Formula 1: 'Privileged' F1employees shouldn't complain about the schedule, says Jean Todt

Formula 1

'Privileged' F1 employees shouldn't complain about the schedule - Todt

The 2020 season will feature the most races ever.

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 21 January 2020 17:00

FIA President Jean Todt reckons that people who work in the Formula 1 industry should feel ‘privileged’, as he addresses concerns that an increased race calendar could represent a much higher workload for the teams.

The upcoming 2020 campaign will feature 22 races which is the highest amount in history, but there is rumours that Liberty Media want to further increase it to 25, raising concerns about the amount of race preparation, and indeed travelling, for the workers within the teams.

Todt thinks they shouldn’t complain, though, and that they should be grateful to work in F1.

“I think it will be a long process before being close to 25 races,” he said.

“Probably so much emphasis on speculating and assessing 25 races, and at the moment we should concentrate on 22, which is the situation.

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“Now about what it does represent, here I may have a different point of view. I really feel that, and I include myself, we are so blessed to be in a world where we love what we do. We have the passion. We are privileged. Whoever is in F1 is privileged.

"Of course, you have some duties. When I was in other positions [as Ferrari team principal], I was working 18 hours every day, seven days, six or seven days a week, because I had passion, I wanted a result.

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"Then of course, the family, if you have a beloved family, they will understand. And you don't do that for all your life.”

The main reason that Todt has came to this conclusion is that he spends time in developing countries with people on low incomes, struggling to make ends meet or even afford food.

“Believe me, I do a lot in the other activities in my life, where I see people, if they are blessed, they get $30 a month. Being blessed in certain countries. So we should not forget that,” he continued

“We should be decent, and thinking that it does happen. You have an eight billion population [globally], and you have 800 million people [not able] to eat, to drink, to get a vaccination.

“We're here to talk about F1, but we must not close our eyes and forget what is happening, for other people, for other communities.

"I feel again, we have to be blessed, and all those who are in F1, with much higher salaries, incidentally, than any other business, should be very happy. It doesn’t mean that it’s not hard working and all that, but simply assessing the position.”