When Red Bull's Max Verstappen’s F1 dominance might finally be broken
Leading Formula 1 drivers have given their view on when they think Red Bull Racing’s rule will be broken, as Max Verstappen’s grip on the championship is already firm.
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Leading Formula One drivers concede Red Bull’s dominance will likely continue for the next two years.
One rival even suggested Max Verstappen would be “bored” with his annihilation of the sport amid calls for greater wind tunnel penalties to bring the world champions back to the field.
After only two races of the 2024 F1 season, this year’s championship already shapes as another Verstappen show with everyone else fighting to fill the minor parts.
Verstappen has led home Red Bull one-two finishes ahead of teammate Sergio Perez in the opening two events in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, despite the off-track turmoil which has engulfed the team in the wake of the Christian Horner scandal.
The Dutch star has picked up from where he left his dominant 2023 campaign when he won a record 19 of the 22 races, while Perez claimed two of the other three.
Verstappen has won the past three F1 drivers’ world championships, while Red Bull has taken the past two constructors’ titles.
Only one non-Red Bull driver – Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in Singapore – has featured on the top step of the podium since the beginning of last season.
F1 is deep in the midst of its Red Bull era and while no one can dispute the sport is witnessing a once-in-a-generational talent at his peak with the best team, some believe the predictability of results has become a thorny issue for the sport.
Mercedes star George Russell, who also doubles as the president of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, believed the lack of competition was the biggest concern confronting F1.
The Brit said it was no good for the fans and doubted Verstappen would even enjoy racing against himself.
“I think the biggest issue is the lack of competition,” Russell said ahead of this week’s Australian F1 Grand Prix.
“At the moment people arrive for a race and you know who is going to be in the first two positions.
“We all want to have a chance to fight for victory, that’s obviously a bit far-fetched.
“You need to give credit to those who do the best job and Red Bull are doing the best job and they deserve the success. But it is a shame that the sport doesn’t have that competition at the top end.
“We all want to see competition, even for Max. He would be bored of arriving to every race with no competition. He’s a racer and he wants to fight and he wants to feel like he has earned these victories.
“Whereas now you know if you are in a Red Bull you would be first or second.”
Of course, eras of dominance are nothing new in F1.
The sport saw it with Michael Schumacher when he won five straight championships for Ferrari in the early 2000s.
Fellow German Sebastian Vettell won four consecutive titles for Red Bull at the start of last decade and, most recently, Lewis Hamilton won six of seven straight championships for Mercedes.
The question that is now being asked is will anyone be able to take up the fight to Red Bull in the next two years, or is the sport going to need to wait until 2026 when the sport introduces its new regulations?
Sauber driver and Hamilton’s former Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas expected Red Bull to continue their stranglehold on F1 for this season and next, but predicted a shake-up when the new rules came into play.
“It is now the Red Bull era, which in F1 is usually how it works,” Bottas said this week.
“You have different eras of different teams and drivers winning.
“But, at least, after them the field is closer than ever, which is good.
“This year and next year, I would still place my bets on them (Red Bull), but in ’26 when there is again a completely new regulation change, new power units, everything that will shake up things which I think will be good for the sport.
“A lot has been done already in terms of the budget caps and limitations to wind tunnel hours depending where you finish, but they (Red Bull) seem to be one-step ahead.
“At the moment they just have the best people etc, so it’s hard to beat. But they deserve it, they are doing a great job.”
When asked this week if he could see an end in sight to Red Bull’s dominance, McLaren star Lando Norris quipped he hoped the F1 pacesetters would soon start to “run out of ideas”.
But Norris said he did not expect a significant shake-up to the grid until 2026.
“For things to really shake up, we have got to wait until 2026 and that can potentially be a big shake-up for every team, including PU’s (power units) being one of the biggest things,” Norris said.
“Now there is not really anything between PU’s between teams, but a lot more between cars.
“I expect Red Bull, being the team they are, to always carry an advantage because they are ahead. They’re just as smart – smarter in many ways – and if they do just as good as any other team they should always carry the advantage that they have.
“But you do hope that they start to run out of ideas.”
But Norris believed the competition was slowly making up ground on Red Bull and predicted Verstappen would be beaten in races this year.
“Every team is catching up,” Norris said.
“Even if you look at our 12 months of progress from last year, we have been the team that has developed the most and the best-developing team.
“So when you look at it from that perspective, we can be very happy with the job we are doing, but it’s not enough and not close enough to challenge them.
“There will be races where Max won’t win. Ferrari is closest and this weekend, you might see Ferrari close.”
Russell was more confident the sport would not have to wait until 2026 for a more regular challenger to emerge for Red Bull, adding fortunes could change quickly in F1.
“There is no doubt Red Bull are favourites for this year and they will be favourites for next year,” Russell said.
“Things change quickly in this sport. It’s so complicated, maybe too complicated and maybe that’s why we’re seeing this spread of performance.”
But Russell suggested he would like to see more tweaks made to F1’s sliding scale wind tunnel testing rules.
“The regulations need tweaking slightly, we have got the financial regulations which put everybody on an even playing field, we then have the aero regulation, which limit the amount of wind tunnel time you use from first to 10th, the winner from the previous year getting the least, the loser getting the most,” Russell said.
“But perhaps rather than it being done based on championship position, it should be done on championship points.
“We finished second last year (in the constructors’ championship), three points ahead of Ferrari, but 400 points behind Red Bull, so ourselves and Ferrari were neck and neck. “Perhaps we should be having the same amount of wind tunnel time and the leader who won by 400 points should be substantially capped.
“The same goes for the teams at the bottom. You’re talking two or three points can be the difference of three championship positions between P8, 9 and 10, but there is a substantial amount of difference in wind tunnel time. When the points are so close, maybe it should be an equal amount.”
While many in the sport feel Verstappen has an air of invincibility around him at the moment, the Dutch star said ahead of this weekend’s race at Albert Park that he did not consider himself that way.
“From my side, I don’t really think about being invincible,” Verstappen said.
“Of course as a driver you always have to believe that you are the best on the grid, but at the other end also I am not really too worried about thinking that way.
“I am just enjoying myself. I feel good with the car and I guess that’s enough. I know that when I get to the race weekend I always try to do the best that I can, I try to maximise everything that I can. When you have a great car, you are able to do great things.”
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