02/05/2017
NEWS STORY
For the most part, in recent years the F1 calendar has been pretty much set in stone; starting off in Australia followed by a few races more races in the east, then back to Europe before heading across the Atlantic and then finally Abu Dhabi (groan).
However, all that may change as Formulas One Management, under its new ownership, seeks to build the sport.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, FOM's commercial boss, Sean Bratches, revealed that he is seeking to group events together into regions rather than continuing the current practice of zig-zagging the globe.
"We'd like to create a balance between Europe, the Americas and Asia," he said. "In a perfect world we'd like to have all the races take place in a region and then move to the next region and then the next.
"Obviously, (the pluses are) efficiencies from a team standpoint in terms of moving this circus around the world, but also from navigating fans.
"So telling fans 'for the next two-and-a-half months, you're going to have to get up early to watch the grands prix, and then the next two-and-a-half are going to be at midday, and the next will be at night'. We think that's really important."
While giving nothing away in terms of new additions to the calendar, or even returning to previous tracks, he was giving little away, however he did echo Chase Carey's vision of turning Grands Prix into Super Bowl-style week long events, "massive global events that engage fans".
"We want to play a bit more offence going forward and identify cities around the world where we can have more city circuits as opposed to traditional tracks," he said.
"We still want a balance," he added. We want city centres that have massive fan audiences to drive interest in the tracks and attendance in the tracks. We want promoters that understand the art of promotion, which is an art in terms of elevating the story and putting the fans in seats and creating experiences that are unique.
"We're going to partner with them on that so I'm optimistic about that side of our business."
Amidst the talk of keeping Silverstone on the calendar and returning to other classic tracks, Bratches was asked if this would mean lowering race hosting fees. "We're a business," he replied.