F1 risks breaking its hardest-working people

To the team-replica baseball cap, ill-fitting artificial-fabric polo shirt and jacket, add another Formula 1 fan essential for 2020 and beyond: a private jet. Or a social calendar free of meet-ups with, you know, friends.

If you thought the F1 calendar was a monumental slab of illogic in the not-so-distant but certainly dim past, when Bernie Ecclestone tossed sheets of paper in the air with race names on them and then jotted down the order in which they landed, prepare to think again.

Liberty has a few hefty salaries to justify, and how better to maintain appearances than to have plenty of races? Yes, the calendar is growing - and you can take it or leave it, as a popular beat combo once sang, but you'd better believe it. At what point, though, will more grands prix become too many?

The simple answer probably depends upon which promontory you're occupying. If you're the kind of die-hard fan who trawls news sites and forums hourly for updates, desperate to feel part of a constantly evolving scene, you probably feel pain on those weekends not occupied by a three-day grand prix jamboree.

You're probably wondering what all the moaning is about from the denizens of the other side of the gulf - those who feel that we've already got quite enough races, thank you very much.

If we were to express this in terms of a Venn diagram - let's do it rigorously or not at all - then the latter set is a pretty significant one because it contains the majority of people in F1. Certainly, those who skin their knuckles week in, week out in the service of the show, as opposed to those who swan around in Gulfstreams, 'do meetings', and count the pennies as they roll in.

From the early 1970s until the late '90s the annual F1 schedule remained relatively stable at around the 16-race mark.

After Ecclestone sold the commercial rights to venture-capitalist vultures, that figure ticked upwards to the present total of 21 as Bernie chased lucrative sanctioning fees to feed the new owner's relentless hunger for cash. And that calendar bloat is continuing now the commercial rights reside with a megacorporation with nervous shareholders who require regular appeasement.

There will also be a human cost to the pursuit of more races. The present calendar has a punishing effect on F1's working-class

Following the confirmation of the Vietnam and Dutch Grands Prix for next year, along with Mexico and Spain receiving a stay of execution, F1 unveiled its longest-ever calendar at the end of last month.

The teams had already signalled (at a meeting with F1 CEO Chase Carey in Hungary) the unanimous approval required for this to happen, and in short order the 22-race beast emerged, blinking, into the sunlight.

Beginning in Australia on March 15 and terminating in Abu Dhabi on November 29, it features seven back-to-back events. This is problematic, even before we get on to the subject of Liberty's plan to grow the calendar to 24 races come 2021.

Although the teams gave their assent to 22 races ("We've got to let Liberty do their business, and their business is to grow F1," says Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff), there were differences of opinion about how to manage the power unit situation.

Red Bull wanted teams to be permitted to use four rather than three per driver during the season, while Ferrari and Mercedes were aligned in their desire to stay at three.

"Increasing the number of units available would be simply wrong," says Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, "because it means we have more engines but then more costs, which makes no sense."

Given the likelihood of a cost cap being part of the 2021 rules package, this is more in keeping with the prevailing spirit of doing more with less. It will appeal to customers of Ferrari and Mercedes who, Racing Point aside, don't have the benefit of enthusiastic investment from new owners.

Ecclestone himself is delighting in stirring the pot, telling reporters recently that 16 races a year is enough. The experience elsewhere suggests he may be right

The horse-trading behind the scenes resulted in the anticipated compromise of less testing: fewer days in pre-season and none at all once the race programme begins.

But this only addresses part of the problem.

Teams are torn on the issue of more races because, in theory, the greater revenue means the prize pot also grows - especially if, as promised, the post-2020 commercial settlement is more equitable. But since travel is one of the biggest expenses teams face, adding races disproportionately adds to overall costs.

It most definitely doesn't count as 'sweating the assets'.

Also, Liberty is known to be struggling to command the kind of sanctioning fees Ecclestone used to wangle. And every time it allows a race such as the Dutch Grand Prix to join at lower than the going rate (or even, as was the case with the still-putative Miami race, in effect waive the fee), it emboldens other promoters to seek a discount when the contract next rolls around.

Ecclestone himself is delighting in stirring the pot, telling reporters recently that 16 races a year is enough.

The experience elsewhere suggests he may be right. To watch a NASCAR race these days is to stare boggle-eyed at empty grandstands where once a morass of humanity gorged itself on the action.

Faced with the prospect of having a race every weekend, rather than lapping it up the fans said, en masse, "Thanks - I'll pass."

There will also be a human cost to the pursuit of more races. The present calendar - particularly the succession of flyaways in the second half of the season - has a punishing effect on F1's working-class: the mechanics and catering staff who are first on-site to set up and last to leave having packed away again.

The expansion will mean more back-to-back events or aberrations such as last year's triple-header. That, says Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams, "broke a lot of people".

The obvious solution to that one, if we're going to cross this Rubicon anyway, is to hire additional personnel and rotate them through the year. But how does that fit in with less-is-more F1? The answer is that it doesn't.