Günther Steiner does not believe that the appearance of new races on the championship calendar could in any way damage Formula 1’s heritage and its original character.
This year was the inaugural Miami Grand Prix and many questioned whether the specific American approach, of which this race exemplifies, was in the tradition of the championship.
This approach involved not only huge crowds of all kinds of celebrities, insane ticket prices, but also very specific “decorations” in the form of an artificial harbor and beaches where there was no sea, but strange-looking mermaids swam in the pools. In fact, former head of championship management Bernie Ecclestone said all of this reminded him not of Formula 1, but of a club-level race.
The head of the Haas F1 team has his own opinion on this.
“Today, the season’s calendar consists of many different phases,” says Steiner. – Races aren’t the same anymore, like they were in the 80s and 90s, when everything always looked the same. Now we understand that the approaches may be different.
For example, if you compare the stages in Austin and Miami, both events draw huge crowds, although they are completely different in nature.
At the same time, I think a race like the Spanish Grand Prix should not try to reproduce what was in Miami – there are plenty of spectators without it. There are many really advanced fans who only want one thing: to see the race of fast cars. But there are others who also like fun parties, and for such people it makes sense to go to stages like in Miami. I think the public now has a choice.”
It is feared that as the number of new races increases, classic circuits will disappear from the Formula 1 calendar one by one, but Steiner does not share them: “We only lose those races that are not financially viable. But the legacy of Formula 1 is not in jeopardy, classic racing will always be enough. And if one of them gets banned from the calendar for a year or two, then it comes back, and I don’t see any problems here.”
Source: F1 News
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