Drivers will be listened to after F1 calendar quit threats

Liberty Media says it will listen to the Formula 1 drivers' concerns after Fernando Alonso threatened to quit the sport if the calendar grew to 25 races.

F1's new owners have highlighted calendar expansion as one of its future areas of focus as it looks to grow the sport in certain markets. However, Alonso said he would stop racing in F1 if the calendar reached 25 races, and when asked about Alonso's stance Lewis Hamilton added: "I haven't really given it any thought but I understand what Fernando's saying and tend to agree with him."

When those views were put to Chase Carey on Friday in Montreal, the F1 CEO said the main focus is to improve the races that are already part of the schedule.

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"Our focus right now is making the races we have – 20 races this year, the 21 races we have next year – be everything they can and should be," Carey said. "Make those events ... I'm not saying those events don't have great fanbases and great followings now, but we think we can take those events to another level and that should be our focus and our priority at this point.

"Engaging and evaluating opportunities, we talked about adding another race in the U.S. in a destination city such as New York, Miami, Las Vegas; [we are] continuing to evaluate those things, but priority one is really focusing on making the events we have great. It's a quality over quantity focus for us."

Managing director of commercial operations Sean Bratches added that the concerns of the drivers will be listened to as part of any process when it comes to the calendar.

"Every time we've had this conversation, we've gone in with the spirit of partnership," Bratches said. "I think we've always been very up front that the decisions we're going to make going forward are going to be based on a partnership with our partners, the teams, the drivers, the FIA.

"We're going to be very consultative going forward and very thoughtful, and we're going to do things in the interest of growing the sport and the fanbase. I think looking at that collectively, we'll be having a lot of conversations with out partners before making those decisions, as we've said."