Ferrari sporting director Massimo Rivola said today that the 2014 calendar will cause problems for the teams.
Like many F1 insiders Rivola, who still expects the final tally to drop from 22 to 20 races, believes that the unprecedented triple header of Monaco, New Jersey and Canada is a logistical nightmare. It’s the first time that a flyaway has ever been scheduled back-to-back with a European evemt.
“To be honest I’m still hoping we come back to the 20 races as per the current sporting regulation,” said Rivola. “We will see. At the moment the calendar is not the best calendar possible in terms of logistics. Even the first race in Australia, alone, is not ideal. From the logistics side I would prefer to stop and do a race in a back-to-back coming back from Australia. For sure there are some good commercial reasons behind this that I am not aware of but we will see. When the calendar is 100 per cent fixed we will manage it.”
Regarding the Monaco-New Jersey trip he said: “I can say that even for a top team it’s something almost impossible, to be honest, to be done. But as I said, we will see the real calendar and then we figure it out.”
Meanwhile Sauber team manager Beat Zehnder said: “Technically, it will be very difficult to have a back-to-back from Monaco to Jersey, because normally the freight will leave for Canada, let’s say, on the Saturday before the race. And so that’s why, if you’re only able to send your freight on a Monday or a Tuesday, it compromises your weekend quite a bit.”
Adam Cooper F1 