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.

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.

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.

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

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 ...

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The advantage that Mercedes had over the other teams whilst they were ahead is nowhere near what Red Bull has today, Mercedes was way further up. Nowadays wee see that Hamilton ain't even such an amazing driver, constantly losing to Russel. The field is a lot more bunched up than what is was in the Mercedes era.

The current Red Bull and previous Mercedes dominance do come down to both teams nailing the technical regulations enforced at the time and having the best driver on the grid driving their cars. Obviously the key difference between the two is that for the first three years of Mercedes' dominance, there was a strong inter-team rivalry won 2-1 by Lewis Hamilton over Nico Rosberg, stopped only by Rosberg's decision to retire after winning the 2016 driver's title. I expect Red Bull and Max Verstappen to dominate until the end of next year, despite losing Adrian Newey at the end of this season. I think they will still be near the front of the grid from 2026 but with the next regulation change beginning that year there's another opportunity for a team to nail the new rules. Since 2010 the race wins have been largely dominated by Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari, with a handful of other teams winning races, which shows which teams have had the largest budgets in the sport. Even with the budget cap being introduced these three teams still remain the most likely to find the winning formula to dominate.

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.

Tbh the Ferrari era was great because Bridgestone used to make tyres totally different than Michelin, so in some period of races, Ferrari were behind and someone new was leading. I found really entertaining the 2002-2004 era, those cars had potential

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

i think most people forget that there is simply nothing really comparable to f1. I mean, every team builds their own chassis, theres 4 different engine suppliers and at least 5 different in 2026 and there are no BoP rules. Sure theres less time for wind tunnel testing and CFD simulations when you finish higher up in the constructors championship but thats still vastly different to "normal" BoP regulations. Show me a motorsport series where the racing is closer than in f1, while everyone has to build their own car (no complete spec chassis and no spec engine) and where there is no BoP in the Regulations.

This has never been different as. far as I recall. Williams - Ferrari - Red Bull and then, 7 Years of Mercedes Dominance broken by RB Dominance. Let's see what the future brings.