Red Bull does not want to diminish its dominance with time restrictions on car development

Lewis Hamilton had submitted some ideas to reduce the dominance of the Austrian team attacking his home Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion submitted the idea of being able to work on the future car within a set time frame. If everyone had the same deadline […] let’s say, August 1st, then no one would have an advantage and it would be a true race in that short period of time to create the future car,” said Lewis Hamilton.

The objective would be for all teams to be able to prepare the car at the same time so that each team has an equal chance of dominating a season. According to Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, setting a date to start working on the next car would be impossible from a logistical standpoint.

(I) I think it would be an incredibly difficult thing for the commissioners. How on earth could you say, “it’s good, go ahead!”? How do you prevent people from thinking or working on next year’s cars?

For the boss of the Austrian team, the restrictions on aerodynamic testing, which limit the time spent in the wind tunnel for the top teams, implemented by the FIA, are more than sufficient. This season, once again, Red Bull is the team with the least time in the wind tunnel. The team is also facing a penalty that further hinders the development of the future car. “I think we have a handicapping system in Formula 1 thanks to the reduction in wind tunnel time,” explained Franz Tost, team principal of AlphaTauri, the little sister of the Austrian team.

Horner has the solution to prevent domination

For Christian Horner, the only solution to avoid dominance by certain teams is stability in the regulations.

« I think that the most important thing, and the history of Formula 1 demonstrates it, is stability. Not playing with regulations will always lead to convergence. And I think you can see that convergence is already starting to happen. »

The boss of Red Bull claims that at the end of this regulation, which started in 2021, the teams will be closer to each other: « I think that by the end of 2025, all the teams will probably be very close, and then we will mess it all up and start again in 2026 (change of regulation concerning the engine, editor’s note).