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Liberty going 'on the offensive' to take F1 calendar beyond 21 races

Formula 1 commercial chief Sean Bratches says that Liberty Media wants to "go on the offensive" to find new races that will see the sport's calendar swell beyond the 21 events planned for 2018.

Liberty completed its takeover of F1 in January and has been clear on its desire to take the sport to new markets and strengthen existing ones, with a particular focus on the United States.

The calendar will grow from 20 to 21 races for 2018 with the addition of races in France and Germany, with Malaysia falling off the schedule after ending its contract.

As quoted by Reuters, Bratches confirmed that Liberty is set to actively find new races that can be added to the calendar, which will expand beyond 21 races in the coming years.

"We want to work in partnership with our teams in terms of determining where we go, but our view is that we'd like to go above 21," Bratches said.

"We want to be a little bit more proactive and go on the offensive in terms of the markets where we go.

"As we start identifying an optimal calendar in optimal regions, we can go down and sit with cities and make our case as opposed to what has been a little bit more reactive to bids coming in."

Bratches added that he would like the calendar to be more organised by territory to help teams cut on travel costs, staying in regions for longer.

"We're trying to align these things better by territory: European races, the American races, the Asian races," Bratches said.

"But it gets difficult in terms of the weather and managing contractual guardrails.

"We are trying to ensure all the participants in this sport have really good businesses and we don't want to align grands prix which will be cannibalistic to one another."

Zdroj: crash.net