Tost opposes any move to a shorter F1 season

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Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost says that he will oppose any move towards a shorter Formula 1 world championship season in the future.

"I would absolutely refuse to go below 20 races," he told Motorsport.com this week. "The year has 52 weeks, therefore we have a lot of time."

The World Motor Sport Council has just formally approved a nearly-unchanged line-up of 21 races for 2019, beginning with Australia on March 17 and ending at Abu Dhabi on December 1.

The new schedule does avoid a repeat of the unpopular 'triple header', three races on consecutive weekend that was tried out this season, which teams and drivers found too demanding.

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However some team principals including Renault F1 chief Cyril Abiteboul believe that this is still too many races in a single year and want to see the number cut back by up to a quarter. Tost is vehemently against any such move.

"If you have 15 boring races people will not watch any more," he said. "No, I think we should have around 20, 22 races - and I think this is a good number.

"We also should not forget that we are a global player," he added. "Therefore we need a certain number of races to stay a global player."

Some races such as the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Italian race at Monza are under threat after 2019 due to financial or contractual reasons.

But F1's new owners are looking at adding new events at venues in Vietnam and Miami as a way of keeping the number of races per season constant.

Sauber boss Frederic Vasseur said that the sport needed to be careful not to oversaturate the market with too many races.

"The more races you are doing, everybody is used to," he said. "At some stage we have to keep the exceptional side of the races."

He added that 21 races was "for me it's a bit too much", but agreed that Sauber would still be at the track for every race no matter what.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner also wanted to see a reduction in the number of races per season - but not to the extent suggested by Abiteboul.

"To go as low as 15 or 16 I think is too low," he said. "I think that 21 is the upper end.

"There's only so many chapters you can have in a book and I think at some point you go beyond what's relevant," he explained.

"It's tough for the guys in the garage, for the travelling staff. It's tough for everybody involved."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.