Formula One has a problem. Its world champion, Max Verstappen, it appears, is just too good. His crushing superiority in the Red Bull car in this year’s championship has already raised, as early as the mid-season break, questions that must be being considered by the sport. Can they, and will they, try to clip his wings?
At the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday Verstappen won from sixth on the grid. The manner in which he did so was indicative of the stranglehold he has on the season. He passed his teammate, Sergio Pérez – in, it must be stressed, an identical car – on lap 17 and by the close was 22.3 seconds up the road from him and that included easing up for the final third. He was untouchable and it was all too familiar a sight.
Domination in F1 is nothing new. With the win at Spa, Red Bull surpassed the record 11 consecutive wins McLaren scored in 1988 with their mighty MP4/4. That year, with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, they secured 15 poles and 15 wins from 16 races. The Williams FW14B was similarly strong in 1992 with 10 wins from 16 races, while Michael Schumacher in 2004 took 12 wins from the first 13 races for Ferrari. More recently, Mercedes recorded eight consecutive constructors’ championships, including their opening salvo in 2014 with the W05 that won 16 races.
Many of these periods have not felt so strikingly one-sided. Senna and Prost were at it hammer and tongs in 1998 and there was a real chance an engine would give out or there would be mechanical failure, an occurrence now rare with modern cars.
Other teams would shine on a specific day to break the cycle or teammates upset the apple cart. During Red Bull’s dominance with Sebastian Vettel he was often given a good run by Mark Webber. Similarly, Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes was regularly challenged by Nico Rosberg and their intensively competitive and fractious relationship added an edge to an otherwise largely uncontested lead. Even then, Red Bull could pull out a winning performance at tracks that suited them.
This season has had little or none of those variables, so good, so relentless has Verstappen been. What must be irksome for the sport’s owners is that behind him lies a more intriguing tale. The new regulations imposed in 2022 were designed to close up the field but Red Bull have led for 694 laps this season; the rest of the field have managed 30 between them. However, were you to remove Red Bull from the equation this would have been a humdinger.
We would have had four winners – Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc, Hamilton and Lando Norris – with the two old rivals Alonso and Hamilton in a battle for the title. Four teams – Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin and McLaren – would be vying for wins with the advantage swinging between them on a race-by-race basis.
What a prospect – as the Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, observed with a wry smile after the race in Belgium. “We just need to take Max out of the equation,” he said. “It would be a fantastic season and close racing but the stopwatch never lies. There is just one guy in one car above everything else. We have just got to catch up, there is in no choice.”
In April, after Red Bull absolutely bossed the first three races, including Verstappen going from 15th to second in Jeddah, the F1 chief executive, Stefano Domenicali, was optimistic other teams would step up. “The championship is very long and I think we are going to have good surprises before the end,” he said. Any surprises look further away now than ever.
Domenicali has indicated there is no enthusiasm for artificially restraining Red Bull, certainly not in-season at least, but he has spoken of shortening the periods of domination. “F1 has been always a sport where there has been cycles, where teams were very dominant and then some other came into the equation. Our objective should be to take the strategic approach to make sure that these cycles in the future will be shorter.”
This is no mere philosophical question. There is concern the new fans and viewers it has piled on, especially in the US since the gripping 2021 title fight between Hamilton and Verstappen and the success of the Drive To Survive TV series, will be driven away in no short order by an overwhelmingly predictable championship being repeatedly won at a canter by the 25-year-old.
This year, the viewing figures for the Miami GP in the US, celebrated for being so high in 2022, actually fell. In a sport that takes measuring its metrics seriously, numbers going down are likely already being discussed behind closed doors.
A rule change to peg Red Bull back for 2024 may be under consideration. After Mercedes were utterly dominant in 2020, a swathe of rule changes to the floor of the cars was introduced. They were ostensibly for safety reasons but hit the cars hardest with a low-rake – Mercedes – and benefited the high-rake cars – Red Bull – the most. The result was the 2021 thriller.
Similar considerations are likely to be under review. Red Bull and Verstappen deserve their success and should be applauded for it. The Dutchman has been brilliant, his team at an imperious level. Both will be worthy champions but with such relentless control that therein lies the problem.
F1’s owners know it is a sport but for financial reasons it also has to function as entertainment. How they navigate that fine line in regard to Red Bull and Verstappen is their most pressing and delicate issue. Everyone wants to see a better fight but breaking this butterfly on a wheel would potentially do irreparable damage to the sport’s integrity.
