Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has admitted his doubts about Formula 1 sustaining its popularity with longer calendars have been proven wrong.
The 2024 F1 schedule will be the sport’s most extensive to date, with 24 events set to take place beginning with the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 2 and ending in Abu Dhabi on December 8.
“The fans are priority because we have got a product people want to see,” Steiner told Total-Motorsport.com. “I was worried about the saturation factor.
“When you [have] too much, you don’t like it anymore. If you keep on eating caviar, you don’t like it anymore. But at the moment, there is no saturation because the races are so different.
“Twenty-four, I think it’s the limit for how the teams are set up right now, but I wouldn’t say because the teams don’t like to do, let’s do 19.
“If the fans want us [then] we are here for the fans because we are nothing without the fans because they keep us going. We are all aligned there with F1. Twenty-four is the maximum.”
American growth good for F1
Since 2019, American interest in F1 has increased massively, with three American events scheduled to be on the calendar until at least 2025.
Along with Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, F1 now visit Miami and Las Vegas for street races, whilst US companies MoneyGram and Oracle are title sponsors of Haas and reigning champions Red Bull.
“They are very important because we are the American team, but in general, for the sponsors, big sponsors coming to F1,” said Steiner when asked about the importance of the American market to F1.
“The global market is important, so it’s important America is strong. It’s as important for all the other sponsors outside of America. We’ve got a lot of American partners being an American team.
“America is still the biggest economy in the world, you [can’t] forget that one. So having popularity, they [want] F1 to get even better and bigger.”
