© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes “experienced lots of changes, which were put in place to slow us down over the years and I think that it was better for the sport”.
In recent months there have been a lot of calls for the FIA and F1 to implement some steps to slow the dominant Red Bull team down.
If that were to happen, it wouldn’t be the first time. Usually, after a period of dominance of a single team, the governing organizations would implement a rule change which put the dominant team at a disadvantage.
Most recently this happened to Mercedes, and Lewis Hamilton says it was “better for the sport”. Asked to give his thoughts on F1 and the FIA stepping in, Lewis said:
“I don’t know what’s been proposed, I’ve not heard anything”
“But we’ve experienced lots of changes, which were put in place to slow us down over the years and I think that it was better for the sport.
“If you look at 2021, for example, our qualifying pace was amazing… I think it’s 2021 or 2020, I can’t remember, but where they took away our qualifying mode, for example, brought us closer in qualifying.
“And on one side, the engineers just did an incredible job and they deserved that in merit, but I think from a racing fan [perspective] we want to see all of us a lot closer.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
The Briton added the competition behind Red Bull is currently very close, but the problem is that the Austrian team is out of reach.
“I think that what you’re seeing behind the Red Bulls, we’ve seen quite a good championship this year, between the Ferraris, Astons and all the teams are looking a lot closer than ever before.
“So in some ways, the rule change has worked. In others, there’s still some work that needs to be done.
“If you look at some of the teams, they’re all capped but some teams don’t have the same resources in terms of whether it’s wind tunnel, whether it’s stuff that’s at the factory that the bigger teams had because they had loads of money to throw at it a long, long time ago and they can’t catch up now.
“So there’s always work to do but I think the sport’s done a great job and I do hope for the fans in future we don’t see Mercedes dominate for 10 years or Ferrari dominate for 10 years or any other team.
“Because I think that’s not in the best interest of what us drivers want or what the fans want or what the teams want.
“We want close competition and I hope that gets better and better,” Hamilton concluded.
