Vasseur calms concerns over 24-race F1 calendar

Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur has denied that Formula 1must reduce its race calendar to ensure the well-being of itsstaff. This year's campaign is set to feature 24 races, setting anew record for the sport. The 2023 calendar was originally draftedto include 24 events but was reduced to 22 when the rounds in Chinaand Emilia Romagna were cancelled. Concerns have been raised overthe strain such a long calendar has on travelling staff members.However, Vasseur is confident that teams can discover their ownsolutions to minimise the impact of the record-breaking schedule.“We need to have the best approach for the mechanics, because it’spart of the performance, it’s part of the reliability,” Vasseurtold media including RacingNews365 . “It was not strange that therewere more mistakes in the pit stops in Abu Dhabi than some [otherraces]. I think that everybody was exhausted.” “It means that weneed to think about perhaps having a rotation in terms of themechanics, or to keep [some] mechanics to do the races and to haveanother group of mechanics at home, taking care of the cars whenthey are back at the factory. “I think we have room to dosomething, we have room to manage it in a better way.” Vasseurhails expanding schedule F1 has been steadily increasing the numberof races on its calendar over the last several years. Vasseurasserted that the augmenting figure shows that the sport is in astrong position due to the interest in hosting a Grand Prix event.“We have to keep in mind that a couple of years ago we werestruggling to find tracks and to find events,” he said. “Today wehave a lot of proposals, that we have a situation to [be able to]do 24 events, and also to be probably a bit selective on theevents.” The Frenchman added that grouping together certain partsof the schedule next year will ease pressure on staff members. “Wehave to work on the calendar, for sure,” he said. “Next year, we’llhave the first part of the season on the far east with Melbourne,Japan and China in a row, so we’ll allow some mechanics and driversto sometimes stay in this side of the world, it will be helpful.“Then we have to manage properly the team, to give them some rest,but I don’t think we have to reduce the number of events.”