According to F1 boss Stefano Domenicali, the competition will do everything it can to close the gap with Red Bull and we will see the effect of this next year, according to Domenicali.
“I would say my congratulations to Max,” Domenicali told ‘Sky Sports’. “He has achieved something impressive in terms of maturity, in terms of benchmark and also for Red Bull.”
Many fear that Red Bull and Verstappen will dominate the sport next year and possibly even in 2025, but according to Domenicali the season has shown that the competition can indeed get closer.
“To those who said that the budget cap would prevent you from developing a car, I would say that McLaren has shown that this is not true,” said Domenicali. “McLaren experienced difficulties getting out of Q1 during the first races of the season but they managed to finish the season fourth in the championship.”
According to Domenicali, the competition was much closer to Red Bull during qualifying this year than during the race, but Domenicali believes that will change next year.
“During qualifying on Saturday you will see twenty cars in less than a second,” said Domenicali. “It was very, very close in qualifying.”
“Obviously the race speed was different and I think that will be the biggest difference next year.”
“I think next year it will be closer at the top. Even though I’m not the person who likes to talk about it because there are many people who have an opinion about something and then contradict themselves.”
“But I am sure that all the teams will try to show what level they have in terms of engineering and what opportunities they have to improve.”