McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh expects Bahrain to open 2014 season on back of winter test

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh expects "sensible" plans to open the 2014 season in Bahrain on the back of a pre-season test in the Middle East will be rubber-stamped - although suspects that the calendar may not quite expand to a record 21 races next year.

"I've heard the stories of a variety of new venues, from Russia and talk of New Jersey again and those sorts of things. They're both important territories aren't they, whether all the other dates on the calendar survive I don't know, but 21's a lot of races that's for sure. "This year 19, we did 20 last year. I know it's only one more but we've been saying that since we were at about 14 races and most were those were in Europe. It gets quite tough for the teams." The onset of new venues is unlikely to stop despite the addition of Russia and New Jersey, however, with returns to Argentina - whose representatives are believed to be in attendance at the Canadian GP - and Mexico already mooted. The latter country now has two drivers on the grid and the leading one, McLaren's Sergio Perez, is hopeful mounting support for a first race there since 1992 will soon come to fruition. "We can see a lot of enthusiastic people who really want to have a race in Mexico," Perez said. "They're pushing for it so I hope soon we can have more races in America."