According to seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, it would make sense for measures to be taken to break Red Bull’s dominance in F1, something that Hamilton says has also happened several times during Mercedes’ dominant years in Formula 1.
After years of dominance by Mercedes, that dominance peaked around 2020. At Mercedes they seemed to have a kind of ‘party mode’ for their engine that made them almost unbeatable during qualifying. The FIA and F1 intervened by banning the famous ‘party mode’ from the Italian GP in 2020. So no extra power during qualifying and the same engine mode had to be maintained throughout qualifying and the race.
Lewis Hamilton believes that similar measures towards Red Bull are opportune, especially now that the racing stable is dominating the sport in an almost unprecedented way.
“We’ve made a lot of changes over the years to slow down and it’s been better for the sport,” Hamilton told media. “When you look at 2020, our qualifying speed was amazing but for example they took our ‘qualifying mode’ for the bike and it brought us closer to the others in qualifying.”
“On the one hand, the engineers did a great job and deserved that lead, but as a racing fan you want to see everyone closer together.”
“This season behind the Red Bulls we have seen a very nice championship where Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin and the other teams are closer than ever.”
“In some ways the rule change has worked, in others there is still work to be done.”
“When you look at some teams, we are all capped in terms of budget, but some teams don’t have the same resources in terms of the wind tunnel and so on that other bigger teams have with their factory, after all, they have had years long, long years ago. invested a lot of money at a time and they cannot catch up.”
“There is always work to be done but the sport has done a great job and I hope the fans don’t see Mercedes, Ferrari or another team dominate again for a decade in the future.”
“It’s not in the interest of what the drivers want or what the fans want. We want to see a battle that is close and I hope it gets better and better.”