The 2024 F1 season will be the longest in the sport’s history with 24 races. Many including Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen complained regarding the length of the calendar. Alonso even threatened to leave the sport if the number of races increased. Red Bull mechanic Calum Nicholas has now come out to point at the troublesome part of the calendar.
Being Red Bull’s senior power unit assembly technician, Nicholas replied to a tweet that asked for one change he’d like to make to the F1 calendar. He tweeted, “I probably wouldn’t be going from Brazil to back home, then back to Las Vegas, and then directly to Qatar. It seems a little odd, could. Just be me though.”
I probably wouldn’t be going from Brazil to back home, then back to Las Vegas, and then directly to Qatar. Seems a little odd, could
Just be me though ♂️— Calum Nicholas (@F1mech) September 26, 2024
Nicholas’ concern is genuine as the Brazilian GP and Las Vegas GP are three weeks apart. Traveling from the South American continent to North America directly is much more convenient than crossing the Atlantic back and forth multiple times over a month.
As per RacingNews365, the F1 crew already has to travel 122,000 plus km in a year, and it doesn’t include the stoppages made in between races to the factory. However, traveling isn’t the only issue that drivers face.
At the 2023 Las Vegas GP, due to a delayed start to the FP2 session, many drivers revealed how they barely managed to keep their eyes open. Traveling between different time zones in a matter of weeks, the jet lag, and racing in Las Vegas late in the night drains the battery of the drivers and the engineers.
Stefano Domenicali came out after Verstappen and Alonso slammed F1 for the lengthy calendar. The F1 CEO detailed how the management did the best and released the calendar early to help the teams prepare. He also stated that many races have been regionalized. However, regionalizing all of them isn’t possible.
