Formula 1 | Villeneuve: “24 races a year are brutal for the teams”

The season of formula 1 about to start will be the longest ever. It's true, we've been saying it for several years now, but some problems between Covid, floods and so on didn't allow the Circus to complete the entire calendar. This time, we hope, there will be no force majeure, and we are preparing for 24 races, something truly exhausting for those who constantly follow Formula 1 live. Jacques Villeneuve, former driver, 1997 world champion with Williams and today the face of Canal+ does not hide his doubts regarding the organization, showing solidarity towards mechanics and the media, a world of which he has been part since 2013 having also collaborated for many years with Sky Italia.

“It will be a brutal challenge for everyone – the Canadian told Planet F1 during the 2023 Abu Dhabi weekend. Already the back to back at the end of the season, with a return flight from Las Vegas to get here is not exactly the best. It's good for a top team, because they can rent a bigger plane and put all the mechanics on one flight. But for example, for the media it is exhausting, and I believe that this group of workers are the most penalized in everything that is happening, because costs are increasing, I'm talking about hotels and travel, and everything is becoming very complicated."

“Teams find ways to get there, staff rotations work but it's still hard, and then the time zone goes in the wrong direction, because instead of gaining time, you lose it, and this also makes everything very hectic in organizing the teams , catering and everything else. It takes time and it's difficult. Having three in a row, even though Qatar is not very far from Abu Dhabi, will be tiring, especially at the end of the year and with the season finishing in December, but I'm speaking mostly for the mechanics, not for the drivers. Compared to when I ran, they do fewer kilometers overall, because they don't have tests, whereas we had lots of them. And then there were two teams of mechanics and engineers: one followed the tests, the other the race weekends, and therefore they had time to go home and so on, but now everything is brutal, especially for them".