How F1's calendar push risks "disposable" races

Can you have too much of a good thing? That's a question Formula 1 must ask itself as the calendar grows increasingly bloated: a record 22 races are scheduled for next year thanks to the addition of the Dutch and Vietnam Grands Prix more than offsetting the loss of Germany.

The first world championship calendar in 1950 comprised just seven races, one of them being the anomalous Indianapolis 500 (which can be disregarded given the lack of participation from F1 regulars), spread over a total of 113 days.

This year's championship comprises 21 grand prix weekends spread over 259 days. Next year, an extra race is crammed into that same period. That equates to a race every 12.3 days this year, with the frequency increasing to one every 11.8 next season.

Manna from heaven for an F1 fan, you might think, but it is hugely demanding of an audience that is often time-poor given the demands of everyday life. Ideally F1 wants its fans watching every race but, even for the most dedicated enthusiast, reality gets in the way and to block out a couple of hours 22 Sundays a year is not an easy task.

For the most motivated fan who wants to watch every minute of practice, qualifying and the race, that adds up to around seven hours of viewing - allowing two hours for the race and a little time either side. Next year, that will mean 9.625 days watching F1 - assuming you allow an eight-hour window for sleep, more than 2.5% of your waking year.

At what point of dilution do you give up on your appointment to view and become a more casual fan because each discrete 'package' of F1 - the races - has become disposable?

By dividing the length of the season from first race to last by the number of grands prix, you can measure the density of races historically.

It's no surprise that the 21st century has been the busiest period, peaking with a race every 11.7 days in 2018 - fractionally more frequent than next year's calendar.

The quietest seasons were in the early days of the world championship, with a race every 34 days in 1955 the most leisurely of all campaigns.

To that we must add the caveat that non-championship races for F1 cars were a regular thing, and in '55 the seven points-paying races were part of a calendar including as many as 17 non-championship races (depending on how you classify them), albeit with a rotating cast of entrants. But this was a profoundly different time.

Highest F1 racing calendar density

Lowest F1 racing calendar density

Calendar data provided by Joao Paulo Cunha of FORIX

In the 1980s, when F1 grew rapidly thanks to the loving embrace of a burgeoning television audience, the race frequency was one every 14.449 days - an increase from 17.998 days the preceding decade. In the 1990s, the figure was one every 14.5 days, holding steady, but in the first decade of the 21st century it increased to a race every 12.852 days.

In terms of watching live coverage, that makes for a massive commitment even for the most enthusiastic Autosport reader - dedicating more than every other Sunday to watching a grand prix is beyond many, not through choice but necessity.

Today's race every 11.8 days might not sound that far off the 'every other Sunday' pattern that intuitively feels like the natural order of things, but it's a significant increase over the 18-19 races over the timespan that would result in that frequency.

Sporting properties globally take different approaches to managing the availability of their product. The supply needs to be big enough to satisfy your audience, and as a result your stakeholders, but every product has its saturation point.

As many have learned to their cost, excessive dilution is bad for business. If you miss one race live, why not miss three, or four - or all 22 for that matter?

While that's less of a concern in today's market, where you can watch while on the move, catch up on time-shifted coverage after the fact or devour highlights on YouTube, the live audience remains the lifeblood of the sport.

And at what point of dilution do you give up on your appointment to view and become a more casual fan because each discrete 'package' of F1 - the races - has become disposable? The varying timeslots for races is also a complicating factor.

There are different schools of thought on the value of the 'appointment to view' and F1 does score well from one perspective in that all of the races are on Sunday. Or, at least, they have been since the 1985 South African Grand Prix, which was held on a Saturday and the last of the 73 world championship races not held on a Sunday.

You know where to look for them, which is a start, but the days when the vast majority of races were in the Sunday early-afternoon slot for a European audience are in the past. This could be further complicated should F1's plan for a quartet of reverse-grid 'qualifying' races take place.

Attempts to make start times less antisocial by moving races in the east later have ameliorated this and the most common start-time for races is currently 1410 UK time - but only with nine occurrences. There's also three that start an hour earlier. But the overall span stretches from an earliest start of 0510 and a latest start of 1910.

The NFL is a good example of a sporting entity that rations its offerings. Each team plays 16 regular-season games. Then, there's a maximum of four games in the playoffs, which would require a team to make the Super Bowl and get there via the wildcard round that feeds into the playoffs proper.

Just as there are limits to the endurance of the fans, so there are limits to that of the participants

Other sports series take a different approach. The NBA offers 82 regular-season games plus the playoffs with the MLB having an astonishing 162, while England's Premier League has 38 games per team on top of both domestic and European cup games that can extend the campaign to beyond 60 matches.

This is comparing apples with oranges given F1 races are shared by all fans, as opposed to supporters of specific teams watching their own games. But it does illustrate that there are differing approaches to how much you feed the market.

The American market also offers two different motorsport extremes. NASCAR's top tier favours a 36-race championship season with a couple of non-points events. Contrast that to IndyCar, which has a condensed six-month, 17-race calendar.

NASCAR has struggled for fan engagement in recent years with its extensive calendar and should be regarded as a warning for F1. IndyCar is at the other end of the scale; disappearing for six months a year would not be wise for F1 even if the off-season, as Lewis Hamilton pointed out at Spa, cannot afford to become any briefer.

F1 isn't in a position to offer too many races per season simply because of its size and peripatetic nature. But should the creeping increase continue it will eventually push up against the ceiling of what's beneficial.

The reasons for the growth in calendar size are simple. In basic terms, more races means more revenue. That suits all of the stakeholders, with Liberty Media making more money and the teams therefore getting their slice of a larger pie.

But even that model is dependent on how much is paid to stage the race, and some teams are disgruntled that the new Vietnam race is not paying anywhere near as much as some have reported.

Just as there are limits to the endurance of the fans, so there are limits to that of the participants. Drivers have raised eyebrows at the creeping rise of race numbers, but more significantly the rank and file staff members - both those attending the races and those toiling at the factory.

This has been partly offset by the reduction of winter testing to a pair of three-day tests. But despite the dedication and enthusiasm of those involved, there is a balance to be struck between work and life and the need to ensure your staff are not underperforming or suffering through overwork.

What's more, 2018's France-Britain-Austria triple header was unpopular with everyone and a clear sign that F1 needs to pace itself. While some have suggested reducing the length of the race weekend from three days to two to accommodate more races, this isn't an adequate counterbalance.

While it's one day fewer of work, it doesn't make a dent on the travel, set-up and tear-down work - not to mention having little impact on the demand on the fans' time. It also will reduce the value of staging a race to promoters and lead to a drop in the fees paid for staging races, in turn leading to a need for even more races to keep the coffers healthy.

That's a vicious circle into which F1 must not plunge itself. It's not just the value to the fans that must be preserved, but the financial value to ensure the long-term economic health of the teams. Judging the correct number of races is a tricky balancing act.

Last year, Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul suggested 16/17 was the right quantity to keep the fans enthused. Given Liberty Media has talked about wanting to make every race a big event - each one an individual Super Bowl - that's logical.

But it's perhaps a little too low and will not allow F1 to gain the revenue it needs without escalating the cost of staging races to a dangerous level. Yet next year's number of 22 feels a little high - and the often-mooted figure of 25 is definitely too much.

That means the ideal number is probably around the 19-20 mark for most, although F1's basement is now seemingly defined as 21.

To maintain its lustre, every date on the calendar must retain the feeling of significance - a true Grand Epreuve. Dilute that too much and a GP risks becoming something transient and disposable, rather than a race for the ages.