F1: How long is the contract for each Grand Prix on the 2023 calendar?

In the 2023 F1 season, there will be a total of 24 races. This is the maximum number of venues the sport has ever hosted in a single season. Of course, each and every country and track has a contract with F1 for the number of years they can host races. The contract will continue to be updated if the track proves to be good enough for the sport.

Different tracks and countries have a different number of years on the F1 calendar before their contracts run out. Some are only updated on a yearly basis, while others have a much longer contract and are here to stay. New players might not know this, but it is the countries themselves that ask F1 to host a race, rather than the sport willingly coming to the country.

The above tweet shows how long each track will stay on the season calendar based on its contract. Of course, the contract doesn't make the track permanent, as some unusual circumstances can cancel races in certain countries as well. For example, the Chinese Grand Prix has been canceled for the 2023 F1 season, even though the country has a contract with the sport till 2025.

The Red Bull Ring circuit in Austria is also a special case where no one knows how long the circuit will be present in the F1 calendar. In 2020, Helmut Marko, Red Bull's team advisor, mentioned that the circuit was working on a contract with the sport, but the number of years was not revealed.

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DRS zones in F1 races could be shortened by FIA

DRS zones in races are areas of track where drivers can activate a special system in their cars to gain more speed and overtake others. This technique is based on reducing the drag on the car. Though this technology promotes thrilling and close racing, the FIA are in talks to shorten the length of the DRS zone to make overtaking slightly more difficult.

In an exclusive interview with Motorsport, Ross Brawn, the managing director of the sport, spoke about how the long DRS zones make overtaking a bit too easy, which hampers close and exhilarating racing. Hence, the FIA might work on reducing the length of these regions on the track. Brawn said:

“I think we shouldn’t be afraid to reduce the DRS in places like Monza, because it does seem a bit ‘you get on the back of them, press the button, overtake.’ It’s a bit ritualistic, isn’t it? It’s not very impressive. And so we shouldn’t be afraid to reduce the use of DRS where it's clearly proving to be too powerful.”

Especially in tracks like Spa, Monza, Abu Dhabi, etc, where there are long DRS zones or two of them are stacked close to each other, overtaking becomes quite easy. Hence, the length of the DRS zone could be reduced from next season.