Formula 1: How many is too many?

Context:

The new Formula 1 2023 race calendar was announced this Tuesday by the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile). The new calendar is set to have a record breaking 24 races across five continents. New additions to the calendar are the China Grand Prix, Qatar Grand Prix and the brand new Las Vegas Grand Prix, while only losing the France Grand Prix from last year. The amount of races has been increasing due to the increase in popularity of the sport, and while some may enjoy it, F1 workers are getting tired of excessive travel.

Controversy behind new races: Enough is enough.

Many people working in Formula 1 have expressed their concerns on the increasing calendars, workers suffer from massive jet lag and have to work 24/7 during racing weekends since everything has to be perfect. They are not getting enough rest and having races go from Australia, to China, to the USA and back to Japan is just to much travel and a logistic challenge for the teams.

Although there has been a rule set in place where there can only be 24 races maximum per year, people are worried that money will eventually add races to the calendar in the future, just like it has happened the last few years, not long ago the Formula 1 calendar was made up by 13-16 races most of which were set in the same continent.

2 time world champion Fernando Alonso spoke about at a recent race: "I think we need to be careful with the number of races," Alonso stated. "I think we should agree on a limit, because I think for the teams it's quite demanding how the schedule and the calendar is now, especially [because] we don't have so many races in Europe anymore.”

We can compare this to an American sport, for example the NFL; many people believe that the NFL requires teams to do excessive travel, more so now with the inclusion of international games, but NFL teams only play a maximum on 9 games outside their home city, while Formula 1 teams have to travel to 24 different cities in 20 different countries. It is not only environmental damaging, but a big toll in F1 employees who have to spend more than half their year away from home and families.