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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

This aged beautifully, Lando Wins. McLaren genuinely have the fastest car with the upgrades on Lando Norris' car.

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.

Only a briefly mention of Adrian Newey. He was involved in the Williams 1992-1997, RB 2010-2013 and RB 2021-2024 periods. Alt2012 was one of the best seasons ever, seven different winners in the first seven races...

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 ...

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.

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.

INDYCAR is nowhere near perfect. It's a very flawed spec series, but damn it... it has some of the best racing every weekend. The drivers can make a big difference in the performance of the car. It's an extremely fun series to watch.

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.

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