Late start to 2016 F1 season?

I suspect there will be a new race announced as the opener, which will be in March.

If the aim is, as that article suggests, to get rid of some of the long breaks, then that will be hugely annoying.
I like the long breaks as it gives me a bit of a breather from updating everything and also means it's possible to take a two week holiday without it affecting any races.
 
As long the end date is the same it will mean less of a gap betwen races and some won't be able to plan their holidays accordingly. The delayed start will mean more time for car development etc. I am concerned that they will extend the season one year and advance it the following year (not that anything remotely close that has hapened in the past, is there). This would leave little time between the end of the season one year and the start of the season the next year.
 
I seem to recall from when I was compiling the data for the entire history of F1 drivers which I stored on a separate drive and is now corrupt losing me all my hard work that there was a season that ended on something like December 29th and the next season started on January 1st in South Africa IMS..
 
Bernie is up to getting rid of all European races, France has been gone for a long time he tried his damnedest to get rid of Britain he has got rid of Germany and at present his sights are set on getting rid of Italy, it used to be said that the season didn't really start until the European season started but now how many European races are left? Eight is it, something like that out of what was going to be a 20 race calendar, you do the maths...
 
If the season starts late... does this mean the mid year break in August will go then?

Anyone think Qatar might want to hold a race - the BBC did ask the Crown Prince of Bahrain about Qatar hosting a race which caught him by surprise
 
Bernie needs to go for the good of F1 and all F1 fans; his interests and ours are NOT aligned.

Draft Calendar for 2016 is just more games to push Teams to fit more races in and to bid up the cost ofr any plum dates (such as the first / last races of the year).

Rough idea ;

52 weeks in year minus 4 (inc 2 week mandated team shutdown for mid year) = 48 weeks (NB not an August shutdown that is just so European and F1 is a world sport)
48 minus 18 weeks off season (inc another 4 week mandated shutdown over Christmas / New Year) = 30 weeks
30 weeks split either side of the August break for 10 races in each 15 weeks = 2 races on average every 3 weeks
So have double headers with minimal travel then a break e.g. Aus and Malaysia, Canada and USA, Spain and Belgium, UK and Germany?

Not perfect but you see where its going....
Start in Australia at end of Jan year 1 (week 4) run til week 19 (Start of May) break til week 23 (start of June) run til week 38 (Mid Sept) CLOSE the season to design a new car for the next 18 weeks (til week 56 i.e. 4 weeks into the next year w(inc 2 week mandated team shutdown which is the start date of end Jan in year 2)

Would also help if Bernie could pay teams enough to have two sets of race personnel rotating for each two race set so the staff have a 3 week gap to head back to base, collect mods and updates and head out for another two race set refreshed.

And as a bonus feature at the last GP in each 15 week set you could run a triple header either moving to another nearby venue or having a Sunday race and say a Monday bonus race (may be a difficulty for Pastor if enough spares are not available!)

Final bonus is that by having two races in a similar part of the world the start times are more or less the same for each so viewers would be less subject to seemingly random variations in start times e.g. In Aus if a race stared 4 hrs before sundown in Jan (i.e. a 4.30pm local time start with sundown at 8.30pm) that is roughly 8am in UK and 9am in Europe so great for TV times.
 
Great for Asian and European timezones, not so for American timezones. For those of us on the east coast of North and South America, that would put the pre-race coverage starting at about 12.30am, and the end of the post-race analysis in the wee hours of the morning. Not a good time of day for a first race of the season for American continent viewers on the east coast. The west coast gets a rather lovely late evening race. Now if you set it at 3.30pm local, it's 4.30am in the UK, and a slightly more reasonable 11.30pm for the East coast. Post-race analysis finishes up at a more reasonable bedtime for American continent viewers on the east coast, and just in time for an early breakfast for Brits. Everyone gets inconvenienced equally by odd sleeping hours, with Europeans getting up early, and American continent-dwellers staying up late.
 
I suspect if Ferrari continue to make progress and Vettel has a chance of winning anything Hockenheim will be packed. The ambivalence of the German public towards Nico Rosberg was quite astonishing.
 
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