© Stephen Reuss for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Lewis Hamilton wants the FIA to introduce a new rule preventing teams from switching to the development of next year’s car early in the season, like Red Bull just did.
So far Red Bull has been completely dominating the 2023 season, and because they are very comfortably leading the championship, the team already announced they are switching to the development of their 2024 car.
Ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton called for a new rule which would prevent this.
“The car [Mercedes’ 2024 car] is moving in the right direction,” Lewis told Sky Sports F1.
“I think ultimately it’s likely that, bit by bit, by the end of the year we will probably catch Red Bull, but that’s only because they’re probably already focusing on next year’s car because they’re so far ahead.
“They don’t have to make any changes to this year’s car any more as they’re so far ahead. He’s cruising at 100 points ahead of us.
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“I think the FIA should probably put a time when everyone is allowed to start developing on the next year’s car.
“So August 1, that’s when everybody can start so then no one can get an advantage on the next year, cause that sucks. It would make more sense. They should.
“Say for example you start the season and you know you have a bad car, you can just say I’m not going to bother developing this car and put all this money into next year’s car and have an advantage.”
When put to Lewis that Mercedes had the same ability to start developing their car early in the season, during their dominant run, Lewis said:
“We never started as early as them. That’s why I’m saying it needs to change – because that’s why you have dominance for so long, and they keep allowing it to happen.
“Ferrari was ahead and the same thing happened there, when Red Bull were ahead with Seb [Vettel] back in the day, they start earlier so they’re always ahead.”
Lewis then gave further details on his proposal.
“I was really fortunate to have one of those periods, Max is having it now, but with the way it’s going it will continue to happen over and over again and I don’t think we need that in the sport.
“If everyone had a cut-off time, then no one has a head start and it’s a real race in that short space of time for the future car.
“Maybe that would help everyone be more on a level the following year. I might be wrong, but something has got to change.
“It would be cool to see in the next 20 years that we don’t have huge bands of time where one team lead too far ahead, because we want to see better racing,” Hamilton concluded.
