Theres roughly a 20hr time difference between Europe, Australia & the Americas, which means it'll have to start at a very early AM for one region, and very late PM for another.
Going from left to right, AM to PM, and including international date/time lines too, these are the 3 options:
Americas -> Europe -> Australia (-8hr to +12 =
20hr spread)
Europe -> Australia - Americas (0 to +12 & -12 to -4 =
20hr spread)
Australia -> Americas -> Europe (+8 to +12 & -12 to +3 =
19hr spread)
Also taking into account that the average event will be ~2hrs long, the window is down to a maximum of 3hrs over 24hrs, so going by the Australia -> Europe method, if Western Australians start racing at 5am then Eastern Europe would be finishing at 2am. Thats the gap were working with.
Incidently, the 1hr time difference between the spread on those 3 timelines comes down to which has the biggest 'empty zone' where nobody in those timezones would be interested, The 3 being the Atlantic ocean, Middle east & Asia, and the Pacific ocean, and thats basically where your 'sleep zone' or 'extreme inconvenience zone' would be, either side of that would be your extremely late or extremely early in the day for those areas, inside them is pretty much unthinkable, but luckily those 3 have zero interest (or near enough).
By my calculations ignoring the middle east/asia region and having Eastern Europe up late and Australia up early, you have the largest 'sleep zone' (smaller means someone goes to bed 1hr later or gets up 1hr earlier).
To be honest theres absolutely no point in people discussing what's good for
them, personal opinion wont solve this, it needs to be looked at on a wider angle, and the odd person chipping in with 'XXutc is good' doesnt do that. Even public voting wouldnt work, a time needs to be found which basically takes into account of the various nations, and it suits the largest number of people while not harming a considerable number of people too. Basically, a time thats in the best interest of the competition.
Its going to be
impossible to please everyone, it simply cant be done, its the biggest issue in trying to organise an event where people are spread evenly around the world, and the event actively seeks that as its aim.
I've tried keeping it short, but to keep an already long post from being an extremely long post, i failed
The above is the scenario, and im not convinced continued discussion will really create a miricle solution, there surely cant be one for a 'world' series. Hopefully that outlines the problems with the timezones, if people can see a solution then we're all happy to listern, but i think a tough decision needs to be made.
Tweakypie:
6hrs? Its ~2hrs all in all. 20min qual, 50 lap race.
Dukey:
I *think* with the current dates summer time wont come into effect on the earlier rounds, meaning it'd take place between 4-6am in Aus, or 3:30am to get up & ready to go etc. Not exactly sociable hours for them im sure you'll agree. Also, not sure anyone has suggested '11PM UTC' just 11utc, that being am as its a 24hr clock used for UTC, but i dont think many in Europe would find 23UTC suitable thats for sure, certainly not the +3hr Eastern European lot.
Chano:
Groups would work, up until they all met in a 'grand final' type event, and then the same issues come back around again.
3 issues:
Getting those seperated zones back together for a final at a suitable time (hardly any different to the current situation)
Organising each zone, and having an official available to do multiple regions (pretty much double or more of the number of races).
Nations making the final having drivers who were okay with 7pm races but dont want to drive at 3am when all teams race for in a final.
The problem is that its spread over an approx 20hr time difference, whether you deal with it from the offset or at a later stage, the problem is always there, it has to be dealt with somehow.