Lewis Hamilton, on Thursday, spoke against the mammoth edge Red Bull has over the rest of the grid. And he also fears that since the Milton Keynes-based outfit has practically sealed the season’s championship, they would be very early to work on the next year’s model. And that concerns Hamilton, who wants his team Mercedes to return to the top.
With F1 in the 10th round of its calendar, Red Bull sits comfortably ahead with a lead of 154 points against the second-best team Mercedes. Meanwhile, even Max Verstappen has a sizeable advantage, as he has 321 points from his eight appearances this season.
Unfortunately, for Red Bull’s rivals, even the second-placed driver in the standings is Sergio Perez. Though he is at risk of falling a notch down in the order, it does show that the Austrian team has a humungous advantage over others, which could translate into next season.
Lewis Hamilton wants teams to have a timeline to work
With Red Bull not having to worry much about their championship win this season, Hamilton has come out with a solution that could affect every team’s functioning under the budget of $135,000,000.
“I think the FIA should set a time when everyone can start developing next year’s car. We could say August 1, and that’s where everyone could start, so nobody can get a lead the following year because that sucks,” said Hamilton during the Thursday press conference.
#AustrianGP 🇦🇹: Lewis Hamilton’s suggestions were not aimed at anyone: “It’s not like aimed at any one particular person or anything. It’s just that obviously in my 17 years of being here… before even I got here, you would see periods of dominance. It continues to happen.”
— deni (@fiagirly) June 30, 2023
Hamilton further establishes that he wants every team to start working on their car from the same timeline by saying that if teams are allowed to work on their own accord, then the cycle of dominance won’t change. But did he think that when Mercedes was dominating? Verstappen reckons.
Max Verstappen said nobody talked like that before
The words of change by Hamilton reached Verstappen during the conference, and the Dutchman indeed had a comprehensive response to his F1 foe, with whom his rivalry has gone passive. But the aftershocks of those days are still present.
Verstappen reacting to the uneasiness Hamilton has over Red Bull’s dominance, said that life is unfair, not only in Formula 1 but in every sector. He also said that nobody was talking about these things when the Briton was bagging wins every weekend.
This has been F1’s way for a while. Teams at the top having an unending edge over their rivals for a long time surely irk the latter. As Verstappen said, nobody spoke such things when Mercedes dominated, but Red Bull surely came in as an irritant to curb as much advantage possessed by the Silver Arrows back then.
