Toto Wolff and Helmut Marko have expressed concerns about the length of the Formula 1 calendar. This year, for the first time, twenty-four Grands Prix were held – a record number for the sport. Twenty-four races are also scheduled for 2025. To sustain this, Wolff and Marko believe changes need to be made to the sequence of the various events.
“We are at the limit,” Helmut Marko said in a joint interview with Toto Wolff, speaking to Austrian broadcaster ORF. “And I’m part of the senior management. You should look at the mechanics. Take the Las Vegas GP, for example. That race was held late in the evening, after the mechanics had endured a fourteen to sixteen-hour flight. Then they have to continue at the same pace.”
“If we want to keep those twenty-four races on the Formula 1 calendar, the order really needs to be better,” Marko continued. “You have the traditional European races, but also entirely new Grands Prix. They may provide spectacle, but lack a certain culture around motorsport. Spa and Monza, for example, do have that culture. That’s how we need to try to maintain a balance. But if you ask me, more Grands Prix should be banned, especially considering the workload. Or we should start working with two crews.
Too taxing for the mechanics?
“I recently discussed Las Vegas with Helmut (Marko),” Toto Wolff added. “It was really intense, as you only see a few hours of daylight before going to bed. Plus, you don’t know when to eat. Everyone handles this differently, but it disrupts your rhythm so much that it’s hard to recover. And I haven’t even mentioned the flying!”
“I had a sponsorship event in Hawaii recently,” Wolff gave as an example. “I was there for a total of eighteen hours. I flew from Austin, a seven-hour flight, and then flew right back. It all sounds great, but when you’re in your hotel knowing you can’t even go to the beach, the situation suddenly becomes a lot less enjoyable. At some point, you just cross a certain threshold. And we still travel with a certain degree of comfort. The mechanics all fly in economy class, so they have it even tougher. You could see on their faces that they can’t keep this up for long.”
