The 26-year-old Red Bull driver starts Saturday as the clear favorite, in search of his fourth consecutive title, but even with his streak of success he believes that calendar expansion is exhausting.
“For my part, I have already said it before: this is not sustainable”said Verstappen to journalists at the Bahrain International Circuit. “I really like racing and I also do it a lot outside of F1.”
“But, if people start shortening their careers (in F1) because it’s too much I think it’s a shame, so I hope of course we can take a look at that for the future.”.
The popularity of F1 has skyrocketed in recent years, fueled in part by the success of the Netflix series “Drive to Survive.”
Liberty Media, owner of the commercial rights to the sport, has taken the opportunity to add new venues in the Middle Eastsome classics returning to Europe and three races in the United States, with Miami and Las Vegas joining Austin.
Teams have begun rotating personnel to cope with the demands of such a long schedule, while this year’s preseason training was reduced to three days.
The two-time Spanish world champion Fernando Alonso42, a veteran of the sport who debuted in 2001, echoed comments from Verstappen and remembered the days when the calendar had fewer than 20 races.
“When I started we had 16 races, then it was 18, and then I think when Liberty arrived it was like a message that we have 20 a season and that was absolutely the limit, 20 races”said the Aston Martin driver. “And now we’re at 24 and it’s not sustainable for the future.”
“Even the world champion thinks this is a bit long, the season (…) Imagine for the rest of us, we go to the races in the second half (of the year) for nothing, there is no incentive to fight for anything“.
Source: Ambito
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