Sebastian Vettel and Mattia Binotto Raise Serious Concerns For Stressful 2021 F1 Calendar

Formula 1 will most likely be setting itself up for a record-breaking 2021 season comprising a massive tally of 23 race weekends, or more. And Sebastian Vettel did not hold back from voicing his opinion about this chaotic race calendar.

Although he felt that the drivers could handle double and triple-header weekends, he expressed concern for the thousands of crew members.

“To be honest with you as a driver, we are probably on the better side of things,” he was quoted as saying by GPfans. “It’s even a lot harder and starts to be probably too hard for the working staff.

“All the mechanics, all the logistics squad and so on that come to racetracks to set everything up, run the show, literally, and then have to dismount everything. I think the stress on those people is a lot higher.”

The initial schedule proposed no more than 22 races in 2021. But with the reports of Saudi Arabia looking to get its nose into the calendar, F1 ended up increasing the number to 23. Now what’s worse is that the 23 race-worth calendar could get bigger.

This eventually led to Vettel expressing his disdain. What’s more, the German is not the only one who feels this way as his team principal, Mattia Binotto, echoed the same sentiment.

Binotto rallies behind Sebastian Vettel to express his displeasure with the 2021 race calendar

Mattia Binotto sounded quite annoyed with the fact that F1 is increasing the number of races for 2021. But he also added that he does not have any intentions of opposing F1’s idea.

Instead, Binotto’s entire focus is on rotating the Ferrari employees for alternative race weekends in order to strike a balance within the team.

“With the increasing number of races, you have to make a trade-off to take care of engineers and technicians, so that you eventually find a balance,” he said.

Over this season, drivers got a taste of how an F1 race calendar would look like with double and triple-header race weekends. As it turned out to be a success, F1 does not seem to be stopping itself from continuing the trend through the next season.

Overall, from the standpoint of the ones inside the paddock, the race calendar looks nothing but strangled and of course, the teams will figure out a way to keep the burden off their staff.

But from the fans’ viewpoint, they could be in for a feast come 2021, with a number of circuits making their way into the sport for the first time in F1’s history.

(The quotes have been translated from Dutch using Google Translate)