India announces it will hold GP in 2009

[Quetch]

I doubt they will build a race track in two years. They haven't even found the suitable land. Planning, getting the permits and building takes a lot of time, I guess.

[Dave B]

20 races per year is a good number, and I'd like to see Fridays made into a proper unrestricted test day. The changes for this year went some way to addressing that...

Anyway I digress. India's interest in F1 was massive while Narain Karthikeyan was in the sport, I wonder if hosting a race will bring some more local talent forward?

[Flat.tyres]

20 races would be OK dave but no more. i also like it when there's 2 weeks between meets. back to back gats a bit too much.

if we had 25 with 2 weeks inbetween, you'd only get 2 weeks off over christmas for a break

[kalasend]

I say more races, less testing.

Teams regularly clock up 20,000 miles in winter testing....that's the equivalent of 100 races.

Absolutely true!

Testing serves no economic (negative, in fact) value and very little entertainment value for the fans.

[trumperZ06]

With the logistics involved in moving from county to county as well as continent to continent, Formula 1 will be hard-pressed to hold ~ 24 races/year. There has to be "down-time" for development (think new models), and the Christmas/New Year holidays.

: Lets see just how many races Bernie can sell... to the racing teams !!!

[jens]

I say more races, less testing.

F1 is a tough sport and you always have to find a way to improve. Even if testing on track will be limited, teams will start searching for alternative options for improving and practicing. So IMO extra races will simply put on extra difficulty for participating in F1.

In WRC we have 16 events and most people agree that this is "too much" and that's partly the reason, why there aren't as many teams as there were before.

I'm afraid that "too many races" may start reducing the amount of competing F1 teams too.

[kalasend]

With the logistics involved in moving from county to county as well as continent to continent, Formula 1 will be hard-pressed to hold ~ 24 races/year. There has to be "down-time" for development (think new models), and the Christmas/New Year holidays.

What logistics? Starting in Asia/Middle East, then Europe, America, Europe, Asia, South America and hold testing sessions in Europe in between many races, makes no logistical sense.

FIA should:
- Let there be 20+ races per year with more logistically sensible schedule
- drop in-season testing
- shorten off-season length/reduce off-season testing

If FIA can do that, it would probably be a more comfortable schedule than current one.

[kalasend]

F1 is a tough sport and you always have to find a way to improve. Even if testing on track will be limited, teams will start searching for alternative options for improving and practicing. So IMO extra races will simply put on extra difficulty for participating in F1.

In WRC we have 16 events and most people agree that this is "too much" and that's partly the reason, why there aren't as many teams as there were before.

I'm afraid that "too many races" may start reducing the amount of competing F1 teams too.

That's why you need to keep growing the schedule. Wear the people and money out.

This may not sound sensible, but every paradigm change in the business world is because things get worse till some threshold is past, and traditional solutions(re$ource$) don't work any more.

At current structure, we have this boringly long off season during which:
- Teams still work hard but not doing any good for the audience
- Bigger, richer teams get more time to expense their resource$

Shorter off-season, less testing will benefit smaller teams for sure

[ShiftingGears]

I agree, 25 is a fine number. I also believe that the races should better span the globe. I think that the proposed speedways in India and Russia are beneficial to the sport. It would be cool to see something in South Africa too, and perhaps (again) Mexico

F1 once had something going for it in South Africa - Kyalami. Unfortunately there were political sanctions after 1985 and the track was butchered before F1 returned in 1992 and 1993. The new track wasn't favoured by anyone and a bankruptcy on the part of the promoter killed off the F1 South African grand prix.

I'd like F1 to return to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico but I don't think that will happen again without many chicanes and massive runoff areas. So maybe it is best that F1 doesn't go there.


Hopefully this Indian circuit will be a good one, but I'd imagine more races on the calendar would put enormous strain on team logistics as opposed to testing, as most of the testing is in Europe, rather than continents away from where teams are based.

[Storm]

Nothing against India but this is ridiculous

Why is it ridiculous exactly ?

India has had a F1 driver , there are a couple good ones in the making, a huge fan base, lots of marketing possibilities and 1 more race is not that big a deal.

Good stuff, but Delhi in October and Tilke doing the design
and on top of that I have full faith in IOA and Kalmadi...............NOT!