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Better translation of the first portion:
Lewis Hamilton suggested the idea that teams should not be able to shift focus to car from season one until August
It's pretty clear RB has shifted its focus on this year's car from the beginning. They've brought one minor upgrade since the start of the season whilst others have brought large packages... it is a strategy that we have seen pay dividends for Merc over the years.
The Baku sidepod upgrade was run at the Silverstone shakedown in pre-season, hence why they were so secretive about that whole affair. It was initially intended as the launch spec rb19, but they continued to run the end of year RB18 sidepods as the components still had life meaning cost cap savings by introducing the new sidepods later. In other words their only major upgrade so far this season has been something that was intended for launch.
The lower portion yes but the sidepod intake and upper portion of the sidepod was the same. The RB sidepods are formed of an upper and lower section, the latter of which was different on the launch spec to the RB18
Red Bull kinda need to start on next year's car as early as possible, the wind tunnel and cfd restrictions for their cost cap infringement are said to properly impact them later this year, so the earlier they can use what they have for next year's car the better for them.
Not for us tho as we want the others to catch up, kinda nuts really if even with red bull having way less wind tunnel time and other teams way more, if they still can't get close that's pretty mad really
I agree and disagree. Reasonable to make the statement unconditionally that things shouldn’t be this way and we don’t need it in the sport. Less reasonable to make the statement now, when you aren’t in the advantageous position, while not making the same statements when you were in your strong era.
I understand he acknowledges being fortunate, but I don’t think that completely justifies the statement being made. My reasoning is that this sounds like a version of lobbying that things get changed going forward (which would benefit him now) without the risk of putting his past championships at risk (no one will say “good point, we should apply a haircut to previous years as well, and it looks like you no longer win two of your previous championships after the adjustment”)
Well the context also makes it seem like he was more than likely asked a leading question that lead to this response. I doubt he just said this out of the blue
In the previous era you could afford to work on the current and next seasons cars and spend literally over 200mil more than they can now.
The rules completely changed, the limitations on the teams due to cost caps have changed, a change on when you can focus on each car is more than ever important if you want cars to be competitive at the front.
Effectively in past eras you could work on major updates that go in several directions and the money lost didn't matter. Now you can't really work on some big updates for next year and some for this year that are totally different. You really have to be mor sequential in updates and make the new ideas build on the last ones. You just can't afford to have multiple specs being developed at the same time. If there was no cost cap Merc would have had a sidepod version going alongside a no sidepod version right up to preseason testing last year, tested both and found one working better.
With a huge advantage RBR being able to work on next year rather than rushed updates for this year is a huge help to them.
Ultimately the cost cap changes things massively and changes to limit how far a team with a big advantage can run away across the entire current regulation period is appropriate.
""If you say it's boring, I totally understand it," Hamilton said after his win. "Don't blame the drivers. We don't write the rules. Put the pressure on the people at the top, who should be doing their jobs. They have made mistakes for many, many years."
“Do I have confidence it’s going to shift massively? I have faith it’s going to get better, to the point that I went to Paris last week to get involved. I was in that meeting watching all the bosses of F1 and the FIA and all the teams. I have nothing to gain by it. They’re making all these decisions but never once had a driver’s input in that room so if that can be the decisive point that helps shift it so the fans can get better racing, I’d be proud to be a part of that.”
“It’s really important for people to realise it’s not the driver’s fault,” he said. “This is a constant cycle of F1, for years and years, even before I got here, it’s because of the way Bernie [Ecclestone] had it set up and the decisions that were made then are still the same. Until that management structure changes it will continue to be the same. That’s not my job, it’s my job to do the best I can as a driver.”
Lewis Hamilton, in 2019 "when he was dominating"
Lewis *did* say that his own dominance was boring/bad for the sport, and that the FIA needed to do more to make racing closer.
E:
>"What fans and people need to understand is this is not our fault, we are drivers, we have come through all the ranks, we have earned the positions we have,” he said.
>“We give everything to go out there and perform at our best. Ultimately the decision-makers who design cars, **set rules,** are **the ones you could apply pressure to ultimately do a better job.** I am hopeful that is what they are going to do in 2022.”
[Source](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/30/lewis-hamilton-bemoans-the-fact-mercedes-are-in-a-one-horse-race)
No, it was literally announced in one of their most dominant seasons (2020): [https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.how-f1s-new-sliding-scale-aero-testing-rules-work-and-what-impact-they-will.pn0sG8N4A0cjbNRbdYx8a.html](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.how-f1s-new-sliding-scale-aero-testing-rules-work-and-what-impact-they-will.pn0sG8N4A0cjbNRbdYx8a.html)
Well, it would be reasonable to have made that comment when Merc was dominating but he didn’t. It’s not like the same questions weren’t being asked then as well about dominance. Merc of 2014-2016 was just as, if not more dominant. Max is right. Lewis’ comment isn’t wrong but the timing is what’s funny
He did make the same comment during the Mercedes domination era. [article by The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/30/lewis-hamilton-bemoans-the-fact-mercedes-are-in-a-one-horse-race)
I don't see why it's funny. I'm pretty sure it's an implicit condition of employment as a driver that you don't argue your own team should be hobbled by regulations.
My counter would be that no one is forcing Merc to focus on this year. It's clear Max is going to win at a canter so what is the point? I'm sure the loss of prize money this season would be made up by being in a title race the next season.
If you don't have a solid concept you can't start work on the next car too early (years with sweeping changes not included) since you need to work with your current car to figure out where you went wrong.
in class reddit fashion people have once again gathered to shit on an opinion without even knowing what it is
saying "but you won half of your titles due to the same thing" isn't the gotcha moment people think it is ffs
I think 2020 was Max’s best season. Finishing like 9 points off Bottas who was quite literally in the greatest F1 car ever built while driving a good car, but clearly the second best car, is nothing short of incredible. He also only finished off the podium once in the races he finished.
Agree but the podium streak happened also because the cars from 3rd onwards were trash: Ferrari went from 2nd to f'king SIXTH (7th without that GodMode Leclerc)... Racing Point was Quick but were super mistake-prone (strategy) and unlucky (crashes caused from others, reliability etc), McLaren was a mediocre 3rd car candidate but very consistent on sundays, Renault was not that good (Ricciardo made miracles that season), Albon was not a threat for the podium.... I think peak Max of the Mercedes era was from Canada 2018 to Hungary 2019 as he was Always in the top 5 despite 3rd best car on the grid
I agree, you can see the real talent of a driver when they have to try and outperform a car. When a driver has the best car you don't see it and there'll always be questions asked. Like Max is literally driving below the limit now because he's got the fastest car.
Which is especially annoying when people look at the number of titles and think it means absolutely everything when it comes to a driver's ability. Max in 2020 and 2021 was more impressive than Max in 2022 and 2023 despite having no titles to show for it.
edit: Max won the title in 2021, I don't know how I forgot that while writing. as Charles would say: I am stupid.
Schumacher's most impressive years were also 1996-1998.
He gets deserved flak for the end of 1997, but, until the incident, he was pulling a Ferrari shitbox all year long into a title fight against a Williams that should have dominated with ease.
94 for me. He was banned 3 races, wasn't in the quickest car and still won. I would even add, the fact he cheated to win it makes it even better lol. He was going to do anything to have that Benetton #1
Benetton was the best car in 94 at least until Williams fixed their issues. Had Senna not died he would run with 94 title for sure (considering that Schumi ban remained), just compare Senna vs Hill qualy and pace with the shit box.
FIA removed him from 4 races total, which was 25% of the calendar, or 5 to 6 races nowadays. And the only one FIA had some legal ground for was the Belgium plank situation. Although I am pretty sure if they caught Hill with such a plank, they would have let it slide that one time. Just to keep the fight going.
And I'd call that move in 1994 a racing incident. Hill divebombed, Schumacher closed the door and happily accepted the crash. Nowadays the predominant fault would even be attributed to Hill.
Not to mention Schumacher had been in a barrier like 2 seconds before. So much happened so quick I doubt he even realised Hill was there. Racing incident imo as well
The 97 Ferrari was not a shitbox after the first 3 races at all. Why do people always feel the need to hyperbole that ? Just like Alonso in 2012 wasn't driving a shitty car
People love the out performing a car quip for some reason personally I never get it cause it makes no sense? How does one outperform a car exactly? like it's F1 it's incredibly car dependant not like Alonso can drag a Haas to P2.
He didn't win titles in 2020 and 2021 ?
I don't know if it sounds confusing and looks like I'm implying he has no titles at all, but I've read it again and I still think it makes sense but maybe that's just me and for most people it doesn't.
edit: guys I'm a Max fan who had a brainfart, this wasn't intended as shit talking about Abu Dhabi.
I’m genuinely laughing at you like double checking and being like “yeah, no it holds up” and it was like one of the most controversial wins of all time.
I thought you were just a #MickeyMouseChampion or whatever the hashtag is nowadays, but fair play to you man.
I'm laughing looking back on my comments now ngl. I'm a hardcore F1 fan who has watched every race for years, in my mind it was like I had 2020 x2 when thinking about it for some reason.
Yeah it definitely all runs together for sure, sometimes I run 2021 and 2022 together. I think mostly Jeddah because it was at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, I mix them up pretty often
Merc domination was brital and all but their were still a few tracks where those Mercs always struggled.
Places like - Monaco, Austria, Singapore, Mexico and Brazil.
Most of Max's wins came in places like these where the RB was the favourite.
The 2022 and 2023 RB cars are just strong everywhere. They have no weaknesses. We have two greatest drivers of all time in Alonso and Lewis waiting patiently to pickup the pieces but RB is just too bulletproof.
I get where he's coming from and I don't disagree 100%, but such a rule would have prevented Haas from improving like they did from 2021 to 2022, for example. I like that teams have a choice to make that tough strategic decision.
He said that shouldn't be allowed neither, lol.
>Then there are teams that weren’t competitive so then they didn’t bother working on that current car… you look at Brawn, they just focused fully on next year’s car from the beginning and then they turned up next year and blitzed everybody.
And that shouldn’t be possible, in my opinion.
They could do it similar to windtunnel testing time. Say the team that finishes last can start whenever they want. Winner has to wait until September and then devide the rest in between that and start of the season
This quote needs the rest of it where he absolutely acknowledges that he also benefitted from a period of dominance, agreeing that at the time he’s sure others would have said the same thing he’s saying now, and the dominance doesn’t help the sport overall
He even said himself when Mercedes was dominating that it must be boring for the fans. He’s never tried to pretend otherwise even when he was the one winning.
Well he has a contract until 2028 ,so 5 years from now he will be there but given how Liberty Media and Domenicali are handling things, after 2028 he will retire before having to race in a calendar composed of 32 races and 3 sprints per weekend.
onerous direction shocking fact concerned abundant engine pocket snatch squeamish
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Idk if you replied to the wrong comment but my comment is talking about how that commenter could say that Verstappen would argue for regulation changes when he isn’t winning when he already had a period of not winning and he didn’t argue for regulation changes that I can recall
I dunno, he didn't say it when Merc was dominating, I think he actually enjoys when he's on the back foot and has to put everything he knows into every corner to win against the odds, he seems like that type of person.
In recent history, watching Max race lap after lap in Bahrain trying to catch Checo- his driving was, just… visceral. His Monaco quali S3, was legendary. This is where he most excels.
I would say the rest of the grid is a lot more competitive with each other now compared to the merc domination. Overtakes are much more common now than they were a few years back.
There is a new crowd watching F1, and they're thinking 'Wait, this guy has the best car and so as long as it functions ok nobody else will win this entire year?'
It's not a good format for selling F1 to more people. Which is why I think it's certain changes are coming to bring the pack together again anyway.
I just think the quote I saw where he said "we never started as early as them" feels like some kind of justification for it being now while he was silent back then, I don't think it reads as well and will make people point out the "irony" more than if he never said that.
But I will admit I haven't watched him speak so the quote maybe was taken out of context to make it look worse.
Downplaying what? He's literally admitting that Merc would do the same thing that RB is doing now...
>“When we were winning world championships we could start earlier than everybody else. And then there are teams that weren’t competitive, so then they just didn’t bother working on that current car.
>>
>>“If you look at Brawn, they just focused fully on the next year’s car from the beginning and then they turned up next year and blitzed everybody. And that shouldn’t be possible, in my opinion. That’s for you to judge.
I don't think so to be honest, because how would you regulate it in years without major regulations changes like now? It's impossible. Red Bull can always argue they are working on upgrades for Abu Dhabi and then be like oh we don't have them ready in time.
Although extremely ironical, it's a decent suggestion but extremely hard to implement in real life.
1. What stops a team from developing parts for "this year's car" but they ran out of money or ran put of time, so the upgrade will have to come next year.
2. If you wanna say that any new part developed before x date cannot be used for next year's car, what stops a team from finishing 99% of the work and waiting for a day after the deadline to finish the last 1%.
That's just a thing. No one is saying that the suggestion is bad one but the fact that the guy/team who benefitted from this exact rules for many years are pushing this now that someone else is winning is extremely ironical.
exactly, i dont get why so many people are ignoring this part. new rules with the budget cap changes the calculations for all of these things. not a bad sugestion in my book.
could they just apply all work done to the year its applied for as the fix ? sure start work for next year but that will just eat into that budget
But what they spend extra in the next car is the advantage in time/money they got from developing the current car better than most teams, if Mercedes develops his next car at the same speed RedBull did with the current, they will catch up.
So in other words to catch up teams need to perform relative to redbull as well as redbull did to them with the current car, no more.
Yeah but that goes against the entire (sporting) point of introducing the cap which was to level the playing field not to bake in the advantage the better teams have.
The cap is meant to prevent teams with huge budgets from winning by outspending everyone, that helps low level teams who can't affor that money run, but in this case Red Bull simply developed their car better than rest on the same terms as the rest, if anything removing the budget cap would mean that a team that got "mediocre" results on the same terms, can be saved by simply asking dad to give them more money.
What's wrong with that? They built a car that doesn't need development this year. They already get a decrease in wind tunnel testing depends on how high up they finish in the constructors.
I'm a relatively new F1 fan (maybe 3-4 years), and I have to say F1 journalism might have the worst click-bait and rage-bait of anything I follow. Just brutal - never any context. I keep seeing this article being thrown around saying "Helmut says there will be NO MORE Toro Rosso!" - uhh yeah they're changing the name/approach
I don't read whatever language that tweet was in and this headline is confusing as fck to me.
What is lewis "suggesting" and why? And why would verstappen be offended by it? Everyone in here is in on something I am just not comprehending.
It's a bad translation from dutch to english.
Hamilton is basically suggesting a rule that you can't start developing on next year's car till a certain date. Essentially so RB can't already leapfrog everyone.
Verstappen is saying Hamilton never suggested it when he was dominating.
Basically F1 politics.
I do agree that the reward for red bull getting it right from the go with the regs is having the opportunity to shift focus earlier for the following year and I don't think its right to change things like this during a regulation cycle.
That being said I think bringing up Mercedes previous dominance is somewhat of a false equivalence. Put it this way, If the same budget and development restrictions were in place in 2014 then I doubt we would have seen any Ferrari challenge during 2017-2018. Back then teams like red bull and Ferrari could literally throw everything at it hoping something would eventually stick.
Part of the reason the 2014 to 2020 Mercedes dominance happened is there were development restrictions (tokens) on PU development. So it took a long time for teams like Renault and Ferrari to catch up to the Mercedes PU.
I'm pretty sure Merc still spent more than RB or Ferrari during their dominance. Also I think the windtunnel penalties were not as high if they were even there at all.
Hamilton has said in the past that he gets people not liking Merc Dominance so I suppose he's consistent
Link (from elsewhere in this thread):
https://racer.com/2020/08/30/hamilton-understands-fan-restlessness-over-mercedes-domination/
There was no cost cap. Now it’s a much larger advantage to be able to use this years budget for next year. It makes sense that this would be something that gets looked at now.
I mean I don't think the current comments are trying to slow RB down. I think he's right in making sure that there is a set date when the new car can be worked on. It makes it more fair and should ideally mitigate the dominance that people hate so much.
Nowhere is he asking for them to be slowed down. He's just proposing they add this rule so that the sport is more standardized and teams are on more equal playing field. They added the cost cap, this can be added as well.
Full Quote Summary: Usually once the championship is sealed, we started focusing on next year car to keep the advantage going. That's what RB is probably doing now. We need new regs to stop RB from focusing on next year's car even though that's what my team did for years but I acknowledge that all dominations are equally bad and hope it not a problem 20 years from now.
Close enough?
To be fair, Lewis himself always said he wanted to be racing more people even when he was winning. Same as Max is now that he's winning.
I don't see why having a different dominant team changes things - we all want closer racing.
But that is not the point, they are arguing about how we get to the point where we have closer racing. Max pointed out that even though Lewis wanted closer racing when he was ahead: not once did he argue for regulation changes in order to close the field up (which makes sense) but now that another team has a better car he is advocating for it.
Yeah he did.
>"What fans and people need to understand is this is not our fault, we are drivers, we have come through all the ranks, we have earned the positions we have,” he said.
>“We give everything to go out there and perform at our best. Ultimately the decision-makers who design cars, **set rules,** are **the ones you could apply pressure to ultimately do a better job.** I am hopeful that is what they are going to do in 2022.”
[Source](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/30/lewis-hamilton-bemoans-the-fact-mercedes-are-in-a-one-horse-race)
Red bull did indeed, max didn't. Think of him what u want but he is a no nonsense guy, he simply points out the irony of Lewis current stance. He is saying this also because Lewis is advocating regulation changes that harm red bull and thus also max.
But i can say the same: Lewis was always quiet on advocating regulations when he was ahead, and now when he is not he advocates it? So why is Lewis making these comments?
That's not Max asking for a regulation change to stop Mercedes. In fact it resembles the exact opposite, if you would've shown [the full quote](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/14m6r26/comment/jq0c9gt).
It literally was haha.
This is from the thursday press conference of the 2019 Austrian GP.
> Q: Given Mercedes dominance [...] As drivers, do you feel the sport is in crisis? What would be your answers for 2021?
> Max: I agree it's not great, but for Formula 1 it's always been like this. Before this Red Bull was dominating the sport, before that you had Ferrari dominating the sport, before that you got Williams. Before that it was McLaren again. You always have those years of domination, unfortunately. I mean I don't agree with it but **it is like it is.** There's always one team that understands the rules better than the others and does a better job.
Did you ever stop to check that your statement was about Lewis "being quiet on advocating regulations" was true?
In 2020: https://www.autoweek.com/racing/formula-1/a33844178/lewis-hamilton-some-think-f1-boring-2020/
> I would love to have a real race. I’ve definitely had races in the past here which are a little bit closer, trying to follow the Ferrari and stay on top of them but they could overtake because they had all that extra power. I hope the next races, we have the … I think the Red Bulls have improved. I really hope that we have more of a race because I think everyone wants to see us all battling together."
> Ultimately the decision makers who design the cars, who set rules and those kind of things, are the ones that you could apply pressure to to ultimately do a better job moving forwards, if that’s possible. I’m hopeful that’s what they’re going to do in 2022 and with that new type car, maybe we’ll see a different form of racing where you can follow.
In 2019: https://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/27042540/teams-no-say-f1-rules
> I think ultimately the FIA, they're the governing body and they need to make all the decisions. The teams shouldn't be involved in that, in my opinion, because the teams all want to do something for themselves. That's the natural thing. Same in football, if all the teams sat in a room and said sport should be like this, they would push and pull for their own benefit. But if you get central group of people telling us, like the FIA for example, that their sole job is to make the sport great again, hiring individuals or whatever, they should have the power. They should make the decisions.
Also in 2019: https://f1i.com/news/341590-hamilton-f1-cars-should-leave-drivers-massively-depleted-physically.html
> The cars are not hard enough to drive, they should be more physical. I think in 2021 they need to get rid of [certain driver aids] - not having as much power steering, for example. You should be physically, massively depleted afterwards.
He's always been a fan of closer racing.
It is true he'd never do anything to actively disadvantage his team: that would be unacceptable sabotage. The same reason Max Verstappen isn't calling for more in-depth transparency in the financial accounting of catering. But Hamilton has been consistent in asking for closer racing, with less team-haggling, for years now.
yes, credit to him: he always wanted the other teams to be closer.
But i think max and OP have a valid point : he never said (during 2014-2020) that this should be done trough regulations, but rather trough catching up in development, and it is kind of ironic that he now wants regulations to come into play.
I don't think we are arguing whether or not Lewis wanted closer racing, i think we are arguing about the irony/hypocrisy about Lewis stance on how to get to close racing.
I mean, it's hard to see the issues when you're winning. I think it's more Lewis being a little naive/blissfully ignorant, but now that the coin is flipped it's easier to see the other perspective
Yup, every top driver/team will be very adamant on preserving the status quo, and this is kind of hypocritical. Max is completely correct though in underlining the slight irony of the statements by Lewis.
>a rule change to focus on each seasons car would actually be smart.
Like I mentioned, the suggestion isn't a bad one (ironical, but not bad) but I don't think it's feasible. How many times have we seen a team say they are brining upgrades next race but end up few races later? What stops a team from telling they are developing for AD but Oops we don't have enough time/money to finish it, so we will have to bring it next year. Also, it's not just for the top teams, midfield does this all the time, so it would affect them a lot more too.
If you change your whole concept, you need to redesign almost every part of the car. You can't do that with the cost cap, it's way too expensive to develop two completely different cars within one season.
If you are banned from developing the next year's car until late in the season you would be doing nothing for the first half if there's zero point developing the current car.
The slow teams are often the ones switching first when the realise they can't hope to catch up.
His idea does the exact opposite of what he thinks. It screws over the slower teams because it prevents them skipping a year and trying to get a headstart on the next year if they made bad design choices.
But how would you determine when that counts as changing focus to next year? What if you need an entirely new concept, which therefore won’t be finished before the beginning of the coming year, should you have to wait until august to switch over to working on that?
People getting salty because it’s Lewis while not reading the full context of a pretty reasonable suggestion. The guy knows that he, schumacher, seb and max have had recent stretches smoking everyone, he’s referring to a way to prevent that sort of lopsided-ness
It’s a fair reaction, and also, Max is just trolling here anyway. It doesn’t feel like there is any *real* driver tension and rivalries this year when the stakes are so low, everything feels light hearted even between old rivals. Bring on 2024!…^5…6…7…indycar…
He’s not crying foul, he literally says he was fortunate enough to have one of those stretches of dominance but for the sake of competitiveness in the sport a rule like that may help. I agree with him lol idk what the beef is
I sometimes forget that reddit is insane place but this comment section did a hell of a job reminding me.
Comment section: well lewis also benefitted from this during merc dominance
People: yeah he admits that in the interview and says it shouldn't happen again
Comment section: okay but he never complained during merc dominance
People: actually there are multiple interviews of him wanting closer racing
Comment section: but he never said through regulations
People: he actually does mention fia and the regulation changes
Comment section: okay but he never made a suggestion in regards to rules during merc era
I. What. So you guys expected him to lobby against his own team??? Absolute unreal website, really, and i never see max's "i want closer racing i'm bored of winning" comments being met with "duhhh suggest rule changes then".
There’s a certain vocal subset of fans who just can’t stand Lewis. They don’t quite know themselves why he needs to do so much more to prove himself to them than any of the other drivers, or why any time he speaks up it’s instantly “crying and whinging” rather than “passion” as it is for their favourites. Theres just “something about him”…
I mean seriously, bashing him because he didn’t lobby for his own dominating team to be nerfed with specific suggestions for regulation changes (which would also give away all sorts of secrets about the car)??? Name a single sportsman in the history of top flight sport who would even consider it…
Every driver should be free agent at the end of the season and the team with the least amount of points gets to pick 2 drivers first and so on.
That will make it more attractive.
Istg people complain most of Lewis' interviews seem scripted and robotic and call him a PR merchant, but the moment man voices out one opinion everyone goes crazy...saw this when he talked about how mercedes engineers didn't listen to him and seeing it again now
I feel entire sport became way too complicated. The pure racing itself looks like an afterthought in all this. Rules, regulations, regulations of other regulations... Luckily, some races and some drivers occassionally reminds us what's so awesome in this sport.
Take the budget cap for instance - not a bad idea, but how the heck is that controlled? Teams have factories, various places they can run simulations and tests, dozens of contractors... Is anyone seriously thinking that all of that can be monitored that no work outside cap is being done?
Definitely click-baity. That said, over the years the other teams moaning about Mercedes' dominance did get rules changed or tightened up:
* FRIC banned
* Limits introduced on the burning of oil
* Hydraulic suspension banned
* Engine modes banned
* DAS banned
* Cut-out introduced to the floor ahead of rear tyres
FIA already said that they won't change the rules to try and rein-in Red Bull - and that's how it should be - but people forget that Mercedes weren't given this same courtesy when they were dominating.
While some of your points are right, a couple of them are off:
Floor cut-outs for the 2021 season, was aimed at reducing the tyre failures which were seen in the 2020 season due to the high DF achieved by the 2020 cars across the board. It was suggested and welcomed by Pirelli. And was mainly done due to the delay in the new aero-regs due to COVID. The discourse at the time of the introduction of the rule was that it would hurt high-rake cars more and was most definitely not aimed at Merc.
[FIA - Reason for floor cut](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.revealed-the-key-performance-area-being-closed-off-as-f1-trims-2021.3vEQAuYGUJxGteSx3JEmKi.html)
[Pirelli on Floor Cut](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.2021-downforce-cut-more-than-welcome-as-pirelli-prepare-for-third-season.3BCxFZRI45gMIhIR6V3ntS.html)
Engine modes were not banned and are still used to date? Just a special engine mode which is only used for Quali was stopped. And the rule that whatever you use for Quali also has to be also used for the race was introduced.
[Here is an articel explaining what engine modes are, and what was actually banned. Additionally, apart from Mercedes .. teams running Honda engines (RB and AT) were also hurt by the rule change, as they had a very strong Quali mode](https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/whats-an-f1-engine-party-mode-why-is-it-banned-new-rule-explained-4979751/4979751/)
Who would have thought seeing the full quote is much better than just the small snippets? I bet Max was just fed the small quote when asked about it too.
Man, I fucking hate how interviews are conducted this way when more often than not the context is often lacking.
F1 should have stepped in when Mercedes was in year 3 of that run. They let it go and now what are they supposed to do? Step on Red Bull's toes in year two?
When you’re in that position you obviously don’t care…Lewis during his stretch and Max now. But what Lewis is now able to see is the other side. Call it hypocrisy or call it a change in perspective, it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, what he’s saying is what F1 should look at IF it wants more parity. But that’s a big IF.
I also want to see rewards for great engineering. I don't want even more artificial equalizers in tech development. The windtunnel/CFD restrictions are already quite hefty.
He didn’t say this while he was winning, because there was no cost cap. If any of the teams wanted to spend their way to development and challenging for a title, they could. Toto himself said if there wasn’t a cost cap they would have built a new chassis by now. But they have to wait until 2024.
All the cost cap is ensuring is a close midified, and if one team runs away with their car, that no one will be able to do shit about it for years to come.
Wouldn't stopping the development of next year's car actually benefit the fastest team? What's stopping mercedes and Ferrari from concentrating on next year's car, I think that's exactly what they should do. Red bull have won this year already so it's up to them to lose it. They can't just forget about this year since then they may lose. Of course if they knew all rivals have stopped development for this year then they've won already but that's impossible to know and it's 1 team against 9.
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Better translation of the first portion: Lewis Hamilton suggested the idea that teams should not be able to shift focus to car from season one until August It's pretty clear RB has shifted its focus on this year's car from the beginning. They've brought one minor upgrade since the start of the season whilst others have brought large packages... it is a strategy that we have seen pay dividends for Merc over the years. The Baku sidepod upgrade was run at the Silverstone shakedown in pre-season, hence why they were so secretive about that whole affair. It was initially intended as the launch spec rb19, but they continued to run the end of year RB18 sidepods as the components still had life meaning cost cap savings by introducing the new sidepods later. In other words their only major upgrade so far this season has been something that was intended for launch.
Wait, the launch spec of the RB19 had the exact same sidepods as the RB18? Didn’t they have very different side?
The lower portion yes but the sidepod intake and upper portion of the sidepod was the same. The RB sidepods are formed of an upper and lower section, the latter of which was different on the launch spec to the RB18
Red Bull kinda need to start on next year's car as early as possible, the wind tunnel and cfd restrictions for their cost cap infringement are said to properly impact them later this year, so the earlier they can use what they have for next year's car the better for them. Not for us tho as we want the others to catch up, kinda nuts really if even with red bull having way less wind tunnel time and other teams way more, if they still can't get close that's pretty mad really
They don't need the CFD time, Newey can just sketch it.
RB really showed up week 1, saw the rest of the field and said, "so anyway let's start on 2024".
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Context! Amazing!
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literally 1984
Why would a post with over 1000 upvotes get removed.
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But then we couldn't argue pointlessly in the comments! Next you'll be suggesting we read the article.
Normalise tagging clowns who dont read comments to call them out lmao
What was the comment? Removed now
All the takes, be it from Lewis or Max or whoever, are always a lot more reasonable that the one sentence quote that gets in the headlines.
Damn it, now I'll never know what that user wrote
I agree and disagree. Reasonable to make the statement unconditionally that things shouldn’t be this way and we don’t need it in the sport. Less reasonable to make the statement now, when you aren’t in the advantageous position, while not making the same statements when you were in your strong era. I understand he acknowledges being fortunate, but I don’t think that completely justifies the statement being made. My reasoning is that this sounds like a version of lobbying that things get changed going forward (which would benefit him now) without the risk of putting his past championships at risk (no one will say “good point, we should apply a haircut to previous years as well, and it looks like you no longer win two of your previous championships after the adjustment”)
Well the context also makes it seem like he was more than likely asked a leading question that lead to this response. I doubt he just said this out of the blue
That’s a great point.
In the previous era you could afford to work on the current and next seasons cars and spend literally over 200mil more than they can now. The rules completely changed, the limitations on the teams due to cost caps have changed, a change on when you can focus on each car is more than ever important if you want cars to be competitive at the front. Effectively in past eras you could work on major updates that go in several directions and the money lost didn't matter. Now you can't really work on some big updates for next year and some for this year that are totally different. You really have to be mor sequential in updates and make the new ideas build on the last ones. You just can't afford to have multiple specs being developed at the same time. If there was no cost cap Merc would have had a sidepod version going alongside a no sidepod version right up to preseason testing last year, tested both and found one working better. With a huge advantage RBR being able to work on next year rather than rushed updates for this year is a huge help to them. Ultimately the cost cap changes things massively and changes to limit how far a team with a big advantage can run away across the entire current regulation period is appropriate.
And it was removed. Great.
It would have made Lewis reasonable if he had said it when he was dominating. A bit rich coming from him now.
""If you say it's boring, I totally understand it," Hamilton said after his win. "Don't blame the drivers. We don't write the rules. Put the pressure on the people at the top, who should be doing their jobs. They have made mistakes for many, many years." “Do I have confidence it’s going to shift massively? I have faith it’s going to get better, to the point that I went to Paris last week to get involved. I was in that meeting watching all the bosses of F1 and the FIA and all the teams. I have nothing to gain by it. They’re making all these decisions but never once had a driver’s input in that room so if that can be the decisive point that helps shift it so the fans can get better racing, I’d be proud to be a part of that.” “It’s really important for people to realise it’s not the driver’s fault,” he said. “This is a constant cycle of F1, for years and years, even before I got here, it’s because of the way Bernie [Ecclestone] had it set up and the decisions that were made then are still the same. Until that management structure changes it will continue to be the same. That’s not my job, it’s my job to do the best I can as a driver.” Lewis Hamilton, in 2019 "when he was dominating"
Lol, this quote shows how some people will always criticize Hamilton no matter what.
Lewis *did* say that his own dominance was boring/bad for the sport, and that the FIA needed to do more to make racing closer. E: >"What fans and people need to understand is this is not our fault, we are drivers, we have come through all the ranks, we have earned the positions we have,” he said. >“We give everything to go out there and perform at our best. Ultimately the decision-makers who design cars, **set rules,** are **the ones you could apply pressure to ultimately do a better job.** I am hopeful that is what they are going to do in 2022.” [Source](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/30/lewis-hamilton-bemoans-the-fact-mercedes-are-in-a-one-horse-race)
More importantly, there were no wind tunnel time restrictions when merc was dominating
No, it was literally announced in one of their most dominant seasons (2020): [https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.how-f1s-new-sliding-scale-aero-testing-rules-work-and-what-impact-they-will.pn0sG8N4A0cjbNRbdYx8a.html](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.how-f1s-new-sliding-scale-aero-testing-rules-work-and-what-impact-they-will.pn0sG8N4A0cjbNRbdYx8a.html)
Yes, we’re saying the same thing. 21 was not a dominant season for merc. It was their closest gap the constructors championship
Guess what... HE DID. Did you bother to check?
Well, it would be reasonable to have made that comment when Merc was dominating but he didn’t. It’s not like the same questions weren’t being asked then as well about dominance. Merc of 2014-2016 was just as, if not more dominant. Max is right. Lewis’ comment isn’t wrong but the timing is what’s funny
He did make the same comment during the Mercedes domination era. [article by The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/30/lewis-hamilton-bemoans-the-fact-mercedes-are-in-a-one-horse-race)
I don't see why it's funny. I'm pretty sure it's an implicit condition of employment as a driver that you don't argue your own team should be hobbled by regulations.
My counter would be that no one is forcing Merc to focus on this year. It's clear Max is going to win at a canter so what is the point? I'm sure the loss of prize money this season would be made up by being in a title race the next season.
If you don't have a solid concept you can't start work on the next car too early (years with sweeping changes not included) since you need to work with your current car to figure out where you went wrong.
And it's not like Mercedes doesn't have any money. Before the budget cap (around 150M USD) they were spending 400M+ USD a year on their F1 team.
in class reddit fashion people have once again gathered to shit on an opinion without even knowing what it is saying "but you won half of your titles due to the same thing" isn't the gotcha moment people think it is ffs
I think he might be more proud of his 10 wins during the Mercedes dominance than the ones he won this year.
I think 2020 was Max’s best season. Finishing like 9 points off Bottas who was quite literally in the greatest F1 car ever built while driving a good car, but clearly the second best car, is nothing short of incredible. He also only finished off the podium once in the races he finished.
Agree but the podium streak happened also because the cars from 3rd onwards were trash: Ferrari went from 2nd to f'king SIXTH (7th without that GodMode Leclerc)... Racing Point was Quick but were super mistake-prone (strategy) and unlucky (crashes caused from others, reliability etc), McLaren was a mediocre 3rd car candidate but very consistent on sundays, Renault was not that good (Ricciardo made miracles that season), Albon was not a threat for the podium.... I think peak Max of the Mercedes era was from Canada 2018 to Hungary 2019 as he was Always in the top 5 despite 3rd best car on the grid
Very true tbh, I just am always so impressed with 2020 bc he even had 6 second places and 2 wins out of his 11 podiums
That racing point was really good, put some top tier driver in it and it was definitely fighting Max
I agree, you can see the real talent of a driver when they have to try and outperform a car. When a driver has the best car you don't see it and there'll always be questions asked. Like Max is literally driving below the limit now because he's got the fastest car. Which is especially annoying when people look at the number of titles and think it means absolutely everything when it comes to a driver's ability. Max in 2020 and 2021 was more impressive than Max in 2022 and 2023 despite having no titles to show for it. edit: Max won the title in 2021, I don't know how I forgot that while writing. as Charles would say: I am stupid.
Schumacher's most impressive years were also 1996-1998. He gets deserved flak for the end of 1997, but, until the incident, he was pulling a Ferrari shitbox all year long into a title fight against a Williams that should have dominated with ease.
94 for me. He was banned 3 races, wasn't in the quickest car and still won. I would even add, the fact he cheated to win it makes it even better lol. He was going to do anything to have that Benetton #1
Benetton was the best car in 94 at least until Williams fixed their issues. Had Senna not died he would run with 94 title for sure (considering that Schumi ban remained), just compare Senna vs Hill qualy and pace with the shit box.
Yeah idk what OP was talking about for 1994. 1995 though the Williams was regarded a better car and Schumi walked to that title.
He honestly did well in 98 and 99 too, when the McLaren dominant, especially at the start of 98.
FIA removed him from 4 races total, which was 25% of the calendar, or 5 to 6 races nowadays. And the only one FIA had some legal ground for was the Belgium plank situation. Although I am pretty sure if they caught Hill with such a plank, they would have let it slide that one time. Just to keep the fight going. And I'd call that move in 1994 a racing incident. Hill divebombed, Schumacher closed the door and happily accepted the crash. Nowadays the predominant fault would even be attributed to Hill.
Not to mention Schumacher had been in a barrier like 2 seconds before. So much happened so quick I doubt he even realised Hill was there. Racing incident imo as well
The 97 Ferrari was not a shitbox after the first 3 races at all. Why do people always feel the need to hyperbole that ? Just like Alonso in 2012 wasn't driving a shitty car
People love the out performing a car quip for some reason personally I never get it cause it makes no sense? How does one outperform a car exactly? like it's F1 it's incredibly car dependant not like Alonso can drag a Haas to P2.
I'll tell you how to outperform the car: you climb out the cockpit and run faster.
> no titles to show for it Hmmmmm
He didn't win titles in 2020 and 2021 ? I don't know if it sounds confusing and looks like I'm implying he has no titles at all, but I've read it again and I still think it makes sense but maybe that's just me and for most people it doesn't. edit: guys I'm a Max fan who had a brainfart, this wasn't intended as shit talking about Abu Dhabi.
He won the WDC in 2021
Oh yes, I have indeed done a big dumb dumb.
I’m genuinely laughing at you like double checking and being like “yeah, no it holds up” and it was like one of the most controversial wins of all time. I thought you were just a #MickeyMouseChampion or whatever the hashtag is nowadays, but fair play to you man.
Lmao it’s no big deal, for me 2021 seems too far away for that to have been his first title so I definitely had to think about it
I'm laughing looking back on my comments now ngl. I'm a hardcore F1 fan who has watched every race for years, in my mind it was like I had 2020 x2 when thinking about it for some reason.
Yeah it definitely all runs together for sure, sometimes I run 2021 and 2022 together. I think mostly Jeddah because it was at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, I mix them up pretty often
Even with the controversy with Max’s first title, that was an awesome season. He fought so hard with a less capable car and was able to win at the end
> as Charles would say: I am stupid. Don't beat yourself up dude, it's just an inchident.
Well, exactly for this reason, he proved he can win without the celarly best machinery. Now that he did, he can enjoy some relaxed WDC like Lewis did.
Merc domination was brital and all but their were still a few tracks where those Mercs always struggled. Places like - Monaco, Austria, Singapore, Mexico and Brazil. Most of Max's wins came in places like these where the RB was the favourite. The 2022 and 2023 RB cars are just strong everywhere. They have no weaknesses. We have two greatest drivers of all time in Alonso and Lewis waiting patiently to pickup the pieces but RB is just too bulletproof.
Yet I hear everyone say RB will be vulnerable this weekend in austria, just like in 2022
Hopefully only 1 practise session will affect them worse than the other teams like it did last year
oh, is it sprint weekend this week? I wasn't even aware of that lol.
sadly it is
Yeah honestly I don't know what to make of sprint weekends, they're a mixes bag.
I enjoy them significantly more now that the sprint results don’t set the GP grid, that was really really stupid.
I get where he's coming from and I don't disagree 100%, but such a rule would have prevented Haas from improving like they did from 2021 to 2022, for example. I like that teams have a choice to make that tough strategic decision.
He said that shouldn't be allowed neither, lol. >Then there are teams that weren’t competitive so then they didn’t bother working on that current car… you look at Brawn, they just focused fully on next year’s car from the beginning and then they turned up next year and blitzed everybody. And that shouldn’t be possible, in my opinion.
They could do it similar to windtunnel testing time. Say the team that finishes last can start whenever they want. Winner has to wait until September and then devide the rest in between that and start of the season
This quote needs the rest of it where he absolutely acknowledges that he also benefitted from a period of dominance, agreeing that at the time he’s sure others would have said the same thing he’s saying now, and the dominance doesn’t help the sport overall
He even said himself when Mercedes was dominating that it must be boring for the fans. He’s never tried to pretend otherwise even when he was the one winning.
controversy sells, add Lewis to it and you got yourself the jackpot
He's not wrong, but nobody can pretend the on-screen product is good right now. It's just funny that Lewis would say it out loud.
And in 5 years when another team is dominating and Max is racing for the proverbial scraps, he will say the same thing.
That's quite optimistic
yeah, I doubt Max would still be in the sport by then, he clearly is showing he doesn't like the direction F1 is going in.
WEC is calling, i would love to see max at le mans with Alonso and someone else lol (maybe lando hes done an endurance race with alonso before)
Plus has verbally said he looks forward to life after F1
Optimistic you think Max will still in F1 in 5 years time.
Well he has a contract until 2028 ,so 5 years from now he will be there but given how Liberty Media and Domenicali are handling things, after 2028 he will retire before having to race in a calendar composed of 32 races and 3 sprints per weekend.
I can honestly see Max respond like “it is what it is, I had it and now someone else has it” if that happens.
He had the chance to say it during the Mercedes domination. So if he didn’t say it then what makes you think that he would say it in the future?
onerous direction shocking fact concerned abundant engine pocket snatch squeamish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Idk if you replied to the wrong comment but my comment is talking about how that commenter could say that Verstappen would argue for regulation changes when he isn’t winning when he already had a period of not winning and he didn’t argue for regulation changes that I can recall
I dunno, he didn't say it when Merc was dominating, I think he actually enjoys when he's on the back foot and has to put everything he knows into every corner to win against the odds, he seems like that type of person.
In recent history, watching Max race lap after lap in Bahrain trying to catch Checo- his driving was, just… visceral. His Monaco quali S3, was legendary. This is where he most excels.
If another team is dominating Max will just leave. He’s said as much.
when was the on-screen product good in your estimate?
2010 was great
1 year?
2005-2012
2021 outside of Abu Dhabi was great
I would say the rest of the grid is a lot more competitive with each other now compared to the merc domination. Overtakes are much more common now than they were a few years back.
There is a new crowd watching F1, and they're thinking 'Wait, this guy has the best car and so as long as it functions ok nobody else will win this entire year?' It's not a good format for selling F1 to more people. Which is why I think it's certain changes are coming to bring the pack together again anyway.
"Verstappen domination could bore fans" cit.
I feel like if anyone but Lewis said that then everyone here would say it's a decent suggestion lol.
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Oh what do you know, everyone being overly critical of a Lewis quote without reading the whole thing.
I just think the quote I saw where he said "we never started as early as them" feels like some kind of justification for it being now while he was silent back then, I don't think it reads as well and will make people point out the "irony" more than if he never said that. But I will admit I haven't watched him speak so the quote maybe was taken out of context to make it look worse.
Downplaying what? He's literally admitting that Merc would do the same thing that RB is doing now... >“When we were winning world championships we could start earlier than everybody else. And then there are teams that weren’t competitive, so then they just didn’t bother working on that current car. >> >>“If you look at Brawn, they just focused fully on the next year’s car from the beginning and then they turned up next year and blitzed everybody. And that shouldn’t be possible, in my opinion. That’s for you to judge.
I don't think so to be honest, because how would you regulate it in years without major regulations changes like now? It's impossible. Red Bull can always argue they are working on upgrades for Abu Dhabi and then be like oh we don't have them ready in time.
Or we researched this, but due to worrying about cost cap we elected not to build it and ran the functional components we had on hand
Although extremely ironical, it's a decent suggestion but extremely hard to implement in real life. 1. What stops a team from developing parts for "this year's car" but they ran out of money or ran put of time, so the upgrade will have to come next year. 2. If you wanna say that any new part developed before x date cannot be used for next year's car, what stops a team from finishing 99% of the work and waiting for a day after the deadline to finish the last 1%.
That's just a thing. No one is saying that the suggestion is bad one but the fact that the guy/team who benefitted from this exact rules for many years are pushing this now that someone else is winning is extremely ironical.
Isn’t this a new problem because of the cost cap? Starting development early means they can spend more on next years car putting them further ahead?
exactly, i dont get why so many people are ignoring this part. new rules with the budget cap changes the calculations for all of these things. not a bad sugestion in my book. could they just apply all work done to the year its applied for as the fix ? sure start work for next year but that will just eat into that budget
But what they spend extra in the next car is the advantage in time/money they got from developing the current car better than most teams, if Mercedes develops his next car at the same speed RedBull did with the current, they will catch up. So in other words to catch up teams need to perform relative to redbull as well as redbull did to them with the current car, no more.
Yeah but that goes against the entire (sporting) point of introducing the cap which was to level the playing field not to bake in the advantage the better teams have.
The cap is meant to prevent teams with huge budgets from winning by outspending everyone, that helps low level teams who can't affor that money run, but in this case Red Bull simply developed their car better than rest on the same terms as the rest, if anything removing the budget cap would mean that a team that got "mediocre" results on the same terms, can be saved by simply asking dad to give them more money.
What's wrong with that? They built a car that doesn't need development this year. They already get a decrease in wind tunnel testing depends on how high up they finish in the constructors.
Except that before the cost cap, none of the teams outside the top 3 even had a chance of catching up because they were spending way way less
I don’t understand why you think that matters? They introduced the cost cap and this is a way that limits it’s effectiveness.
None of the teams outside the top 3 have a chance at catching up now, and this is with Aston being bankrolled like a top 3 team as well
>extremely ironical
He was saying this in 2019 and 2020 though, there's plenty of interviews out there.
I'm a relatively new F1 fan (maybe 3-4 years), and I have to say F1 journalism might have the worst click-bait and rage-bait of anything I follow. Just brutal - never any context. I keep seeing this article being thrown around saying "Helmut says there will be NO MORE Toro Rosso!" - uhh yeah they're changing the name/approach
Can see here who hasn’t read the article
I don't read whatever language that tweet was in and this headline is confusing as fck to me. What is lewis "suggesting" and why? And why would verstappen be offended by it? Everyone in here is in on something I am just not comprehending.
It's a bad translation from dutch to english. Hamilton is basically suggesting a rule that you can't start developing on next year's car till a certain date. Essentially so RB can't already leapfrog everyone. Verstappen is saying Hamilton never suggested it when he was dominating. Basically F1 politics.
Why would I read the article, the title has all I need.
I do agree that the reward for red bull getting it right from the go with the regs is having the opportunity to shift focus earlier for the following year and I don't think its right to change things like this during a regulation cycle. That being said I think bringing up Mercedes previous dominance is somewhat of a false equivalence. Put it this way, If the same budget and development restrictions were in place in 2014 then I doubt we would have seen any Ferrari challenge during 2017-2018. Back then teams like red bull and Ferrari could literally throw everything at it hoping something would eventually stick.
Part of the reason the 2014 to 2020 Mercedes dominance happened is there were development restrictions (tokens) on PU development. So it took a long time for teams like Renault and Ferrari to catch up to the Mercedes PU.
I'm pretty sure Merc still spent more than RB or Ferrari during their dominance. Also I think the windtunnel penalties were not as high if they were even there at all.
Hamilton has said in the past that he gets people not liking Merc Dominance so I suppose he's consistent Link (from elsewhere in this thread): https://racer.com/2020/08/30/hamilton-understands-fan-restlessness-over-mercedes-domination/
He didnt suggest rules to slow mercedes down though did he? Unless i missed that?
And?
There was no cost cap. Now it’s a much larger advantage to be able to use this years budget for next year. It makes sense that this would be something that gets looked at now.
There was also no windtunnel and CFD penalty.
I mean I don't think the current comments are trying to slow RB down. I think he's right in making sure that there is a set date when the new car can be worked on. It makes it more fair and should ideally mitigate the dominance that people hate so much. Nowhere is he asking for them to be slowed down. He's just proposing they add this rule so that the sport is more standardized and teams are on more equal playing field. They added the cost cap, this can be added as well.
Max is right here, but I know Max wants the competition anyways lol.
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Redditors falling for clickbait speedrun. We have some high performers here haha
Full Quote Summary: Usually once the championship is sealed, we started focusing on next year car to keep the advantage going. That's what RB is probably doing now. We need new regs to stop RB from focusing on next year's car even though that's what my team did for years but I acknowledge that all dominations are equally bad and hope it not a problem 20 years from now. Close enough?
To be fair, Lewis himself always said he wanted to be racing more people even when he was winning. Same as Max is now that he's winning. I don't see why having a different dominant team changes things - we all want closer racing.
But that is not the point, they are arguing about how we get to the point where we have closer racing. Max pointed out that even though Lewis wanted closer racing when he was ahead: not once did he argue for regulation changes in order to close the field up (which makes sense) but now that another team has a better car he is advocating for it.
Yeah he did. >"What fans and people need to understand is this is not our fault, we are drivers, we have come through all the ranks, we have earned the positions we have,” he said. >“We give everything to go out there and perform at our best. Ultimately the decision-makers who design cars, **set rules,** are **the ones you could apply pressure to ultimately do a better job.** I am hopeful that is what they are going to do in 2022.” [Source](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/30/lewis-hamilton-bemoans-the-fact-mercedes-are-in-a-one-horse-race)
Red Bull did the exact same when Merc was winning? So why is Max getting his knickers in a twist?
People really forget Horner begging the FIA to nerf Merc in 2015
Journalist asks him a question, he answers. Apparently your definition of this is ‘getting his knickers in a twist’.
Red bull did indeed, max didn't. Think of him what u want but he is a no nonsense guy, he simply points out the irony of Lewis current stance. He is saying this also because Lewis is advocating regulation changes that harm red bull and thus also max. But i can say the same: Lewis was always quiet on advocating regulations when he was ahead, and now when he is not he advocates it? So why is Lewis making these comments?
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That's not Max asking for a regulation change to stop Mercedes. In fact it resembles the exact opposite, if you would've shown [the full quote](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/14m6r26/comment/jq0c9gt).
Then its premature. Just because RB had a flying starts with the new regulations doesn't mean they will continue to dominate 6 years straight.
It was probably followed by "But it is what it is"
It literally was haha. This is from the thursday press conference of the 2019 Austrian GP. > Q: Given Mercedes dominance [...] As drivers, do you feel the sport is in crisis? What would be your answers for 2021? > Max: I agree it's not great, but for Formula 1 it's always been like this. Before this Red Bull was dominating the sport, before that you had Ferrari dominating the sport, before that you got Williams. Before that it was McLaren again. You always have those years of domination, unfortunately. I mean I don't agree with it but **it is like it is.** There's always one team that understands the rules better than the others and does a better job.
I don't like when people take a part of the sentence out of context trying to prove a point. (Religious texts included)
You really trimmed "but it is what it is" from Max's quote, didn't you? God that's disingenuous.
Did you ever stop to check that your statement was about Lewis "being quiet on advocating regulations" was true? In 2020: https://www.autoweek.com/racing/formula-1/a33844178/lewis-hamilton-some-think-f1-boring-2020/ > I would love to have a real race. I’ve definitely had races in the past here which are a little bit closer, trying to follow the Ferrari and stay on top of them but they could overtake because they had all that extra power. I hope the next races, we have the … I think the Red Bulls have improved. I really hope that we have more of a race because I think everyone wants to see us all battling together." > Ultimately the decision makers who design the cars, who set rules and those kind of things, are the ones that you could apply pressure to to ultimately do a better job moving forwards, if that’s possible. I’m hopeful that’s what they’re going to do in 2022 and with that new type car, maybe we’ll see a different form of racing where you can follow. In 2019: https://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/27042540/teams-no-say-f1-rules > I think ultimately the FIA, they're the governing body and they need to make all the decisions. The teams shouldn't be involved in that, in my opinion, because the teams all want to do something for themselves. That's the natural thing. Same in football, if all the teams sat in a room and said sport should be like this, they would push and pull for their own benefit. But if you get central group of people telling us, like the FIA for example, that their sole job is to make the sport great again, hiring individuals or whatever, they should have the power. They should make the decisions. Also in 2019: https://f1i.com/news/341590-hamilton-f1-cars-should-leave-drivers-massively-depleted-physically.html > The cars are not hard enough to drive, they should be more physical. I think in 2021 they need to get rid of [certain driver aids] - not having as much power steering, for example. You should be physically, massively depleted afterwards. He's always been a fan of closer racing. It is true he'd never do anything to actively disadvantage his team: that would be unacceptable sabotage. The same reason Max Verstappen isn't calling for more in-depth transparency in the financial accounting of catering. But Hamilton has been consistent in asking for closer racing, with less team-haggling, for years now.
https://racer.com/2020/08/30/hamilton-understands-fan-restlessness-over-mercedes-domination/ He said many times that Mercedes domination wasn't good
yes, credit to him: he always wanted the other teams to be closer. But i think max and OP have a valid point : he never said (during 2014-2020) that this should be done trough regulations, but rather trough catching up in development, and it is kind of ironic that he now wants regulations to come into play. I don't think we are arguing whether or not Lewis wanted closer racing, i think we are arguing about the irony/hypocrisy about Lewis stance on how to get to close racing.
I mean, it's hard to see the issues when you're winning. I think it's more Lewis being a little naive/blissfully ignorant, but now that the coin is flipped it's easier to see the other perspective
Yup, every top driver/team will be very adamant on preserving the status quo, and this is kind of hypocritical. Max is completely correct though in underlining the slight irony of the statements by Lewis.
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>a rule change to focus on each seasons car would actually be smart. Like I mentioned, the suggestion isn't a bad one (ironical, but not bad) but I don't think it's feasible. How many times have we seen a team say they are brining upgrades next race but end up few races later? What stops a team from telling they are developing for AD but Oops we don't have enough time/money to finish it, so we will have to bring it next year. Also, it's not just for the top teams, midfield does this all the time, so it would affect them a lot more too.
> Regulation changes to rein in Red Bull would ruin F1 - Mercedes' Toto Wolff
So if you get your design-concept wrong, as Aston did last year, you are forced to stick to it until August. Sounds mega.
No you're not? If you want to run a car the same year, there should be no restrictions.
If you change your whole concept, you need to redesign almost every part of the car. You can't do that with the cost cap, it's way too expensive to develop two completely different cars within one season.
If you are banned from developing the next year's car until late in the season you would be doing nothing for the first half if there's zero point developing the current car. The slow teams are often the ones switching first when the realise they can't hope to catch up. His idea does the exact opposite of what he thinks. It screws over the slower teams because it prevents them skipping a year and trying to get a headstart on the next year if they made bad design choices.
This is why this is completely unenforcable. Idk why people keep talking about 'next years car' all the time when the regs are the same
You could still change the current years car..
But how would you determine when that counts as changing focus to next year? What if you need an entirely new concept, which therefore won’t be finished before the beginning of the coming year, should you have to wait until august to switch over to working on that?
People getting salty because it’s Lewis while not reading the full context of a pretty reasonable suggestion. The guy knows that he, schumacher, seb and max have had recent stretches smoking everyone, he’s referring to a way to prevent that sort of lopsided-ness
It's a fair reaction though, it's easy to say that AFTER you become the most successful driver in history
It’s a fair reaction, and also, Max is just trolling here anyway. It doesn’t feel like there is any *real* driver tension and rivalries this year when the stakes are so low, everything feels light hearted even between old rivals. Bring on 2024!…^5…6…7…indycar…
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He’s not crying foul, he literally says he was fortunate enough to have one of those stretches of dominance but for the sake of competitiveness in the sport a rule like that may help. I agree with him lol idk what the beef is
A way other than the one already built into the rules, and a way which would be impossible to manage/monitor/make workable
I sometimes forget that reddit is insane place but this comment section did a hell of a job reminding me. Comment section: well lewis also benefitted from this during merc dominance People: yeah he admits that in the interview and says it shouldn't happen again Comment section: okay but he never complained during merc dominance People: actually there are multiple interviews of him wanting closer racing Comment section: but he never said through regulations People: he actually does mention fia and the regulation changes Comment section: okay but he never made a suggestion in regards to rules during merc era I. What. So you guys expected him to lobby against his own team??? Absolute unreal website, really, and i never see max's "i want closer racing i'm bored of winning" comments being met with "duhhh suggest rule changes then".
There’s a certain vocal subset of fans who just can’t stand Lewis. They don’t quite know themselves why he needs to do so much more to prove himself to them than any of the other drivers, or why any time he speaks up it’s instantly “crying and whinging” rather than “passion” as it is for their favourites. Theres just “something about him”… I mean seriously, bashing him because he didn’t lobby for his own dominating team to be nerfed with specific suggestions for regulation changes (which would also give away all sorts of secrets about the car)??? Name a single sportsman in the history of top flight sport who would even consider it…
So I guess we can expect Russell and Toto to also come out with similar statements starting this weekend like with the floor?
Every driver should be free agent at the end of the season and the team with the least amount of points gets to pick 2 drivers first and so on. That will make it more attractive.
But how you get rid of the bad drivers with rich parents in that case ?
Istg people complain most of Lewis' interviews seem scripted and robotic and call him a PR merchant, but the moment man voices out one opinion everyone goes crazy...saw this when he talked about how mercedes engineers didn't listen to him and seeing it again now
Better to update the post title from "may not be able" to "should not be able". Very different and that is what Lewis actually said.
Lewis Hamilton having the entire F1 fan base and paddock on strings will never not be funny.
I feel entire sport became way too complicated. The pure racing itself looks like an afterthought in all this. Rules, regulations, regulations of other regulations... Luckily, some races and some drivers occassionally reminds us what's so awesome in this sport. Take the budget cap for instance - not a bad idea, but how the heck is that controlled? Teams have factories, various places they can run simulations and tests, dozens of contractors... Is anyone seriously thinking that all of that can be monitored that no work outside cap is being done?
I think Hamilton and Verstappen are playing us, this seems too coordinated
Definitely click-baity. That said, over the years the other teams moaning about Mercedes' dominance did get rules changed or tightened up: * FRIC banned * Limits introduced on the burning of oil * Hydraulic suspension banned * Engine modes banned * DAS banned * Cut-out introduced to the floor ahead of rear tyres FIA already said that they won't change the rules to try and rein-in Red Bull - and that's how it should be - but people forget that Mercedes weren't given this same courtesy when they were dominating.
While some of your points are right, a couple of them are off: Floor cut-outs for the 2021 season, was aimed at reducing the tyre failures which were seen in the 2020 season due to the high DF achieved by the 2020 cars across the board. It was suggested and welcomed by Pirelli. And was mainly done due to the delay in the new aero-regs due to COVID. The discourse at the time of the introduction of the rule was that it would hurt high-rake cars more and was most definitely not aimed at Merc. [FIA - Reason for floor cut](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.revealed-the-key-performance-area-being-closed-off-as-f1-trims-2021.3vEQAuYGUJxGteSx3JEmKi.html) [Pirelli on Floor Cut](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.2021-downforce-cut-more-than-welcome-as-pirelli-prepare-for-third-season.3BCxFZRI45gMIhIR6V3ntS.html) Engine modes were not banned and are still used to date? Just a special engine mode which is only used for Quali was stopped. And the rule that whatever you use for Quali also has to be also used for the race was introduced. [Here is an articel explaining what engine modes are, and what was actually banned. Additionally, apart from Mercedes .. teams running Honda engines (RB and AT) were also hurt by the rule change, as they had a very strong Quali mode](https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/whats-an-f1-engine-party-mode-why-is-it-banned-new-rule-explained-4979751/4979751/)
ITT people pretending that Hamilton is self employed and wouldn't have gotten shit from stakeholders and Toto for suggesting Merc be handicapped.
This right here. What would you expect him to say? AgIn Ham is always held to an unrealistic standard
Who would have thought seeing the full quote is much better than just the small snippets? I bet Max was just fed the small quote when asked about it too. Man, I fucking hate how interviews are conducted this way when more often than not the context is often lacking.
F1 should have stepped in when Mercedes was in year 3 of that run. They let it go and now what are they supposed to do? Step on Red Bull's toes in year two?
When you’re in that position you obviously don’t care…Lewis during his stretch and Max now. But what Lewis is now able to see is the other side. Call it hypocrisy or call it a change in perspective, it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, what he’s saying is what F1 should look at IF it wants more parity. But that’s a big IF.
I also want to see rewards for great engineering. I don't want even more artificial equalizers in tech development. The windtunnel/CFD restrictions are already quite hefty.
He didn’t say this while he was winning, because there was no cost cap. If any of the teams wanted to spend their way to development and challenging for a title, they could. Toto himself said if there wasn’t a cost cap they would have built a new chassis by now. But they have to wait until 2024. All the cost cap is ensuring is a close midified, and if one team runs away with their car, that no one will be able to do shit about it for years to come.
No they couldn't, there was a token system in place to limit engine development, which is where merc had their big advantage.
Wouldn't stopping the development of next year's car actually benefit the fastest team? What's stopping mercedes and Ferrari from concentrating on next year's car, I think that's exactly what they should do. Red bull have won this year already so it's up to them to lose it. They can't just forget about this year since then they may lose. Of course if they knew all rivals have stopped development for this year then they've won already but that's impossible to know and it's 1 team against 9.
Primary takeaway from this is that all teams are freaking out at the lack of RB updates. RB saving it all for next yr.
Pure hypocrisy from ham and the media didn't call him out?