Formula 1 Managing Dir, Commercial Operations Sean Bratches said that Liberty Media wants to “rejig” the F1 race calendar so GPs are grouped together on a regional basis, according to James Galloway of SKY SPORTS. The future of the circuit's race calendar has been “one of the main points of intrigue” since the Liberty Media takeover in January. Bratches said that he has been contacted by around 30 potential venues since taking office and that he would like to "bring regional consistency to the calendar.” Bratches: “We have a vision in terms of where we see the next tranche of races. It would be premature to suggest any cities in particular.” Regionalization is central to Liberty Media's overall plan, he said, adding, "From a broader sense, I think we'd like to create a balance between Europe, the Americas and Asia. In a perfect world we'd like to have all the races take place in a region and then move to the next region and then the next. Obviously, [the pluses are] efficiencies from a team standpoint in terms of moving this circus around the world, but also from navigating fans." Bratches also said that “the addition of carefully-selected city races will help swell interest in F1.” He said, "We want to play a bit more offense going forward and identify cities around the world where we can have more city circuits as opposed to traditional tracks. We still want a balance” (SKY SPORTS, 3/30).
