An interesting topic is the tough pondering of whether historical tracks such as Zandvoort should remain on the F1 calendar in lieu of more recent entries that can provide the championship with much more money.
Losing the history of the sport
The question arose because the contract tying Zandvoort to F1 has not been renewed for the long term, with the championship returning to the historical Dutch track only a couple time in the upcoming 2025 and 2026 seasons.
On the other hand, more and more new street circuits such as Jeddah, Las Vegas and Miami have joined the scene in recent seasons.
Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri gave their opinion on the matter ahead of the Abu Dhabi GP, mentioning how money is the main factor these days.
“It’s a very delicate matter. I don’t understand fully the whole picture of why Zandvoort may or may not stay longer than the 2026 season.
“I think as a whole, the sport has definitely moved towards having more races outside of Europe than in Europe, probably for economic and obviously political and economic reasons for the sport,” Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz opened, addressing the social and economic roots of the issue.
The Spanish driver gave his idea on the matter, a mixture of new and old racetracks while also keeping in mind the importance of the more historical rounds, highlighting the importance of driver specific fanbases such as is the case for the Dutch track, home to four-time World Champion Max Verstappen.
“In an ideal world, the Formula 1 season should have around 20 races. Out of those 20 races, I strongly believe six to eight of them should be in Europe because that’s where the sport comes from.
“And all of the others should remain rotational.”
A complex issue
“If Zandvoort cannot keep the budget to run a Formula 1 race when some other races can, it doesn’t mean I think Zandvoort should completely disappear from the calendar, but maybe come back every two or three years back to a calendar to give all the Dutch fans and all the supporter of Max [Verstappen] the opportunity to watch Max live, and the same would apply to Spain, the same would apply to the UK if that’s ever the case.
“So yeah, find ways to, even if these old school circuits, European circuits that maybe don’t have the big budgets that outside of Europe, they have these budgets, still find a way to give them the opportunity to keep coming back to a calendar now and then.
“I don’t know if it’s doable or not, but in my ideal F1 calendar scenario, I would try and fit that in,” summed up the new Williams driver.
Oscar Piastri shared his opinion as well, focusing on the importance of the culture of the sport and on the need to keep this kind of circuits in the rotation because of their significance:
“Much of the message is the same. I think we need to be careful as a sport not to get rid of all the tracks that we all grew up racing on and loving.
“If you ask most of the drivers on the grid, their favourite track, maybe apart from Suzuka, is probably guaranteed to be in Europe somewhere.
“We need to be careful to not get rid of all of these tracks.”
Money isn’t everything
While reckoning the importance of the financial side of the issue and the peculiar logistics involved as well for the specific Dutch location, the McLaren driver also admits that there are some tracks he wished they were still on the calendar, an opinion shared by many fans:
“There’s some that already aren’t on the calendar that I think we all would love to go back racing on.
“Again, I don’t know the full ins and outs of why Zandvoort is not returning after 2026. It’s a bit of a logistical challenge racing in Zandvoort, with the F1 layout of the track and the kind of split paddock and stuff like that, so it is demanding and obviously we’re getting another team which is going to add to that demand.
“But we need to be wary as a sport that a lot of the tracks that will disappear from the calendar are probably the ones that we all love a lot.
“So yeah, I think we just need to be a bit careful with which ones we get rid of,” he concluded.
Fans will suffer
Race winner Lewis Hamilton as well shared his thoughts on the Zandvoort F1 matter, highlighting the disparity between race attendance at venues like Qatar compared to the packed out grandstands and general admission areas at the Dutch track.
Ultimately, however, Qatar can afford a lack of fans at their venues due to the substantial money available to them.
“I agree with the comments so far. It’s really sad to be losing Zandvoort, particularly the crowd is incredible there.
“There’s such a huge following, obviously, mostly for Max, but in general, the fans are what make the sport what it is.
“And then there are several races in the calendar – I’m not going to mention which ones, but you know which ones – which don’t have a lot of people that come, yet financially they can cover whatever the cost is.
“So I don’t know. I think the business is doing very, very well, and I think we’ve got to make sure we hold on to the heritage races, which Zandvoort, for me, is one of those in F1.”
