Sainz remains opposed to F1 calendar inflation

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Carlos Sainz has admitted that he remains "totally against" the way that Formula 1 management is trying to add an increasing number of races to the calendar.

Next season will see the number of events rise to 22 for the first time, compared to just 17 races that comprised the 2009 season.

Sainz reckons that's too much, despite the Grand Prix weekend itinerary being cut back to just three days of activity in 2020 by way of compensation for packing in more events.

F1 to 'selectively drop' certain races in future - Carey

Media commitments and scrutineering will now take place on Friday ahead of practice.

"Personally I like when Formula 1 goes to a place it makes a big impact so it becomes a week of having Formula 1 there,” Crash.net reports Sainz as explaining.

"That last extra day that we take off doesn’t fully compensate those 22 or 25 races that we want to have in the future," he continued. "It still involves too much travelling and too much effort from the mechanics."

"I think this is a way of preparing for a bigger calendar which is something I’m totally against," he added.

The latest additions to the calendar are the inaugural Vietnam GP which will be held in April, and a return to Zandvoort the following month which replaces the traditional German race.

And Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey confirmed this week that he was still hoping to see a second US Grand Prix on the calendar at some stage.

"We still have some issues to resolve in Miami," Carey told CNN. "They are probably at this point predominantly political ones, and there have been some local meetings and activity in the last month."

He added that a second race in the country would not come at the expense of the current event at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

"It's clearly an addition to Austin," he said. "We think the US is a big enough market and a broad enough market, and growing in the US. I think having two races will actually make both stronger."

Overall, FIA president Jean Todt said that he was hoping to hold the line steady at 22 races for the foreseeable future, meaning that any Miami race would have to come at the expense of another circuit dropping out.

“At the moment we should focus on 22 races," he told Motorsport-Magazin.com. “I think it will be a long process to approach 25 races."

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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.