How F1 solves its biggest logistical nightmare

If the recently published draft 2019 Formula 1 calendar has a familiar look to it, that should be no surprise, given that it features the same 21 races as this year's version.

There are no new events, as Miami's planned debut has been delayed until 2020. But all the other current races will continue, including - thanks to a last minute one-year deal subsidised in part by Mercedes - the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

Look a little closer and you will see some subtle changes. There's no repeat of the European triple header, as there is a free weekend between Austria and Britain. Meanwhile, several of the back-to-back flyaway pairings have been adjusted. Bahrain and China are now on their own instead of being paired, Russia follows Singapore instead of preceding Japan, and Mexico and the USA have swapped places.

In addition, the schedule starts a week earlier than in 2018 and finishes a week later - with the Abu Dhabi GP just stretching the season into December. These may be relatively minor adjustments, but added up they reflect just what a complex job it is to put the F1 schedule together.

Juggling the schedule used to be very much a hands-on exercise for Bernie Ecclestone, and it's easy to imagine him with a phone in each hand, wheeling and dealing as he moved races around and traded favours with promoters.

Under Liberty, the person who puts it all together is Chloe Targett-Adams (pictured with Ecclestone below) - F1's global director of promoters and business relations. A lawyer by training, she also has inside knowledge of the wider world of entertainment, as her father is musician Phil Manzanera, best known as lead guitarist with Roxy Music.

Targett-Adams joined what was then Ecclestone's small team in the F1 organisation in 2009, and through her legal capacity became involved in race contracts.

Last year, the new owner gave her the wider brief of not only sorting out the schedule but also dealing with the 21 race promoters on a day-to-day basis - fielding their enquiries, keeping them up to date with promotional and marketing initiatives and generally serving as the link to her bosses Chase Carey and Sean Bratches.

Previously, promoters would usually talk directly to Ecclestone, who was inevitably juggling a hundred other things, and it wasn't always possible or indeed necessary to pin him down on details.

The new arrangement reflects the more corporate structure that Liberty has brought to proceedings, and it's been well received by the race organisers.

"What we're doing [post-Ecclestone] is working more collaboratively with each promoter" Chloe Targett-Adams

"They've committed more resources to interacting with us, but Chase and Sean are still available," says Austin promoter Bobby Epstein. "It's not so much us not having a direct route, but having the benefit of more people involved.

"Chloe is an attorney, so she was already familiar with all the circuits and also knows all of their contracts. She's working as a liaison and bridging a gap that needed bridging. It's not confrontational - she wants both sides to communicate well."

Before landing her current role at F1, Targett-Adams gathered a lot of valuable knowledge of the race promotion side of the business.

"I joined F1 in 2009 with a pretty blank canvas," she recalls. "I came with a corporate finance and legal background, but I started working more and more on commercial projects over the years and on race promotion work.

"I've been involved with all the race promotion deals since 2012, so that meant getting to work closely with each promoter, but also be part of that business negotiation from when someone wants a race - that first step. I've had the opportunity to work on eight new races and bring them onto the calendar - India, Korea, Mexico, France, Russia and so on - alongside the renewals.

"That gives you a great perspective. So when the business was acquired by Liberty it was a great opportunity to transition over to the commercial side and take up the role of being able to lead the race promotion business."

Targett-Adams learned a great deal working with Ecclestone.

"There was a lot of work going on behind the scenes working with each promoter on the calendar - that was definitely something I remember Bernie doing," she says. "And we would talk about it, but it was very much his process.

"What we're doing now is working more collaboratively with each promoter on what the dates might be, and also taking the reins on it, [asking] 'What's going to create the best spectacle across the season in the calendar?' And also fit in with each race promoter and each city's major event planning.

"The logistics are always complex in being able to get around the world in such small amounts of time. It's also the personnel requirements, operational requirements, not just for our TV production and our wider events team, but clearly the most important part is the teams, so that they can turn up and race.

"I describe it as a really complex Rubik's Cube, and it's a real challenge to logistically manage. Typically, there's a national holiday, and you have to be aware of what's going on within that locality. An example would be China - there's a religious tomb-sweeping festival [April 5 in 2019], which is not a great weekend to have a major sports or entertainment event in Shanghai."

In fact, several other races are tied to public holidays or festivals, including the event at Suzuka - it's always scheduled before a Monday holiday, which helps to encourage fans to make a weekend of it. Next year that date has slipped back a few days, which in turn has created a controversial clash with the Fuji World Endurance Championship event.

"Where we can, we want to avoid clashes with other series," says Targett-Adams. "We want fans in the wider sense to engage with F1 obviously, but also with motorsport. We work very closely with our promoters, we ask them what is their preferred date, and we see how we can work around that.

"It's a national sports holiday in Japan, and it's normally around that October 6-7 window. I believe the date has moved, and for Suzuka it was really important to get the 13th [in 2019]. We were able to do it, but it's unfortunate there's a clash around that."

"It's a very onerous schedule for people working in the sport, so where we can make travelling a little bit easier, we look to do that" Chloe Targett-Adams

The USA/Mexico swap has also created a clash between Austin and the NASCAR event at nearby Texas Motor Speedway.

"Again it's around a national holiday, the day of the dead in Mexico," explains Targett-Adams.

"For the Austin promoter, weather plays a part. Remember a couple of years ago there was terrible rain that really decimated the crowd? We need to be careful of that.

"It was a conversation with both of them, 'Are you happy to go on that date, and are you happy to go on that date?' That's where we ended up. Obviously now there's a potential clash with NASCAR and we have to see how we work through that. It wasn't the intention, clearly."

Russia immediately precedes Japan in 2018, and the Sochi promoter has voiced some concerns about getting the freight out of the country in good time to ship it safely to Suzuka. That's led to the change for next season, with Singapore now preceding Russia, and then a gap before Japan. It's typical of the sort of juggling that must take place due to freight and customs issues.

"It's been very challenging for our team internally, liaising with our logistics partner DHL, and obviously our promoter is heavily involved in those conversations," says Targett-Adams. "Really, it's going to be an incredible feat, the Sochi/Japan leg this year. I always believe it's possible - that doesn't necessarily mean it should be repeated!

"The conversation this year was very much talking with our internal teams, [asking] 'What would make sense?' Because we know there's always going to be a potential compromise - it may be on man hours, it may be on logistics.

"Ultimately it's our role to make sure that we get the racing equipment and freight there on time and it works as seamlessly as possible, to create efficiencies and also to ensure the people are less tired.

"When we looked at planning [2019], we opted to do the Singapore/Sochi route, and then have the break before Japan, and ease the travel time. It's a very onerous schedule for people working in the sport, so where we can make travelling a little bit easier, we look to do that."

This year's France-Austria-GB triple header was the first in F1's history, and it was tough for all involved. There are no plans to repeat it.

"One of the reasons we scheduled the triple header this year was because of the World Cup," explains Targett-Adams. "It wasn't a decision taken lightly. Our executive team reached out to the teams and talked to them about it and explained the rationale. We looked at a number of different scenarios by which we could maybe work around it. That wasn't possible for 2018.

"We don't have a triple header in 2019, and it's not something that we're actively looking to reintroduce. We'll just see when we plan each year how we can create more of an evenly-based calendar."

Finalising the 2019 schedule was made easier when Miami dropped out of contention, and looking at the final version it's hard to know exactly where it might have fitted in.

In the meantime, though, Carey and Bratches have talked about expanding the F1 calendar to 25 races - so how will that work?

"It's clear that ultimately over the longer term we want to add a couple more races, our goal is to grow our calendar," says Targett-Adams. "How we do that in a way that makes sure we keep delivering world class F1 events is a great opportunity and a great challenge to have.

"I've been fortunate enough to work in this environment for a number of years where we brought new races onto the calendar. It's a lot of work, the event delivery side, the planning, the engineering, it's normally a two-year project.

"There's got to be a very good reason [for race date changes], and there's got to be an advantage for everyone to do that" Chloe Targett-Adams

"As we look now at what might be joining our calendar in 2020 and how that fits in with other races, whether you would look to bring one new race on at a time is a strategic question, but it's also a practical and operational question.

"It's something we're working out, and looking at the longer term strategy and how we can do it in a way that really adds to the sport as a whole and the business as a whole."

One solution for making space that has been mentioned by the Liberty bosses would be to make wholesale changes to a calendar that has so many fixed points. No one expects to see Monaco run in October, but why not mix things up - put Austin in April, or Shanghai at the end of the year, where it was placed originally?

Inevitably the problem is that races are wedded to a particular time of year, due to the aforementioned holidays, simple tradition, or the obvious climatic considerations.

"The weather plays an important part," says Targett-Adams. "If you think of the setting-up time of an event - Montreal for example, it's a temporary circuit in a park so there's a lot of build time. And with the snow that Montreal gets, there's a reason why it's in June, because of the logistics of trying to get it ready any earlier.

"Equally we wouldn't want to be racing in Spa or Monza in October or November, because it wouldn't be feasible to have a huge event or huge crowd at that time."

But despite those factors, consideration has been given to making big changes in the future.

"There's a number of reasons why it makes sense why we race in certain locations on certain dates," says Targett-Adams. "But let's really look at this again, does it work for our promoter, does it work for the teams, does it work for the calendar? If the answer would be yes, we're open-minded on that, but there are so many factors to work into that scenario.

"Whether it's actually a realistic outcome I think is yet to be decided. For me it's important to really scenario-play that, stress-test it. Ultimately this is an incredible sport that travels the world, and it has to get from A to B at the right time and have everyone turn up and race, so there's got to be a very good reason [for change], and there's got to be an advantage for everyone to do that."