Hamilton wants to restrict Red Bull dominance - but it won't work

In Austria, Hamilton said that F1 should consider further restrictions on car development to stop teams building on a dominant position. He said that teams with superior cars work on their next design earlier than rivals as they need less resource on the current season.

“If everyone had a time, say August 1, to start on the next car, no-one has a head start and then it’s a real race and maybe that would help everyone be closer the following year,” he suggested.

Hamilton’s views sparked multiple cries of hypocrisy on social media platforms but, in fairness to Lewis, he did admit to enjoying such a cycle of dominance at Mercedes and emphasised his comments were “not aimed at one person” – read Verstappen.

Verstappen’s response was predictable: “Life is unfair as well. It’s not only in F1. We just have to deal with it. We weren’t talking about that when he was winning his championships, right? So, I don’t think we should be now.”

Max’s team principal, Christian Horner weighed in with: “Well he (Lewis) is obviously talking from personal experience! It would be an incredibly hard thing to police. How on earth could you say: right, first of August, go! How do you prevent people thinking about or working on next year’s cars? And we already have a handicap system in F1 through the reduction of wind tunnel time. Franz Tost (AlphaTauri’s team boss) has almost double the amount of time that we have.

“Not messing with the regulations will always create convergence. By the time we get to the end of ’25, probably all the teams will be very converged, and then we screw it all up and go again in ’26…”

It’s all part of the game, of course. Anyone with an advantage wants to keep it, and anyone with a deficit wants to wipe it out via any means within their, or even someone else’s (the FIA’s) power.

Back in 2015, when Mercedes had just dominated the first race in Melbourne after steamrollering the first year of the hybrid era, Horner himself, asked: “Is it healthy to have a situation like this? When we were winning (2010-13 inclusive) it was never with the advantage that Mercedes has. I fear interest will wane. The highlight for me, was Arnie Schwarzenegger on the podium…

“The FIA,” he pointed out, “within the rules, has an equalisation mechanism that needs to be looked at.” Everyone in F1, not just Lewis, has a short memory when it suits them!

To be equally fair to Christian back then, things HAD been done in an attempt to peg back Red Bull in its first period of domination: double-diffusers were banned, blowing exhausts were moved, flexible bodywork was banned, and engine-mapping was changed mid-season.

Whatever your view, we’re blessed to have two squads the quality of Red Bull and Mercedes. When they get it together at the same time, you end up with 2021, one of the greatest seasons in the sport’s history, Abu Dhabi notwithstanding.

Ferrari showed a tad more pace in Austria, which was just as well because they don’t seem able to get any “look behind you” messages to poor Charles Leclerc or work out quite when to pit an increasingly frustrated Carlos Sainz. And Aston Martin is not far from joining the party, so the ingredients are there.

The ‘healthy competition’ between Milton Keynes and Brackley – sniping by another name – continued both on and off-track in Austria. In the first session of Sprint qualifying, Hamilton, on a prep lap, inadvertently blocked Verstappen (already through to SQ2) in Turn 10. Max overtook him on the front straight and held the Merc up in Turn 1, ruining Lewis’s push lap. The difference was, Lewis was in the drop zone – not that Verstappen knew that – and so started the Sprint 18th!

One of them was inadvertent, pointed out Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, and the other was not… But with Merc starting it by failing to warn Hamilton, he took it no further.

The next point of contention was the new 2026 engine regulations and their 50/50 split between engine power and electrification. Horner and Verstappen, having looked at simulation data, think there is a need to revise the ratio in favour of the ICE to avoid creating what Horner referred to as “a technical Frankenstein.”

Verstappen added: “It looks like it’s going to be an ICE competition, whoever has the strongest engine will have a big benefit… it’s not something I’m very excited about at the moment.”

The additional electrification, of course, was key to Audi’s arrival for ’26 and Honda’s decision to stay in – although the latter was too late for Red Bull, having gone down its own Power Trains route.

Wolff, no doubt realising that Red Bull faces an onerous task in building and staffing the RBPT facility at the same time as developing the technically challenging new engine, was not slow to offer the opinion that Horner’s push for 2026 engine rule revisions might just be born out of fears over RBPT’s first product.

As for the chances of revisions to the engine regulations as written? “Zero chance. Capital letters,” Wolff said.

So, the politicking and posturing continues. The ‘26 regulations look to be by far the biggest threat to Red Bull at the moment. If you’re Horner you’ve probably got to pray that they don’t dovetail with Adrian Newey drawing his pension and sailing off into the sunset, although they very well might…

I can see where Hamilton is coming from and agree that single-team domination is a turn-off, but the real fans will always watch. There is enough regulation in F1 as it is. We don’t need more. And you need to be able to develop your way out of a hole, so let’s have some faith that the budget cap and aero-testing restrictions will naturally level the playing field.