Formula One look's set to add another street circuit to it's calendar with the news that Thailand are close to agreeing to host the sports second race under the lights from 2014. In confirming the news the Sports authority in Thailand said that no contract is in place and that an official agreement is yet to be announced but they are confident that the event will go ahead.
This will be Formula One's second night race as Singapore made it's debut as FORMULA One's first ever night race in 2008. The news that Thailand is to be added to the calendar doesn't surprise me at all as the sport has a massive fan base in Asia, with races already held in Singapore, China, Korea and Japan.
The question is what race will make way for it? In my opinion, Formula One can't afford to lose another European event because in recent years it has become a truly global sport with no real base as Europe traditionally had the most number of race's. As of next season we will only have 6 races in Europe and for a sport steeped in history we can't afford to lose circuits like SPA, Monza and Silverstone as they are all iconic venues that are at the heart of Formula One.
Silverstone is a case in point as no fewer then seven of the eleven team's involved in F1 are based in and around the circuit and anyway the race is secure until a least 2017.
Under the Concorde Agreement which all the team's must sign up to the Formula One season can have no more then 20 races in the year. Now as a massive fan of Formula One in my opinion this should be amended in order to allow at least 23 races on the calendar. Now I know what are thinking that team's are already stretched as it is and with sport trying to cut costs rather then increase them where's the sense in that?
Well my answer to that is in 2014 Formula One switches from 2.4 litre V8 engines to 1.6 litre turbo charged V6 engines so team's are already spending insane amounts of money for something that they are not 100 percent happy.
In my opinion the Formula One season should start earlier and we could maybe have three back to back fly away race's. If I was to sort a calendar out for 2014 it would look something like this:
February 23rd - Australia
March 2nd - Malaysia
March 16th - China
March 30th - Bahrain
April 13th - Barcelona
April 20th - Monaco
May 4th - America - New Jersey (Night Race)
May 11th - Canada
May 25th - Hungary
June 1st - Belgium
June 15th - Britain
June 29th - Italy
July 13th - Brazil
July 27th - China
September 7th - Korea
September 14th - Japan
September 28th - Thailand (Night Race)
October 12th - USA - Texas
October 26th - India
November 9th - Argentina
November 23rd - Singapore (Night Race)
If I had to choose a calendar for Formula One in 214 it would look something like this. (Please note that this calendar is completely fictional and is something I did for fun)
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