F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Asks For New Rule To Impede Red Bull Dominance
Lewis Hamilton, seven-time World Champion, has called on the FIA to bring in a new rule which could hinder Red Bull. He's suggesting that there should be a designated date for teams to start working on their cars for the following season.
This year, Red Bull's powerful performance appears to be the trigger behind Hamilton's call for this change. The Austrian team has won every race so far this year with Max Verstappen winning six and Sergio Perez winning two.
Hamilton, despite recent podium finishes for Mercedes in Barcelona and Canada, feels the gap will only close if Red Bull shifts focus to their 2024 car early due to their 2023 advantage. He advocates for a new rule to restrict teams from prematurely switching to the next season's car development.
Speaking ahead of the Austrian GP, Hamilton told Sky Sports:
"The car [Mercedes' W14] is moving in the right direction. 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.
"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."
Mercedes' own past domination from 2014 to 2021 is not lost on Hamilton. He feels this proposed rule could disrupt prolonged periods of one-team domination, a common pattern in the sport.
"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."
Further explaining his proposal, Hamilton believes such a change could usher in better and fairer competition in F1.
"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."