds over American and 2020 Dakar winner Ricky Brabec, in a Honda 1-2 finish. The Argentine Benavides is the first South American rider to win the bikes class.

Quads: Manuel Andújar won by 33 minutes and 44 seconds over Chilean Giovanni Enrico with American Pablo Copetti over three hours back in third.
 
Light Prototypes: Josef Macháček won by over two hours and 12 minutes over Camelia Liparoti in the inaugural year for the Light Prototypes class. This is Macháček's second Dakar victory, as he was the inaugural winner in the Quad class in 2009.

UTVs: Francisco López won the class with American Austin Jones 17 minutes and 23 seconds back in second. This López's second Dakar victory after winning this class in 2019.

Trucks: Dmitry Sotnikov led a Kamaz 1-2-3 in the Truck class with a 39-minute and 38-second victory over Anton Shibalov.

The #36 GPX Racing Porsche of Axcil Jefferies, Mathieu Jaminet, Julien Andlauer, Frédéric Fatien and Alain Ferté won the Dubai 24 Hour. 

Kyle Larson won the Chili Bowl for the second consecutive year.

Justin Barcia won the Supercross season opener from Houston, his third consecutive year winning the season opener and it was a victory on debut for the Spanish manufacture Gas Gas.

Coming Up This Weekend
Supercross will race on Tuesday and Saturday from Houston.
Rallye Monte-Carlo opens the 2021 World Rally Championship season