Former F1 driver Mika Hakkinen recently slammed Formula One Management over the increasing number of races in a calendar year. Now, Max Verstappen has decided to sing in the same tune even though this wasn’t the first time the Dutchman spoke against the increased number of races in a year. Earlier, Sebastian Vettel also raised the same issue when he cited the increasing emissions as a result of more races. However, Verstappen feels that is not the only issue F1 has to deal with right now.
Verstappen told SpeedWeek.com as per Rossimotori.it, “I believe that for the next few years, the calendar is absolutely one of the aspects to improve. Obviously, it is not possible to do this within the next year, but it is strange to arrive in a place starting from a point that is on the opposite side of the world. And then it’s not very sustainable and not just in terms of emissions; it is not the same for our body. We will obviously succeed, but in any case, it’s not the best.”
Notably, the 26-year-old believes that it is not so easy to change the calendar overnight and to some extent this is true. This is simply because the sport has grown significantly in the last few years and now races take place in many more countries. As the demand for more venues has increased, it has also increased the number of races per year.
Vettel has already warned about how more races negatively impacts the climate. As for Hakkinen, he has also urged teams to compensate their drivers for the increasing number of races.
Mika Hakkinen and Max Verstappen together took digs at FOM over the F1 calendar
Mika Hakkinen, while speaking to Unibet International on YouTube, said that he would have demanded more from the teams as payment or compensation if there were 24 races in a single season during his days as a racing driver.
He stated, “If I still drove in F1 and saw the number of races, I would have stern negotiations with the team about the compensation.” His remarks have come immediately after Max Verstappen strongly criticized the organizers of the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Dutchman was unhappy after he saw many drivers and crew members fall ill because of the brutal schedule. On this, the Red Bull driver said to the Chequered Flag podcast, “I do think of course timing wise it would be better to drive a bit earlier because I really felt like a lot of drivers got ill after that race.”
George Russell was one such driver who fell ill as he had a bad cold and also suffered from symptoms during the season finale in Abu Dhabi. Most of these issues for drivers and team members occur because of F1’s tiresome schedule. It takes a heavy toll on them since they travel to over 20 different destinations across five different continents throughout the year.
