Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says it is important for F1 to retain "iconic" venues on the calendar after a summer without the German Grand Prix.
The Nurburgring was unable to agree a deal with Bernie Ecclestone to host this year's race despite Germany boasting Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenberg on the grid. Though F1 is set to return to Germany in 2016 at Hockenheim, the future of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza has also been in doubt in recent months and Wolff wants to see the core European races protected.
"My personal opinion is that those iconic and historic Grands Prix are important for the sport," Wolff said. "But then it’s a very difficult balance which needs to be achieved and that is securing income for the sport and income for the teams so I guess it’s not always very easy and straightforward in making those decisions.
"Certainly for us, the German Grand Prix is extremely important as is Monza and as is Spa, so from our perspective it would be good if we can keep those Grands Prix."
And Honda's Yasuhisa Arai argues there should be less emphasis on home drivers for each venue and more on an enticing overall package for fans.
"You know that we had a race in Suzuka in the eighties and the most famous drivers were Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost," Arai said. "We had over 200,000 people per day in Suzuka so it means that good drivers, good teams, good machines are very important. I don’t care about the nationality... I want to get a Japanese driver but there isn’t the talent. The fans are most important."
Monza inching closer to fresh Italian GP deal
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