08/01/2024
NEWS STORY
For the most part the fact that - due to Ramadan - the opening two races of the forthcoming season take place on a Saturday appears to have slipped under the radar.
The move comes months after F1 opted to host the Las Vegas Grand Prix on a Saturday, the first time that this has happened since South Africa 1985.
The reason for the timing of the Las Vegas event was in order to have the race televised on Sunday morning in what remains the sport's European heartland, but it was a plan that backfired.
With Las Vegas eight hours behind the UK and nine behind continental Europe it was too early in the morning to get significant audiences, while on the east coast of America it was the middle of the night. Though it was broadcast at prime time in Asia this isn't F1's top market.
Consequently, the Grand Prix attracted the grand total of 1.3 million viewers on ESPN in the US, half the number who tuned in to the inaugural Miami event.
However, that doesn't mean the race was a complete failure, and with F1 being the promoter, with a 10 year contract, fingers will be tightly crossed that things improve over the coming years.
Nonetheless, holding it on a Saturday tested the waters of mid-week racing which is exactly what Liberty Media needs to convince investors that the business has further potential for growth.
Races are the driving force behind the growth of F1's revenues as each one typically pays hosting fees that alone come to an average of $33.5m (£26.5m) annually.
Then there's the revenue from trackside advertising and race title sponsorship as well as hospitality revenues. If a new race is in a key market it could even enable Liberty to boost its broadcasting fees which represent F1's single-largest source of revenue.
While drivers have spoken out over the challenge that this year's 24 race schedule presents, team bosses, with an eye on the coffers, have been largely silent. That said, with F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicali having admitted that he would love to see thirty or so races each year, Zak Brown recently opined that the sport could handle a further eight.
A second race in Italy might not make much difference in terms of the fee paid by Sky Italia, but if, for example, the much-mooted South African Grand Prix returned to the calendar it could significantly drive up the amount that a local broadcaster pays.
The teams are the roadblock in the way of adding more races to the calendar as the Concorde Commercial Agreement, the contract which commits the teams to race, caps the number of Grands Prix in a season at 25 which gives F1 little room for growth. Its terms also state that the consent of 70% of the teams is required if there are more than 24 races in a season or if there are fewer than eight across Europe and North America combined.
There is good reason for this.
The majority of the teams are based in the UK so the more races that take place in far-flung destinations, the greater their travel costs become and the more time they have to spend away from home.
So how does holding races on a Saturday help matters? Well, if Saturday was viable then why not Friday? And if that went ahead then how about Thursday or even Wednesday?
In fact, races have taken place on pretty much every day of the week, though this was mostly when the Indianapolis 500 formed part of the F1 world championship, when the race had to take place on 30 May unless it was a Sunday in which case the event was held over until the Monday.
F1 is under tremendous pressure from the green lobby and not just because of the 20 'gas-guzzlers' roaring around the track. Its calendar is also to blame as the sport travels from one part of the world to another and back again later in the year. If instead of visiting the US at three different times of the year it instead held the three races in one week (Monday, Wednesday and Saturday), it would be a lot more environmentally-friendly.
Furthermore, it would also save on travel costs. Also, there wouldn't be time for as much practice so the races would hopefully be more unpredictable.
But the biggest benefit is that it would mean F1 could fit more races into a shorter space of time. The more races, the more revenue it generates.
If it took the mid-week racing approach in every market F1 could significantly boost the number of races on the calendar without increasing the time spent on the road away from home. That sounds like a win-win and the sport seems to be heading in precisely this direction.
At a time NASCAR consists of 36 rounds, Liberty bosses must be licking their lips...