LONDON: The Formula One calendar will expand to a record-equalling 20 races next season with Mexico returning in November after a 23-year absence, the governing FIA said yesterday.
This year’s calendar had 19 races.
The November 1 race in Mexico City will be paired with the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, the previous weekend. Mexico last appeared on the calendar in 1992.
The Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne will start the season as usual on March 5 while Abu Dhabi will again end the championship on November 29.
This year’s race in Abu Dhabi will see, controversially, double points awarded for the first time.
There was no mention in the International Automobile Federation (FIA) statement, issued after a World Motor Sport Council meeting in Beijing, whether that would continue to be the case in 2015.
There will again be a two-week break between Australia and the second round in Malaysia, rather than putting them on as back-to-back events.
However there will be four ‘pairs’ of races on successive weekends, with Malaysia and Bahrain running back-to-back before Germany and Hungary, Singapore and Japan and then United States and Mexico. Japan has been paired with Russia, making its Formula One debut in Sochi next month, on this season’s calendar.
As expected, the Indian Grand Prix which was dropped at the end of 2013 failed to make a return while there was also no room for a proposed race in New Jersey after successive postponements. F1 last had 20 races in a season in 2012, with some teams reluctant to go over that number.
Meanwhile, former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn has distanced himself from speculation that he could return to the Formula One team following next month’s departure of chairman Luca Di Montezemolo.
“I’m not considering a role at Ferrari or anywhere else at the moment. I’m not in contact with Ferrari and am not actively seeking a new role in Formula One,” the Briton told Germany’s Auto, Motor und Sport magazine.
The 59-year-old, who played a major role in Ferrari’s era of dominance with seven times world champion Michael Schumacher between 1999 and 2004, left F1 at the end of last year after a management shuffle at Mercedes.
Brawn won the 2009 constructors’ world championship with his own team, which emerged from the remains of the Honda works outfit he had led, while Jenson Button took the drivers’ crown.
He then sold Brawn GP to Mercedes, while staying as leader, with the team now dominant four years on and heading for both championships.
Montezemolo has said he would be leaving on October 13 and there has been speculation that Ferrari, short of heavyweight hitters of Brawn’s calibre, could approach their former employee. AGENCIES
