F1: 23-race F1 circus travel logistics

Despite the 2023 F1 calendar actually now one race shorter than originally intended, thanks to the cancellation and non-replacement of the Chinese Grand Prix, the coming season is still set to be a record-breaking 23 races long, with things not ending until the final week of November in Abu Dhabi.

Those personnel that attend every race this year can expect to spend 240 hours, or ten full days, just sitting on planes flying around the world.

The 2023 Formula 1 calendar is insane:

• 23 races
• 20 countries
• 5 continents
• 240 hours of flights

Teams will travel 75,000 miles & transport 1,500 tons of equipment.

This makes it a logistical nightmare, so here’s a breakdown of how Formula 1 pulls it off.

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— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) January 21, 2023

With flyaways, shipping containers pre-packed before the season starts with non-essential equipment and they’ll go in a leapfrog pattern. So, for example, kit at the race in Bahrain would go to Saudi Arabia and then be ready for Singapore and Brazil later in the year, whilst the kit first sent to Australia will then be prepared for Japan and so on.

More vital equipment, meanwhile, is flown.

The most important items are loaded onto priority pallets and then driven directly to the airport just hours after a race. Pallets from all ten teams are then loaded onto five Boeing 777s – these planes are chartered by Formula 1, but each team pays for the space they use.

They’re then whisked to the race track upon landing, but no team can touch anything until everything has arrived.