Brawn: If we have 25 races they all deserve their place

Formula 1’s new chiefs are looking at expanding the Formula 1 calendar and the sport’s racing director Ross Brawn believes that a 25 race season is manageable for teams and their staff.

Speaking to the The Telegraph, Brawn said, “Twenty-five races – that’s one every other weekend. Not a bad working life, is it? It wasn’t so long ago that drivers were testing every week.”

Indeed a decade or so ago Formula 1 teams were on track on a regular basis as there were no restrictions limiting testing during the course of the season. However it must be noted that most teams had a race crew and a test crew for this purpose.

The former Ferrari technical director recalled, “At Ferrari, we had two test tracks, and rarely a day went by that we weren’t running on them. It’s the quality that’s going to be vital.”

“We’re paying respect to our heritage, bringing France and Germany back, long-standing European races, and we want to mix them with exciting new ones – a race in New York, or one of the big US cities, and in one or two new continents. If we have 25, it will be because they all deserve their place.”

“F1 is a rich environment, which exists on many levels: human, drivers, racing, technical. There is a whole sweep, far more than in any other sport I can think of. People are still fascinated by F1 because of what it represents. We should never lose sight of that,” concluded Brawn.