invinciblejuggernaut / f1-calendar

An attempt to create an optimized F1 calendar to cut down unnecessary travelling back and forth between continents during a F1 season.

F1-Calendar

Introduction

F1 is the world's most watched and followed motorsports category. A F1 season comprises of almost a dozen and a half races to be held across almost 10 months over different circuits in different countries. The 2020 calendar comprises of 22 races. In light of recent awarenss about carbon footprint of humans and their activites as a whole, which impacts the planet directly and us indirectly, F1 recently decided to make the sport more "planet-friendly". In 2014, they decided to use hybrid engines which are 50% more efficent than the previous V10s. In 2019, F1 decided to go one step further. They announced their plans to have net zero carbon footprint by 2030.

Technologies/Languages/Libraries

• Python
• Google OR-Tools
• folium

Objective

Inspired by F1's plans, I tried my hands at solving their fixtures issue.
The 2020 season will go on as follows :

• Melbourne
• Sakhir
• Hanoi
• Shanghai
• Zandvoort
• Barcelona
• Monaco
• Baku
• Montreal
• Le Castellet
• Spielberg
• Silverstone
• Budapest
• Spa
• Monza
• Singapore
• Sochi
• Suzuka
• Austin
• Mexico City
• Sao Palio
• Abu Dhabi

Enclosed below is an map with the markers denoting the race venues spread across the globe.

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Distance covered : 111500 kilometres. That's huge ! For comparison, radius of earth is 6371 kilometres.
Do you observe how the season begins in Australia, goes to Middle-East in Bahrain, then again goes in the opposite direction to Vietnam in Asia, then Shangai and then Netherlands only to return to Asia again 10 rounds later !

To emphasise this point, I would like to tell you about the summer break in between the season. It's usually a gap of 3 weeks which takes place during July-August. During this period, no races take place. So, the first half of the season ends by the race at Hungary and then the season again resumes some 3 weeks later at Belgium. According to the original schedule, I have created another map which shows the races in the first half with red indicators and the races after the break with green indicators. This can be achieved by tweaking the code here.

From this, one can see that the races are spread all over the continents. After having some races in Europe in the first half of the season, the competition again returns to Europe in the second half.

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This is an attempt to create an optimized F1 calendar to cut down unecessary travelling back and forth between continents during a F1 season.

Results

Personally, I was bewildered by the solutions I got from this program. They seemed too good to be true !
Such a schedule mightn't make a mammoth difference, but definitely would be a good step in the right direction. The optimized calendar turns out to be :

• Melbourne
• Singapore
• Hanoi
• Shangai
• Suzuka
• Abu Dhabi
• Sakhir
• Baku
• Sochi
• Budapest
• Spielberg
• Monza
• Monaco
• Le Castellet
• Barcelona
• Spa
• Zandvoort
• Silverstone
• Montreal
• Austin
• Mexico
• Sao Paulo

The second map gets altered with striking differences after following this newly obtained order. It is clearly visible that the races follow a more coherent schedule. The races before the halfway point of the seaon are marked with red markers and the others are marked with green markers. Take a look.

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Conclusions

Yeah, Abu Dhabi won't be the season finale. It's not the most popular among us anyway. Brazil will get to host the finale and it does produce brilliant races. So, no issues there.
Distance covered : 43703 kilometres That's a 60% decrease in distance covered compared to the original schedule.

This is a work in progress. F1 is a huge sport with huge logistical headaches. It's not just about 20 cars racing around in circles ! There is a lot to consider in terms of marketing, gaining the biggest crowd possible during the events, planning to avoid extreme weather conditions and many other parameters which us, the fans don't concern too much about. Yet, making such changes to the schedule which drastically reduces the carbon footprint and removes Abu Dhabi as the season finale shouldn't hurt anyone and would be a welcome decision among the F1 fandom.

License

MIT License