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McLaren sure 2014 calendar is workable

Sam Michael believes it's possible for teams to handle three races on three consecutive weekends © Sutton Images

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McLaren sporting director Sam Michael says "anything's possible" and that teams can adapt to a 2014 calendar featuring a triple-header of races.

The provisional 2014 calendar features races in Monaco, New Jersey and Canada taking place on consecutive weekends, with the dates approved by the FIA at a World Motor Sports Council meeting last week. While the calendar has been met with scepticism over its viability, Michael says it would be possible for the teams to meet the demands of such a scenario but admits extra personnel may be required at some stage.

"I guess anything's possible and we'll just need to adapt if that's what's required," Michael told a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes phone-in. "Obviously we can do a double-header, so once you've done a double-header basically you can do a triple-header can't you? In terms of logistics and moving freight; so equipment-wise you can be covered as long as you've got enough sets to leapfrog each other.

"Equipment and planes and things don't get tired, people do. So it means that you have to perhaps consider the support crew that come and setup at a grand prix, perhaps they won't always necessarily be the same people. At the moment with a two-week break you can use your race crew to do a lot of the setup of garages and things but I think if you get in to triple-headers what you might have is a crew - which is not necessarily a big crew, maybe a handful people - that go and setup a structure before the proper race team arrives.

"You may eventually get to a point where you have separate crews that actually crew the cars or even engineer the cars. I'm not sure we're quite at that point yet, we'll have to wait and see."

Michael added that he doesn't see the expansion of the calendar as a worry with the teams set to earn money from each race.

"I'm not concerned; it's a matter of Formula One adjusting and adapting to whatever the business needs are. Formula One is all about change isn't it and change management. I've been through many examples previously in my Formula One career where I've thought 'Oh, there's no way they can do that' and they do, you just adapt. Formula One's about achieving things that aren't normally possible and this is far from the worst challenge that we've had."

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