Lewis Hamilton’s Proposal to Limit Team Dominance in Formula 1 Sparks Controversy

Lewis Hamilton indicated on Thursday prior to the Austrian Grand Prix that something had to be done to contain the dominance of teams in Formula 1. The statements went down the wrong way with Max Verstappen and Christian Horner also has to laugh at the idea of ​​the seven-time world champion.

Hamilton seemed to be looking forward to a discussion on Thursday in Austria. He came up with an idea to limit team dominance by a date. From that date, teams would only be allowed to work on next season’s car. “Let’s say August 1. That’s going to be the time everyone gets to start, so no one gets an advantage for next year, because that just sucks.” He seems to be targeting Red Bull in particular at the moment. “Probably they are [Red Bull] already focusing on next year’s car. They are so far ahead of the rest that they don’t really need to make any changes to this year’s car.”

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Difficult to supervise

Verstappen shrugged later that day: “I didn’t hear him say this when he won titles all these years, did I? Then it seems out of place to me now. This is how Formula 1 works.” He is now supported by team boss Horner. The Brit thinks that such a proposal is not even possible. “I think it’s an incredibly difficult thing to oversee. How the hell can you say, ‘Okay, go!’ How can you prevent people from thinking or working on next year’s car,” the Briton is quoted by RaceFans” href=”https://www.racefans.net/2023/06/30/hamiltons-plan-to-stop-dominance-wouldnt-work-and-isnt-needed-horner/?utm_source=Twitter_Highlight&utm_medium=Manual_Tweet&utm_campaign=Social_Media_Promotion” target=”_blank”>RaceFans.

Wind tunnel

As far as the British team boss is concerned, the current system is more than sufficient to ensure a level playing field. “I think we already have a kind of handicap system in Formula 1 with the limitation of time in the wind tunnel. Franz [Tost] has almost twice the time of what we have. That’s a big handicap. I think Aston Martin is going to feel it during the mid-year reset. We have to be very careful about what we decide to do in the wind tunnel. That has an effect. It’s a system that didn’t exist before. Let’s see how that goes first.”