Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey said that he can "fill a page" with a list of potential new venues for grands prix, and that those opportunities "are now being studied," according to Adam Cooper of MOTORSPORT. Next year, the calendar is "already set at 21 races." Beyond next season, Carey is "keen to expand further," but he acknowledged that the F1 teams "will have to agree to such a move, given the obvious logistical issues." Carey: "Our first focus is making our 21 races [in 2018] as strong as they can be. We've talked about them being bigger events and maximizing things like hospitality -- clearly the high-end customer is important at these live events, and we are focused on that. We have not really targeted a number of races. We know there's an opportunity to add them, but we want to engage more with teams before we get into the specifics. ... I could fill a page with the number of locations that have asked to meet and discuss the opportunity to host an F1 race." Carey was "keen to stress that while this year's Malaysian GP will be the last," he expects Singapore -- which had been "in doubt some months ago" -- to remain on the schedule. He said, "We are actively engaged on renewing Singapore, so we don't expect Singapore to go away. We've got to reach a deal, but we are actively engaged there, and our goal is to continue the race" (MOTORSPORT, 5/10).
MORE TO COME: ESPN.com's Nate Saunders reported F1 will introduce new measures to "engage with fans at the Spanish Grand Prix following the successful relaxation of social media rules for teams at the start of the year." Carey said that "the benefits of changing F1's social media mentality are already clear to see" and added that "more is to come in Barcelona." He said, "We unleashed our drivers, teams, promoters and more on social media, which resulted in a three to four-fold growth in areas like video engagement on social media" (ESPN.com, 5/10).
