The F1 Dominance Problem

People forget what they wish for. "more reliability" = more predictability. spending cap = underdogs have a chance to win, but when one team gets it really right, other teams can't catch up because... they aren't allowed to spend that much money.

People here talking about the miami gp are missing the point. 1 race is not going to change the fact that dominance has gotten worse in f1. I think that reliability is the biggest factor in domination today. Can you imagine senna and mclaren or williams with today's reliability. But you can't just ignore that, it's part of the dominance factor.

For the Schumi era it has to be noted 2003 was close. Schmi only won by two points and both Williams and Mclaren were very competetive.

I'm somewhere between "you're a Brit and you only suddenly developed a problem with dominance now that it's no longer Lewis doing the dominating", and "you've got a point". 2007-2008 were the best seasons, imo. 3-5 drivers had a chance at the title right up to the last race.

Take 2002 and 2004 out and Schumacher really had to fight for some victorys ! ... conpare this to Mercedes Hybrid era where they won 30 seconds before the 3. Car or so ...

There was a degree of dominance in the early days.... Fangio!

Domination in F1 is now part of the game, for me, a life long F1 fan, it's never been a problem. It's up to the teams that are not winning to raise their game and compete. What has changed F1 more than anything, in my life, is the amount of money being pumped in to teams and the amout of sponcership that has poured in to F1. Todays F1, for me, has changed so much, it has lost it's character of old. To me now F1 is Big Business, Big Sponcerships, TV/Digital deals. in short, my passion for F1 has died, buried it 10 years ago. I watch the highlights every now and again. The "golden days" of competition in F1 are long gone.

Schumacher's dominance overshadowed the fact that both McLaren and Williams are faster. They just both suffered from reliability issues. And during the Ferrari dominance in the early 2000s, you can still see other cars take pole. Lewis' and Max's era basically locked their teams in the front row.

I think the strong limitation and regulation in Car development is really hurting the sport ! Back in the day you had Different Car concepts that where good one some Tracks while now you just have basicly one Car allready "pre-designed" by the regulations

they need to make the cars smaller, bring back v10’s, and not let teams work on cars so early before the season starts

So one team dominance doesn't have to be bad, also long as we get a teammate battle out of it. Most people were more than willing to look past Mercedes initial dominance because we got the battles between Hamilton and Rosberg. The problem is most teams operate on an A-Driver/B-Driver structure, often with the 'upgrades' the cars get as well and who the car is designed around. Sergio Perez is not driving the same car Max Verstappen is in terms of upgrades, also the car he's driving was not built around his abilities, but built around Max's. Perez is only allowed to win races when something goes wrong with Max. It was the same with Barrichello at Ferrari, same with Webber at Red Bull in the 2010's, same with Bottas at Mercedes. I don't know how you necessarily put an end to team orders and team driver preference, but that needs to be sorted out, you need to find a way to encourage teammate battles.

People overlook that it took Max 6 seasons in F1 to become WDC

What’s crazy is that it almost seems that the more regulations and strictness the more a certain team dominates. Look at the 70s and 80s it was FORMULA 1. We had cars with fans, cars with six wheels. It was perfect.

i think crashes shouldn't be included in budget cap cause it happen more often when you're in the middle of the pack than being alone in front.

Mercedes dominated 2014-2020, so I don’t see why red bull dominating for 2 years is worse

I think another big problem is that they sacrificed the quality of tracks for commercialism. Far too many street circuits now in my opinion it isn't meant to be formula E.

It really does not matter what you think. A driver like MV still need to do it. The evidence is in the fact that MV hardly makes any driving mistakes anymore and that he has matured enormously. Where he was driving very impatience and over the limit of the car, he drives now holding back at times, because he learned that you are NOT going to win races as how he did them before.. I would say that he is driving a lot smarter now

When Mercedes was winning they were just smacking people with their wallet. Notice when a spending cap was instituted they immediately became mediocre.

The problem lies with the teams who don't want two drivers to compete - look what happened with Hamilton and Rosberg. Much easier to have a team leader and a 2nd driver and rack up the championships. Dare I suggest that if Bernie was still in control he would be putting pressure on Red Bull to ditch Perez and get someone in who could give Max a race.

You got the solution to dominance, open up the rule book. I can’t speak on the 50-80s. But I know come the 1998 rules the designs got more similar. Ferrari and Bridgestone were a formidable combo, but let’s not forget 2003 and 2000 weren’t easy. But the 2014 regs allowed Merc to run away, same with the 2022 regs. Because the rules are so strict there’s only one sure way of success. Copy the Redbull. If the regs were more free there’d be opportunity to try something different. And the lack of testing as we see doesn’t hinder dominance. It makes it worse.