Quite agree. Street tracks are awful, and none more so than Las Vegas.

But all in all, in both cases, the priority should not be the environment, but the quality of the actual racing. Your main focus should be pleasing the viewing audience. If your sport isn’t fun to watch, your race attendance will inevitably go down instead of up. Make sure your sport is good, then worry about how many casino’s are in the backdrop of your sweeping drone shots.

This is the essence. And this is exactly what gets forgotten in the board room of a publicly traded/stock listed company. Everyone there is in it for the short term share holder value because they will be judged on this and they do not know how much longer they will be in their positions (- which certainly will be shortened if that shareholder value isn't created soon). Nobody cares about the IP they have, it's just entertainment product X.

Coincidental or a deliberate route into the psyche of the viewers that this kind of lay out of circuits is ok (/more common) and then duplicate them onto the road in a city centre?

Singapore is also abysmal to watch in person compared to the circuit it effectively killed.

absolutely the worst thing about Formula E undifferentiated, tunnels of repetitive signage.
I'm not even sure why they pay for it - if anything, I'm marginally less likely to buy anything from ABB after the 10,000th view of it's logo.

The number of city circuits in F1 has risen because, a few years ago, it was very low.

The number of city circuits in Formula E has fallen because, a few years ago, it was very high.

Each number was only likely to move in one direction. Now they're both at more moderate levels - there's room to go either way in the future.

They're interesting as a novelty feature, but I want F1 predominantly to race on permanent circuits.

Growing up, I used to love the scenery of the permanent circuits, these street tracks are just tunnels of concrete barriers.

I used to be able to name a circuit easily from a photo of one corner. I'd have no idea any more, Baku and Monaco aside, they're dull and generic.

I'm already less interested in the sport than I was 10 years ago and I've watched every season religiously since 1999. Sadly, if things keep going in a negative direction (street circuits, and the sheer number of races) I can see it becoming a real issue for me. I've already drawn the line at Sprint Shootout, I haven't watched one of those yet.

The fun of street circuits used to come from the spectacle created by the unique challenges they created. They used to be narrow, tight, bumpy, dusty & they used to feature multiple changes in road surface which would add to those challenges and there was no room for error with even the smallest mistake often punished.

Now modern street circuits feel more like the normal circuits but just with walls next to the track as they tend to be just as open, wide, smooth, clean & are regularly resurfaced in many cases with similar tarmac as whats used on permanent circuits.

Even Monaco has sadly lost a lot of what used to make it such a great spectacle as the 2003 changes that moved some barriers back & opened up some of the corners took away a lot of the challenge.

The strategic deployment of temporary venues exclusively catering to Formula 1 undermines the FIA's regulatory sway. This strategic maneuver limits the FIA's recourse should Liberty Media, the controlling entity of Formula 1, opt for a decisive breakaway from the FIA. The conundrum surrounding this potential divergence hinges on Liberty's strategic calculus. While the formidable F1 brand may ostensibly tether them to the FIA, ongoing negotiations with the FIA afford Liberty a distinctly advantageous position. The inclusion of locations such as Vegas, Jeddah, Miami, Albert Park, Baku Singapore and potentially Madrid in their portfolio substantially amplifies their negotiating leverage, contrasting starkly with a scenario reliant on a complete roster of FIA-affiliated permanent venues.

Drone shots, that is.

Agreed. I don't much care where they race, but it will probably become a grayish blur in either a tunnel of Rolex/MSC billboards or a tunnel of light with a few drive shots mixed in.

If they can improve the coverage, street races aren't necessarily a bad thing.

@red-andy for Adelaide it was a case of money. After the F1 left, it was replaced by the Adelaide 500 which has run nearly every year since.

For F1 however, the speed is not an issue. F1’s car are not suited for narrow street tracks as they are currently. Luckily a lot of the newer street tracks take this into account by being more like traditional tracks, but it’s still hit or miss if the track is good or not. Singapore is a hit, Miami is a miss, Baku is a hit, Saudi Arabia is a miss, Las Vegas is up for debate still, could be a hit. So all in all, I’m not entirely opposed to street tracks, especially given that F1’s street tracks appear to be in town centers and attract a lot of attention. It definitely feels more energetic (although a good crowd on a circuit like Zandvoort or Silverstone accomplishes much of the same thing).

But all in all, in both cases, the priority should not be the environment, but the quality of the actual racing. Your main focus should be pleasing the viewing audience. If your sport isn’t fun to watch, your race attendance will inevitably go down instead of up. Make sure your sport is good, then worry about how many casino’s are in the backdrop of your sweeping drone shots.

@red-andy probably the ability to sell signage all the way around the track.

I know Liberty only cares about money, and trendy cityscape with lights and nightclubs and fashion generate more social media likes than some muddy countryside race circuit in the middle of nowhere, which only gather petrolheads and true fans, and not rich celebrities and social media influencers who are Liberty's main target audience.

I understand this argument, but it doesn't necessarily explain the parallel trend of designing F1 tracks that are permanent circuits but look like street tracks - Abu Dhabi being the most obvious example, but other venues like Sochi have also been designed with this in mind. There must be something about the 'look' of a street circuit that FOM imagines appeals to fans, most of whom will be watching on television rather than attending races in person.

That aside, historically speaking - apart from Monaco, of course - 'true' street circuits tend to have a limited shelf life in F1, just as in FE. Think of the Valencia street circuit, or the string of races held in US cities in the 1980s and early 1990s. Even Adelaide only lasted 11 years before the circus moved on. The main difference is that, in F1, there are always willing volunteers to replace whichever course drops off the calendar, which probably isn't the case in FE.

Looking ahead, I can see Monaco, Singapore and probably Las Vegas as the three street circuits that will have a long-term place on the calendar; the others will come and go as local political winds change.