Sebastian Vettel explains why he doesn’t want more F1 races on the calendar

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel is not a fan of more races being added to the F1 calendar. The four-time world champion believes that more races would make F1 less special. 

Vettel’s comments have come following F1’s decision to expand their 2022 race calendar to 23 races from this season’s 22 Grand Prix. The German believes that fans may not watch so many races, while he also feels for the team as it would mean a lot more work for them and little downtime. 

“This is only my opinion, and it’s not worth anything, but I think we should not have that many races. It’s for a number of reasons. I think one, maybe it’s too many races for the people to watch. It’s not special anymore if there are that many.

“And second, I feel for [the staff]. Us drivers, we are on the good side of things: we can arrive on a Wednesday night and leave if we find a flight, etcetera, on a Sunday night. But the team already has a lot more stress. They arrive Monday or Saturday the week before, they build the garage, prepare the cars, and then also they have to run the full week and then pack down, send everything back, and prepare back in the factory,” said Vettel. 

The 34-year-old highlighted the changing of times with regard to work-life balance and thinks that the team staff needs to have some time for themselves as well. Vettel stated that the race calendar should be at a sustainable level so that team members are passionate about it for many years rather than just 2-3 years. 

There was previously talk about having 25 races per season, but F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali dismissed those rumors recently and stated that the plans were for a 23-race season. He wants to see a majority of the races in Europe and the rest in other parts of the world. The former Ferrari team principal revealed that there was interest from a few tracks in Africa to host a race there, as well as South Korea. 

The 2022 schedule was announced recently, with the season beginning in Bahrain in March, while ending in November at Abu Dhabi. The season will see the debut of the Miami Grand Prix in May, which will be one of two Grand Prix in the United States of America, the other being at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas.