In the round-up: Williams team principal James Vowles says he wants to see “no more” than 24 races in a season
In brief
Twenty-four races “pushing the bounds” – Vowles
The current 24-round calendar is at the very limit of what F1 teams are capable of managing with, Williams team principal James Vowles believes.
The 2024 F1 season will feature a record-breaking 24 rounds with the return of the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit.
“Dare I say we’re at a manageable level or a good level,” Vowles said. “I don’t think there should be any more.
“I think we are pushing the bounds of what is possible – not just from from a human perspective, but I also mean from a technology perspective. It is very difficult going to 24 different countries moving around 30 tonnes of freight and keeping the same momentum from start to finish whilst putting on what I hope is the best show in the world. So I think I’m happy where we are – certainly no more.”
Hulkenberg anticipates early ’24 silly season
Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg says he expects an early start to the ‘silly season’ of driver transfers next season.All 20 drivers who finished the 2023 season will keep their seats for the start of 2024. But Hulkenberg expects news about the driver market for 2025 will start “early next year.”
“I think the carousel will start spinning really early next year after a couple of races,” Hulkenberg said. “Musical chairs – the usual. We can only speculate, but I think so, yes.”
Fornaroli stays for second F3 season at Trident
The Trident team has confirmed that Leonardo Fornaroli will compete in a second season of Formula 3 with their team in 2024.
The 18-year-old ran his first season in the championship last year after racing in the Formula Regional European Championship in 2022. Over the course of the season, he took three podium finishes at Monaco, Barcelona and Silverstone, where he also started from pole position.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Red Bull talks with Marko planned as Verstappen ally considers F1 future (Mirror)
'Marko is understood to have a consultancy contract that expires at the end of next year. It remains to be seen whether or not he will get an extension to continue in his advisory role beyond that 2024 season.'
Formula 1’s growth hits a speed bump with U.S. viewers (Front Office Sports)
'The 2024 season will grow to 24 grand prix races and return to three American stops: Miami, Austin, and Las Vegas. The next campaign will also mark the second year of ESPN’s three-year deal for the sport’s U.S. broadcast rights at a reported price of $255 million. NASCAR, meanwhile, saw a 5% viewership decline over its recently concluded 2023 season, but that didn’t stop the racing outfit from sealing a big combined media rights increase from its incumbent partners and two new broadcasters.'
Ferrari chairman gives huge update on Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz’s futures (Metro)
'But it appears that both will be staying put, with Italian media reporting that Elkann has said: ‘Leclerc and Sainz will certainly stay at Ferrari.’'
Hadjar feeling Campos Racing pace immediately after session-topping effort on Day 3 (F2)
''I have no regrets from 2023. I gave my best and it’s how it is. F2 is a really tough Championship as a rookie. I have one year of experience now, I feel so much stronger, and I feel like I also never really had a car that suited me. I lost some good points but that’s part of my experience I guess and how I grow as a driver and human.''
2023 adversity provides chance for more growth for VeeKay (IndyCar)
''I've grown a lot as a driver, I think especially now compared to that debut. In the car turned out to be a lot harder than I then already imagined. Coming from the Road to Indy, where a bad result might be a P4 or P5, where most weekends in IndyCar, if you get a podium that's incredible, incredible results, and sometimes even top 10.''
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
Consistently quick pit stops in 2023 ⏱️🏆
Picking up the Fastest Pit Stop award for the sixth successive season 👏 pic.twitter.com/wAQ922REPO
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) December 2, 2023
there were already a lot of cars, friends, and great vibes at the Honda Thanks Day rehearsals ✌️ see you tomorrow for the big show! 🇯🇵#HondaThanksDay pic.twitter.com/5Hr6TRYAnj
— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1) December 2, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
With all 20 drivers from the 2023 season retaining their seats for next year, Justin feels it’s time for there to be more cars on the grid…
This is a good argument for Andretti joining the grid. Two more seats, on any team with four wheels, would give two very deserving drivers the chance.
There are several drivers in history and on the grid that we can thank for that 22nd+ seat being available. Fernando Alonso at Minardi? Ayrton Senna at Toleman? Sebastian Vettel at Toro Rosso (the root of Minardi)? On merit I don’t think Sargeant deserves a seat over Liam Lawson, or perhaps Alex Palou, Pato O’Ward or many others. How are we going to find out now that we have a grid with zero new drivers in 2024?
If you can name the constructors’ champion every year in the history of F1, I tip my cap to you. The drivers are the drama and meaning of this spot each weekend at the end of the year.
Justin
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Riise, Speed Damon, Colm and Rick!
Johns
3rd December 2023, 4:03
Silly season start: After two races RIC moves to red bull.
Funny, when a driver postulates the silly season will start early, do they know something?
Jere (@jerejj)
3rd December 2023, 6:07
Just a guess.
Dex
3rd December 2023, 8:23
How about viewer’s capacity? We have lives too, which is hard to see when you look at a person and all you see is a number.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
3rd December 2023, 10:46
I guess the difference is that viewers are under no obligation to watch every round. I will probably skip the sprint races next year, especially since they are apparently going to form their own championship rather than having any impact on the main event.
Facts&Stats
3rd December 2023, 11:25
What about the poor football supporters. Even if you just follow one team it’s easy to get to 50+ competitive matches in a season.
They also have more practise sessions than F1.
Luckily quali is much shorter and solved with the flip of a coin.
Coventry Climax
3rd December 2023, 14:39
Brilliant! And made me think of an option for the ridiculously silly, cartoonish reverse grid gimmick:
Qualify as usual, but flip a coin before the start of the race, determining whether we race clockwise or anti clockwise.
First car becomes the last one -or not-, at the flip of a coin.
I’m sure there’s people who’d love it, including at the FiA.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd December 2023, 14:49
Drivers would start aiming for 10th place if they have a good car, giving good chances to end up ahead!
Coventry Climax
3rd December 2023, 19:17
Nope. Drivers would start to gamble, fully Vegas style.
Which is why it’s a stupid idea in the first place, but an amusing thought nonetheless.
Tommy C (@tommy-c)
3rd December 2023, 8:57
I must say I feel like Grands Prix are diluted a little too much now. I used to be able to remember every single race of a season quite well including most podium positions for the entire season and the highlights and battles. Sadly I simply can’t anymore. There’s just so much racing I struggle to really take it all in. It probably doesn’t help that periods of dominance like we’ve had for the best part of the last decade make it a bit less memorable. I reckon I’d be able to recall the 2009 season more accurately than 2023 for example.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd December 2023, 14:50
Yes, absolutely, hard to remember much when seasons are this long and there’s this much dominance.
Coventry Climax
3rd December 2023, 15:00
Also, from race to race, teams brought changes, sometimes way more significant than anything even remotely possible these days. They weren’t only allowed to, they were expected to, in order to improve and/or stay on top.
Being an engineer, that’s what made it all interesting to me. And noone complained about development directions suiting them or not back then.
Then there was the tracks being very different each round, as opposed to the increasing number of boringly similar tracks and street circuits.
With every race becoming more similar to all the other ones, keeping up isn’t any easier either.
The COD says:
But
A) that’s the same for the list of driver champions and
B) Looking at the fervent team’s fans here, I doubt it is true. But even if, it’s gradually been made the drama focus by the FiA; it didn’t use to be like that.
The most obvious example is probably that we once had a six wheeler competing. Or a fan operated ground effect car. Even the first monocoque, first disk brakes, first turbo. Wildly different to the competition at the time, and things to be remembered forever. The fixed designs and -resulting- slight wing and setup changes for the next circuit these days isn’t worthwile remembering one bit.
Robert Henning
3rd December 2023, 11:12
Not sure how logistically feasible this is but F1 should decide the calendar after 3 to 5 races for at least races from 18 onwards.
Longer seasons with a dominant car makes the season drag and making it unbearable for the average F1 fan I’d assume.
17 races should be a shoe in and the last 6 or 7 decided based on how competitive it is at the top.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd December 2023, 14:51
This is a good idea, however I don’t see liberty media doing that when they can make more money with a longer season.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd December 2023, 14:53
Although if you have a 2016-like situation, it’d be problematic to cut seasons short cause there’s still a battle between the 2 drivers in the dominant car.
Coventry Climax
3rd December 2023, 15:08
That’s a rather stupid idea, as far as I’m concerned. If you loose interest along the way, for whatever reason, you’re free to switch your ‘average fan interest’ to any other direction you like, including grass clipping and car washing, for all I care.
In fact, if more and more ‘fans’ start to loose interest, researching whether that has to do with what’s being offered is too frequent, too boring and/or too whatever, would be the sensible thing to do. Not that I deem the FiA or Liberty capable of that, I’m afraid.
Any examples of where this is done in any other sports, mainstream popular or not?
Facts&Stats
3rd December 2023, 11:18
I thought McLaren had the quickest pit stop in 2023!
At the start of the last race, it was still McLaren being credited with a 1.8s pit stop, and I don’t recall Red Bull or any other team beating that.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
3rd December 2023, 13:46
McLaren have the fastest pit stop of the season, actually I think they had something like 7 of the top 10 quickest pitstops. But Redbull’s post says “consistently quick”, so I presume this is like a fastest pitstop championship, and RB came out on top. If I remember right, RB were usually fastest over the first half of the season, before McLaren in particular improved.
Facts&Stats
3rd December 2023, 14:56
Just checked.
Indeed, it seems to be a separate championship measured over the whole season.
McLaren has the ‘World Record’ though.
Coventry Climax
3rd December 2023, 15:13
Funny that Mercedes doesn’t contest that, with reaction times physically impossible to humans.
After all, it was them who wanted this rule instated by the FiA, in a bid to curb Red Bull.
Just another example of inter team interest, with McLaren running Mercedes engines?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd December 2023, 14:58
Ahh, yes, I was also baffled by that but you can see it here, they give points like in a normal championship, so evidently red bull was more consistently scoring in terms of fast pit stops, they also list mclaren as by far the fastest, 1.8 vs 1.93 ferrari.
https://inmotion.dhl/en/formula-1/fastest-pit-stop-award
Mclaren got 3rd overall across the season, ferrari 2nd and there was plenty of margin between each of them, MASSIVE gap to alpha tauri 4th.
Coventry Climax
3rd December 2023, 15:15
Therefor even more MASSIVE gap to Mercedes, see my reply on a comment slightly up.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd December 2023, 20:51
Ah, wow, they seem to do a consistently bad job with pit stops, their ranking in both the last 2 years is terrible. But I found it impressive the difference between 3rd and 4th place this year, it’s a bit like what you would see the past years between the big 3 and the others.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd December 2023, 20:51
In 2022 instead we had a huge gap between 2nd and 3rd.
Dan G (@dang)
5th December 2023, 11:10
It’s too many. I find myself losing interest in the third weekend of triple headers.
Drop the triple headers, keep the season March-November and obviously keep the summer break, and see what falls out. Twenty-two rounds, presumably.
billc
5th December 2023, 17:16
I’m hoping for a ravenous Max returning for more in 2024. It’s the only way we’ll see F1 drop in popularity and Liberty scaling back it’s effort to chase $$$. The fact that we go to so many dubious countries that have no racing history and at most 30k people attending over the weekend is outrageous, and dilutes the value of the sport.