Formula One boss revs up plans for new generation
Rebecca Clancy talks to Stefano Domenicali, F1’s new chief, about sprint races, grand slams and life after Hamilton
STEFANO DOMENICALI is sitting in his temporary office in Baku for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, wearing a Formula One-branded shirt, with the pristine blue sky visible outside.
It is not something you would have seen his predecessor, Chase Carey, wearing, but the 55-yearold Italian is taking a different approach.
For the new chief executive of F1, racing has been a part of his life since birth. He was born and raised in Imola, near the famous circuit, and grew up around racetracks. By the time he had graduated from Bologna University he had spent time checking passes at races and was a licensed steward.
From university he joined Ferrari, where he worked his way up the ranks to become team principal, just in time for the team to win their most recent constructor’s championship, in 2008, before leaving in 2014.
He describes his new job as a great responsibility and he is thankful that Liberty Media, the
American conglomerate that bought F1 at the start of 2017, gave him a five-year contract to shape the sport.
He jokes that it already feels like he has been in the job that long, not the five months he actually has. The pandemic meant that he spent the first few months working from his home in Italy, but he has now made the move to London with his son, living a short walk from F1’s office in St James’s Market off Regent Street. His wife and daughter will join him in the summer once school has finished in Italy.
The pandemic is also giving him daily headaches as he tries to piece together a 23-race calendar, the ‘‘upper end’’ of what he thinks the total should be, and he is on the phone almost daily to the organisers. Australia has already moved from March to November, China was postponed, Turkey added, then scrapped, Canada cancelled and now Singapore is set to be shifted from October 3. F1 is exploring the possibility of Turkey or China filling the slot, which is a week before the
Japanese Grand Prix, or a second race in the US, which could require a juggling of dates.
Domenicali also has to contend with trying to get fans back in the grandstands and is hopeful that they will be full at the second race in Austria, at the start of July, and then again two weeks later at England’s Silverstone.
It is not an easy job, made harder in a sport nicknamed the Piranha Club, in which every stakeholder – F1, the FIA, the governing body, and all 10 teams – are out to get what suits them.
Carey was successful in his bid to bring in the cost cap – $NZ200 million a year – and one of Domenicali’s first jobs is to shake up the format of the race weekends and introduce another championship.
Sprint races, which are a third of the distance of the normal race, are being trialled at three races this year. Silverstone and Monza are confirmed as the first two, while Brazil had been pencilled in as the third, but the Italian confirms that it will now most likely be Texas.
If they prove successful, they will be introduced at a number of races yet to be determined, which will be known as the grand-slam events. Whichever driver accumulates the most points over those specific weekends will win a separate championship. The points will also continue to go towards the main drivers’ title.
‘‘The idea is to create a sort of grand slam. To select a number of races.’’
Drivers have already expressed concern that sprint races could diminish the achievement of winning on Sunday, so it would be no surprise if there was resistance to a separate championship. However, Domenicali says he told the drivers about the proposal in Baku recently, in the drivers’ meeting held before every race weekend, and he insists it was not opposed.
He also hopes that superstar Lewis Hamilton will have signed to stay with Mercedes for another year.
‘‘I still see within his eyes the
‘‘ . . . we have great drivers that can shape the story of a great and successful Formula One.’’ F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali