F1 chief ignores Hamilton warning and refuses to act amid Verstappen dominance
Stefano Domenicali refuses to "manipulate" the balance of power in Formula 1 and vowed not to step in to help teams to catch Red Bull.
The defending champions have so far made light work of their title defence this year. Red Bull have won all seven races to date with no-one close to them in terms of car competitiveness.
Max Verstappen has five of those wins under his own personal record. Sergio Perez won the other two with his team-mate in second place and no-one else getting a look in.
The situation has led to some complaints about a lack of competitiveness. Some F1 fans on social media have said it is making the sport boring to watch.
Lewis Hamilton understands that point of view, as he said last month. "But as a fan watching, I can understand because it's not as competitive as maybe the NFL or the NBA at the moment," opined the Mercedes racer.
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"As a sport [F1] has tried to bring the teams closer but it never seems to work. All I can say is that we're working as hard as we can to close up and get back and give them more of a fight.
"It's just unfortunate that we still see the same sort of gaps between the teams. I don't know what the solution is for the future, but we are going to have to adapt to these regulations. Otherwise it could be the same as it is now for years."
In the past, F1 has made mid-season rule changes in order to promote competitiveness. But, despite Hamilton's warning, chief executive Domenicali is adamant that he does not want to get involved.
Lewis Hamilton recently warned that Red Bull could dominate F1 for years (Hasan Bratic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)"It's not correct because we cannot be seen as part of manipulation," he said when asked if he had considered taking such action. "This is not correct, and this is not fair. I am not [considering] at all this kind of approach.
"F1 has been always a sport where there has been cycles, where teams were very dominant and then some others came into the equation. So, I would say our objectives should be – if you take this strategic approach – to make sure that these cycles in the future will be shorter."
Domenicali also dismissed the suggestion that there is no competition in F1 this year despite Red Bull's dominance. The Italian pointed out that, behind the runaway leaders, an intriguing battle is forming in the race for second place in the championship.
Stefano Domenicali has vowed not to interfere with the balance of power on the grid (Getty Images)He said: "I think that the gap is between one team and the others. We need to consider that [Red Bull] did an incredible job. It is true that the gap seems to be big, but we need to be prudent, because we know in life things can change very quickly.
"The others are very, very close. If you look at the gaps to the other teams, I think that they did an incredible job, [and it] needs to be rewarded. So, as I said, it's clear that the aim of what we want to do is to make sure that these gaps will stay as small as possible.
"I'm sure that the other teams are watching how they can catch up with their development in the context of the budget cap.
"It will be interesting to see if the development curve of the team that today is leading will slow down because, at the end of the day, they did a better job in the shorter term. So that will be very interesting to see in the next couple of months."
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