• The Inside Line

The 2015 season turns, turns, turns

The Mexican Grand Prix will return in 2015 © Getty Images

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Someone not raised entirely in cities might be able to tell you about traditional markers of the season. Lambs in spring, snowdrops in winter, that sort of thing.

I am not that person. Like most urbanites, I mark the passing of seasons via the window displays of local shops. Heart-shaped chocolate means winter is nearly over, while bunny-shaped chocolate means it will keep on raining for a few more months. Autumn is marked not by back-to-school, but by the arrival of the first Christmas merchandising.

Much as each season has its indicator in the real world, so too do these indicators exist inside the paddock. Monza is the start of autumn, but that has little to do with the colour of the foliage inside the parkland. Instead, Monza is usually the race weekend during which the first whispers of the next year's calendar start doing the rounds.

With no calendar currently available to the media, there is much speculation and more than a little guesswork doing the rounds. We all know that Mexico will be joining the party in 2015, but the question on everyone's lips is whether it will be twinned with Montreal in June, or with Austin in October/November.

The logical solution would be to pair Mexico with Canada, so that the race does not affect the COTA crowds, many of whom are Mexican fans who treat Austin as a quasi home grand prix. But this being Formula One, that means that one can predict with near certainty that Austin and Mexico will be back to back.

Mexico is the only new arrival set for next year, and none of the existing races are expected to be dropped from the calendar (for 2015, at least…), meaning that we're looking at 20 grands prix and the likelihood of a longer season than the one we've had this year. Clever scheduling of the 2014 calendar could have seen all 19 races taking place in a shorter window than the mid-March to end of November we have at present, and there are concerns inside the paddock that 2015 will see us on the road from late January (for winter testing) until the beginning of December.

Sensible scheduling is vital for a variety of reasons. Not only does pairing races on similar flight paths make financial sense for every member of the travelling circus (and our respective carbon footprints), but putting together a race calendar that gives TV viewers the chance to watch the entire season without having to remember a three-week gap here followed by a pair of back-to-backs there is better for fans, broadcasters, sponsors, and the team's bank balances alike.

The coming days should see calendar rumours start doing the rounds, but it is worth remembering that a provisional calendar is just that - provisional. Between late September and the last WMSC meeting of the year in early December, all of F1's major stakeholders will be negotiating for tweaks here and there until a compromise version is finally ratified.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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