F1 teams seek 2010 schedule changes
The FIA recently endorsed Bernie Ecclestone's draft 2010 calendar, which showed a healthy 19 rounds between March and November.
Traditionally, the Concorde Agreement stipulates income for a maximum of 17 races per season, with extra events needing to be agreed with the support of the teams.
"The bottom line is that going racing does cost us money, you've heard that before, but under the new arrangements that we have with FOM there is a mechanism by which we have recompense for that," McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale said during the team's Tuesday 'phone-in'.
Revenue aside, the teams expressed concern during meetings in Singapore last weekend about the scheduling of Monaco and Turkey next year as a mid-year back-to-back event.
Ecclestone appears already to have acknowledged the problem, by arranging that if negotiations with Montreal organizers fall through, the Turkish round will be delayed by a week to give teams more time to turn around after Monaco.
But if Canada does get the go-ahead, we reported the paddock rumor from Singapore that one outcome is that Turkey, so badly attended this year, might simply be dropped.
If the Istanbul round is directly preceded by Monaco, it is likely that teams will need to designate it a 'flyaway' rather than a standard European road-transported event, which would have serious repercussions in terms of cost.
Neale admitted that the Monaco-Turkey back-to-back would be a "phenomenal logistics challenge".
"Of course we want to do both events, and it's important that we do them well, but we just need to bear in mind that uprooting all of the infrastructure out of Monaco and moving across to Turkey is not a trivial issue, so we've got some questions around that," he added.
09/27/09 The Formula One teams are set to hold talks with Bernie Ecclestone to request changes to the 2010 calendar due to logistic nightmares created by some back-to-back events.
Earlier this week the FIA released the provisional calendar for 2010, which placed Turkey immediately after Monaco followed by a one week break before Canada.
Having looked at the schedule, some of the teams have already raised concerns about the logistics of tackling these three events as shipping their equipment from one to the next could to be a problem.
"There needs to be further outline discussions on the additional race," Toyota F1 President John Howett told Autosport. "We need to understand what is envisaged, because logistically there are some challenges that need a major change. If you made Turkey a flyaway, you are then struggling with a flyaway to Montreal. There are some issues that we need practically to resolve."