Formula One's new owners have flagged expanding the grand prix calendar in a move which puts them on a crash course with drivers.
A day after leading drivers including Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel spoke out against increasing the current 20-race season, the sport's new owners, Formula 1, said expansion is on their minds.
"Our interest is in continuing to expand in a very smart, thoughtful way into territories that underpin the extraordinary heritage of this sport," Formula 1's managing director, commercial operations, Sean Bratches, told reporters on Friday.
Bratches, a head honcho of Formula 1, an entity of Liberty Media which bought Formula One racing for $US4.4 billion last year, cited Europe, Latin America, the United States and Canada as expansion targets.
He said since taking up his new role, he had received numerous inquiries from "cities, states, municipalities, countries around the world" interested in getting involved in the sport.
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"We're very excited about it. There is no dearth of interest in bringing Formula One to circuits, both track and street, around the world," he said.
Drivers including Hamilton and Vettel on Thursday said the 20-race season should remain.
But Bratches and his colleague, Formula 1's managing director, motor sports, Ross Brawn, said the new owners would trigger changes to maintain the sport's relevance.
Brawn said the sport had become too exclusive for his liking.
"Accessibility for fans is a huge thing," he told reporters.
"We know how exclusive Formula One has become over the years ... and I don't think it is necessarily such a good thing.
"Formula One is a high-quality sport, it's a great sport. But sometimes the exclusivity we have created is not constructive."
Brawn also signalled intent to level the playing field so smaller racing teams had legitimate winning chances.
"We need as many teams to be competitive as possible," he said.
"We need to flatten off the variation between the front and the back of the grid ... and that means, quite honestly, finding ways of limiting the potential of regulations or limiting the resources that teams have.
"The fact is as good as a small team is, it won't beat a very good big team."
