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Bro. Max had a 13 second lead in a sprint race that he didn’t have the lead until the halfway point and had engine issues to start. This is next level domination.
A couple wins with that large margin will always feel less dominant than max winning 19 races last year, winning 10 in a row last year, amassing a separate 9 race streak from last into this year….while also having a couple wins with that large margin (Hungary was >30s, Monaco was 29.something). And with even less suspense as to whom the winner will be due to not having a competitive teammate (2014-6, rare Bottas moments) or rival for either title (2017-8) anymore. Ferrari as the team picking off isolated wins was, no matter the reason, closer in 2019 than we’ve seen since early 2022 - though this season is still young, we can hope.
Well welcome to F1! Don't worry though, new regs are coming in 2026, teams are switching drivers next season, so things may get interesting soon! And the current season is still pretty young so who knows what'll happen
It felt similar, though it wasn't as bad since it also had some competition for Hamilton. Rosberg (his teammate at the time) beat him in 2016 and Vettel at least won several races in the Ferrari in 2017-2018 too. 2019-2020 might've been Lewis's most dominant years in comparison to everyone else though, he was practically uncontested.
Ferrari were still somewhat of a threat in 2019, especially in the latter half of the season when they were exploiting the fuel flow loophole.
A huge part of why the W11 ended up being such a monster is because Mercedes wanted it to be faster than the SF90 in every conceivable way. Ferrari ended up being busted for the whole fuel flow thing though but by that point in time there was no slowing down on development of the W11.
Instead of VER PER LEC, imagine HAM BOT VER. That exact order happened 20 times. And, HAM ROS VET also happened i believe 14 times. Hamilton was dominant for what seemed to be centuries
It felt a lot like this. You turn up each weekend hoping for something good, but you know you'll likely get pretty much the same podium or at least winner. Sometimes there's an exciting race because if something that happens in the midfield. Rarely the dominant driver has an off weekend and we get another winner. The fans of the dominant driver are pretty unbearable at times.
I think the dominance is just more entrenched by the regulation changes, which is why it feels worse. In the past we could expect the other teams to adopt the dominant team's innovations and get their cars to about where the best car was the previous season, which with diminishing returns was enough to be closish from race to race. Not so much now.
It's also a bit weird because Red Bull's dominance is partly because they got nearly everything right for this generation of cars from the start, but mainly because everyone else got it horribly wrong.
It's kind of like a combination of Bayer Leverkusen's season this year (where they haven't lost a game) with that English Premier League season when Leicester City won (when all the usual title contenders scored far fewer points than usual). When the sublime is competing with utter mediocrity, the gulf is enormous.
I like the previous era because other teams grabbed p1 more than 1-2 times a season.
I like different race winners. Watching the midfield and the rest fight is fun, but not when it’s all you can expect to look forward to every race weekend.
The Merc era proved that multiple regulatory interventions are needed to put an end to one team's dominance. Mercedes would be dominating to this day if the 2020 regs were still in place now. In fact, it's even worse now because the cost cap eliminated the tried and true strategy of simply spending more to catch up. RB's dominance will only end when the new regulations get introduced in 2026. It sucks, but 2024 and 2025 are already decided unless the FIA changes something major for next year or RB hits a complete roadblock with their concept and can't make the car any faster than it is now, but that seems exceedingly unlikely.
The Merc era proved that multiple regulatory interventions are needed to put an end to one team's dominance.
The Schumacher era proved that one could do it. Okay, with a little help from a "tire war." But holy smokes, that stupid tire rule in 2005 bent Ferrari over hard. Went from being able to use the tires they had in creative ways to outpace the field, to having to deal with the company not knowing how to make longer lasting tires that had any kind of performance in them.
But they can't really pull off something that'd swing things so hard these days. And if they did, it'd probably cause more of a mess with how the sport's grown.
But hey, if you just ignore all the dangerous situations it put drivers in, and how it led to the disastrous 2005 US GP, it did put an end to Schumacher and Ferrari dominating, so good enough, yeah?
They shouldn't have won the 2007 title on car performance, but a McLaren disasterclass (+ the second most toxic teammate pairing in F1 history behind Senna and Prost) made it possible.
It was both really. Ferrari was the only big team using bridgestones which meant they worked hand in hand and their car philosophy back then focused on rapid and fast stints.
There’s no one thing to nerf RBR with is the problem. Their floor and rear suspension is just that damn good
and the tires do not degrade. If there was a double diffuser or DAS type innovation to ban I believe they would but the car just works perfectly within the regulations.
People said that about Merc in 2020. Then the FIA clipped the floors and it brought Red Bull closer than Ferrari ultimately were in 2017 and 2018. There's always a way.
But one big difference I think back then was Red bull and Mercedes had very different design concepts in their cars. Mercedes low rack vs RB high rack design. The rule change did a number to the low rack design cars and did not hit high rake as as much.
DAS wasn't the reason Merc struggled in 2021. It was the floor rule change which significantly reduced rear downforce on low rake cars. Maybe there is no one thing to nerf RB, but I'm sure there's something they could do to reduce the gap.
Correct. I was just pointing to something that they could issue a quick technical directive for or remove the loophole from the next years regulations. Aside from massive suspension or floor changes I just don’t see how you could bring the pack back to Red Bull. Even then the other teams would be at the same disadvantage. Let’s hope Ferrari can upgrade the way they’ve been saying they can and will compete towards the end of the year and then hopefully give us something like ‘21 next year.
RB's dominance will only end when the new regulations get introduced in 2026
Don't hold your breath on that. We'll still have ground effect cars. If RB's engine is good, Max could just as easily be up there winning 20 times a year again.
Its funny how you recognize that Mercedes dominated for 7 years straight, and come to the conclusion that the cost cap is the problem. Hint, Ferrari and Red Bull were spending nearly the same as Mercedes and didnt get close, apart from the first half of 17 and 18 for Ferrari.
That's what I don't understand the cost cap inherently makes sure the team ahead just stays ahead barring some catastrophic upgrade.
The only way a team could catch a team with a lead is to outspend or having some miracle break through which still leads to you can't outspend.
So your stuck the cost cap never made sense from a fundamental standpoint of basically your just going to have a dominant champ for years if they nail the regs
Yeah, figured. Just gave a visual example more likely to be recognizable than it would be having read the books, as the characters themselves weren't known
We kept joking Max was bitching to GP the entire sprint about putting ass kick mode on mode 8.
And now we see Lewis trying to figure out wtf mode 8 is.
M8, his car is fast?
Mode 8 the grid up?
On merit, the closest Hamilton has been to Verstappen in these regulations is COTA 2022. P2 and only 5 seconds behind Max. He's finished a tenth behind Verstappen but that was under Safety Car conditions in Australia last year. He finished 2 seconds behind him at COTA last year but Max also had a brake issue that almost took him out as he was 5-6 seconds behind Max before the issue really flared up (which is funny because if that race was roughly 5 laps longer, Lando would have won his first race due to the Verstappen DNF and Hamilton DSQ).
He's only finished ahead of Verstappen on merit at Brazil 2022 and Singapore last year.
Makes the first few laps much tougher to get them up to temp tho. It’s why Sainz was all over the back of Max for the first few laps then Max was gone.
We need Ferrari to nail their upgrades this year. If they don't close the gap, the chance of them seriously challenging Red Bull in 2025 is nearly impossible.
Him or anybody else has no shot at catching Max so it’ll roughly be the same as this year. 2026 is what everyone should be praying for in terms of hopefully shaking up the grid (which likely won’t happen if the Red Bull team don’t implode)
yeah, yeah, Lewis possessed by the spirit of Inspector Sebastian Vettel. It was hard to miss, he was standing there for a good like 5 minutes without even moving.
At morning sprint race wee see that Redbull with baterry OFF fast as others with battery ON. While I was watching the race just a little spark of old memory flashed in about Ferrari "Secret documents",and we know that Redbull reported them with Mercedes. The rest is history...
You have to feel sorry for Hamilton, he deserved the win but Max has been given this ridiculous car which means he automatically gets to beat everyone.
Yeah that redbull is a good second ahead of anything else. I'm surprised that the other teams haven't been able to replicate some of that magic. It's sad that there is no real chance for a different outcome.
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