Two-time Formula 1 world champion Mika Häkkinen has sent a clear warning to the premier class of motorsport. In focus: The mighty F1 calendar coming up next year.
After 22 races in 2023 – 23 were originally planned – there will be 24 Grands Prix on the Formula 1 calendar next year – not including sprint races.
The drivers, the racing team employees, mechanics and the entire staff have an immense workload to cope with, and the strain is getting bigger and bigger. Many people involved were already tired when the season came to an end at the end of November. Former F1 racing driver Mika Häkkinen also noticed this.
“The 2023 season was record-breakingly long. If you compare it with the World Cup programs in my time, you can see that we had 17 race weekends. Now there are already 22 dates,” said Häkkinen in a YouTube video from “Unibet International ” and added: “I was there at some of them and I could see in people’s faces how hard the end of the season was.”
Häkkinen: You can’t make mistakes in Formula 1
The problem was not necessarily the 22 Grands Prix mentioned, which were completed after the originally planned date in Imola was canceled due to flooding, but the so-called back-to-back races, i.e. Grands Prix on consecutive weekends.
“It’s not easy to focus on the races so often. And I’m not necessarily thinking about the drivers, but also about the mechanics and the whole organization. That was probably the biggest challenge for everyone,” said the 55th -year-old who became world champion twice with McLaren-Mercedes in 1998 and 1999 and hung up his racing gloves at the end of 2001.
“If I were still racing in Formula 1, then given the number of races I would seriously negotiate compensation with the team again,” he said and added warningly: “And I would not only talk about it, but also ask How to ensure that people can perform at the required level so that they don’t make mistakes.”
After all, F1 is a “high-speed sport in which you don’t want to make any mistakes” and you’re not allowed to.