F1 must “completely” avoid triple headers

F1 teams will receive the early draft calendar for next year in the near future, having originally been slated for a 23-lap season in 2021.

The calendar has now shrunk to 22 races, and a number of the remaining races for this season have question marks amid ongoing travel restrictions.

This week’s Italian Grand Prix marks the end of F1’s second triple head race of the year, with a third scheduled in Mexico, Brazil and a Middle East lap in November.

A number of key F1 figures have warned against staging triple headers due to the strain on their team staff, with a return to practice only becoming necessary in the past year following the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

McLaren F1 team boss Seidl warned against not only holding triple headers in the next year, but also before expanding the calendar.

“The most important thing from my point of view is of course that we don’t increase the number of races per year,” said Seidl.

“Because I think what we have now is already too much of a burden to put on our people.

“And then another important issue is the number of triple headers. From my point of view, we should avoid this completely, also to relieve our people.

“To be honest, the calendar should try not to avoid triple headings.”

Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M, at the pits

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Haas team boss Gunther Steiner announced before the race this weekend in Monza that he had spoken to F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali about the future calendar structure and was confident that triple headers would not be the norm next year.

“I’ve talked to him about it a couple of times and he also thinks it would be better to maybe have more double heads instead of triple headers and single races,” said Steiner.

“I haven’t seen the calendar and it’s not just what we want to do, but when the hosts of the races want the races to take place.

“But in general everyone knows that triple headers are very exhausting for the staff, and you can feel that again here. It’s the third race in a row and it’s pretty tough.

“So until we have the calendar I don’t know what will happen, but I think the goal is to have as few triple headers as possible. It won’t be common in F1 to have triple headers. “