MOTORSPORT
CHASING THE MONEY
Why the expanded 2022 schedule shows Formula 1’s true colours
Six pages of news, insight and opinion from the world of motor racing
Damien Smith
RACING LINES
Formula 1 is set to stage a record 23 grands prix in 2022
S o 23 grands prix in 35 weeks. Is too much of a good thing a genuine concern or should we just sit back, shut up and enjoy the show as Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and the rest charge around all corners of the world next year?
Wall-to-wall Formula 1 sure is captivating. But at a time when there’s increasingly compelling evidence that we all need to throttle back, travel less and consider the greater consequences of our collective actions, it seems almost perverse for F1 to be embarking on its biggest, most intense and most demanding season ever. So much for the much-vaunted sustainability drive they all like to shout about.
The trouble is it’s money and not precious fossil fuel that really turns the wheels in F1 – and the promoter, Liberty Media, is owned and run by American executives who have invested in grand prix racing for one reason alone. Pile them high and sell them cheap? Well, cheaper than Bernie Ecclestone believed in. F1 is beginning to echo the relentlessness of the Nascar schedule, which still packs in an astonishing 38 premier-class races between February and November each year.