For a brand and sport that wants to and has openly said it wants to be a carbon neutral outfit, the 2023 schedule makes absolutely no sense. It isn’t like F1 tried to hide the ridiculousness of these dates and locations. They did it the very first few races of the season. While the confounding decisions continue throughout the entire calendar, that first 4 race stretch seems to make the least sense of all the bad date placement and groupings in this current calendar.
Take a look the first 2 races. Bahrain to open the season on March 5th and Saudi Arabia follows on March 19th. Where is the problem with this one you might ask? The fact that the Qatar grand prix at Losail Internation Circuit isn’t run until 7 months later on October 8th. Why not fit Losail in between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia on March 12th? Instead of making the jump from Japan(the previous race) and the US grand prix at COTA(the race after Qatar), make the Middle East a triple header to start the year sans Abu Dhabi. Give that 2 week break between Japan and USA to account for the much longer travel from those 2 countries as opposed to the distance between Qatar and Saudi Arabia which is minimum as they border each other.
The other baffling decisions on this calendar fall on the date of the Miami grand prix. The previous week is the Azerbaijan grand prix, then Miami, then F1 is in Europe for the next 3 weeks after Miami. Essentially we’re going from Europe/Asia to North America and back to Europe over that span. And for what? Why not group the European races and North/South American races together? Miami and in a way Canada are isolated from the other races in the US and South America as they are all held from October 22nd onwards. For a company that is priding itself on its pursuit of carbon neutrality, they are doing themselves no favors with these scheduling decisions.
The final gripe with this schedule is making Las Vegas the penultimate round of the 2023 championship. Vegas, a track which already looks like will not be anything to be excited over(I have been proven wrong before, hello Baku) could essentially be a championship decider. While I understand F1 is trying to grow the sport exponentially in the States, Vegas just doesn’t seem right as a potential decider. That is something a circuit like Brazil the week before is more suited towards. And in that matter Vegas should of been put right after COTA in the place of Mexico for a more logistical approach. Instead of going from Texas to Mexico City to Brazil then back to Vegas, why not go from Texas, to Vegas, to Mexico and then Brazil for the penultimate round?
For a sport that is trying to lead the way on being carbon neutral and net carbon emissions, they sure are going to be using a lot more than they should with these scheduling decisions. For a sport trying to make their carbon footprint 0 and help the environment on a global scale, someone in the scheduling room did not get the message.