F1 may be blowing its trumpet about having its record 24-race calendar this year, but the drivers are not a fan of it. With such a long calendar in 2024, drivers and teams are taking a huge physical and mental toll with the traveling they have to do. Many drivers pointed this out before the season began in Bahrain. Now, Fernando Alonso has doubled down on it to reveal the flight time he has had so far, with 19 races still to go.
Alonso posted on his Instagram story to give details on his flight time to each of the five race weekends so far. According to a Reddit post, his story shows a picture of himself on a flight and the caption reads,
“First 5 races
Test+race Bahrain = 15h
Saudi = 11h
Australia = 46h
Japan = 40h
China = 41h”
Now, the Spaniard did not mention whether these flight travels were non-stop or had layovers. However, the total number of hours he has flown comes to 153! From a sustainability perspective, such a great amount of air travel from all drivers and team personnel will affect the carbon footprint goals F1 has set as well.
However, the major aspect to focus on here is the mental and physical toll on drivers and team personnel. Traveling for long hours via flight for 24 race weekends will be quite taxing for all of them.
19 more races are pending on this season’s schedule with the next one in Miami. While there is a week’s gap before that weekend, the travel will still be a grueling one for many drivers. Things will get tough when the doubleheader and tripleheader weekends come, which have races like Las Vegas and Qatar grouped together.
Has Fernando Alonso triggered the alarm for a grueling season in advance?
F1 often used to have 17 to 18 races in a season. However, this number has touched and gone past 20 in the last few years since Liberty Media’s takeover. While Liberty Media has revived the sport from a marketing perspective, the addition of new races has been a widely unpopular move.
Drivers often face jet lags for race weekends in Asian and American countries. The double effect of adjusting to different time zones and weather conditions also has an adverse effect in tandem with the jet jag. The inaugural Las Vegas GP last year was a perfect example of this extremity.
George Russell commented on how drivers and team personnel got ill during and after the Las Vegas GP weekend. The Mercedes driver himself fell sick before the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP, which was on the subsequent weekend after the race in Las Vegas.
The Briton criticized this scheduling mistake, given the grueling travel from Las Vegas to Abu Dhabi coupled with the contrasting weather conditions of the two cities. Perhaps, Fernando Alonso also wishes to trigger the same notion about the 2024 schedule.
This has been a perennial feature of the F1 calendar. The season always has one or two race weekends that require teams and drivers to have a quick turnaround to another country on the other side of the globe.
While weather conditions force races like Miami and Canada to be held in the middle part of the year, F1 has often missed the regional grouping of races to minimize travel.
The 2025 calendar is trying to make amends for the same. However, it will also have 24 races. Many drivers believe that F1 should try to keep the number of races in a calendar year to 20 at maximum.
