[Lancer033]

This idea has been rattling around in my brain for a while and I want to put a rough outline out there to see if anyone else thinks the idea has merit. I know the tracks and events i put in each category are going to cause some debate and there would be contractual issues in the real world, but I think even those could be settled in time.

The basic concept is that I divide Grand Prix into 3 groups.
Tracks that are key to F1’s History and DNA
Events in Key Markets
Rotating events

The 1st 2 Groups would be scheduled for every year, with the 1st group at a set location while the 2nd group would still happen every year but with the possibility for alternate locations. The final group would be made up of all the other locations that can and want to host a Grand Prix. The main benefit of the idea is that while we hold on to those historical locations every year, the calendar is wide open for new events and every season would see different tracks, locations and cultures at the same time.

To get into the details…

1. I put 4 tracks in the 1st group
-The British Grand Prix at Silverstone
-The Monaco Grand Prix
-The Italian Grand Prix at Monza
-The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps

These are the events that I would want in every F1 season no matter what, while I’m open for other tracks in those countries hosting a Grand Prix (Imola, Donington Park for example), they would fall into category 3 and be in addition to the events listed here

2. The 2nd Group is harder to define for an outsider, but I’ve added 4 events here again.

-The Australian Grand Prix. While the event has been held at Albert Park for as long as I’ve been an F1 fan, I know there are many tracks around Australia that could also host the event and I wouldn’t mind seeing it move to other locations or even rotating between several tracks, I would want to see a race in Australia every year.
-The Chinese Grand Prix. Same as Australia, Shanghai is great, but if it moved to another location in China, it wouldn’t bother me, I just think this is an important market for F1
-The United States Grand Prix. This one hits home for me and if I really had my way there would be 3-4 F1 races in the US, but trying to be fair with this, I think the US is an important market for F1 and we should have at least 1 race a year. I think COTA is a great track and would love to see F1 continue there, but who can say it wouldn’t be awesome to watch a field of F1 cars go through the Corkscrew at Leguna Seca or back at Watkins Glen?
-The Japanese Grand Prix – Suzuka or Fiji, just seems right that one or the other should be on the calendar.

3. That defines 8 out of 20 races for a hypothetical F1 calendar and brings me to the last group where I am probably going to make a lot of people angry with this. There have got to be at least 20 other tracks around the world outside of what i’ve listed so far and plenty of other proposals for street circuits. Sure, bring me a race in downtown London, I don’t want to give up Silverstone to do it, but it would still be cool to see. Yes, bring on the Vietnam Grand Prix in Hanoi, great idea, but I’ve really enjoyed watching the Mexican Grand Prix too and don’t want to see that go away. By having a rotational calendar, there would be room for everyone to fill in those last 12 events and each year would have a bit of variety. There would even be room for things like a 1-off race in cities that are hesitant to commit to longer term contracts. Perhaps Miami would have been open to a 1-time event.

This way, new events and new markets would be able to come into the sport and add value without having to replace an old even like what happens now. Yes, some places are going to fail still like Korea or India, but this way instead of hitting 20 locations every year, F1 is able to touch ~30 markets every 2 years.

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