Formula 1 will incorporate a mandatory winter break in their calendar from next season. This decision has been taken to minimize the effects of the ever-expanding F1 calendar.
F1 already has a summer break on its calendar. It is a two weeks break that happens during August. All teams are mandated to shut off their factories and no personnel is allowed to work on anything that pertains to Formula 1.
The 2023 F1 season is set to be the longest season in the history of Formula 1. With 24 races set to happen in 2023, F1 is set to have a winter break similar to the summer break.
As reported by GPFans, the break would most likely start on the 23rd of December and extend up till the 2nd of January.
Currently, the F1 teams take a holiday of two days during the Christmas period. One on the day of Christmas and one on New Year’s Eve.
All F1 teams agree to the winter break
The proposal for this winter break has been discussed in a meeting by the Sporting Advisory Committee. Even though the decision hasn’t been confirmed yet, it is understood that all F1 teams agree with the proposal.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal of Mercedes, spoke about the issue and said, “We might introduce a [winter] shut down in the coming year. Not everyone is in agreement but I very much hope we can do that for our staff.“
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He explained that the two weeks of shutdown in August help the people working in the team, but they have to work straight through the Christmas week.
For these people, a winter shutdown would be amazing.
Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal for Alpine, said that in his opinion, now that F1 is doing more and more races, they need to make sure that they are taking care of the employees by forcing shutdowns.
If they do not force teams to shut down the factories, then they will definitely keep on working, to get ahead of the other teams.
