Red Bull’s current dominance has sparked a debate over its impact on the sport, with many drawing inevitable comparisons between Mercedes’s dominant years and Red Bull’s unparalleled form in 2023.
The Austrian team has won all twelve rounds held to date, with Verstappen emerging victorious in ten of them. He has been scoring an average of over 24 points per race weekend, and is showing no signs of slowing down. Sergio Perez, meanwhile, seems to have lost his momentum, and is now 125 points adrift of his Dutch teammate.
So now the two big questions are: how soon will Verstappen clinch the title, and will Red Bull achieve a clean sweep by the end of the year?
Photo credit: Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team
It’s a feat Mercedes never managed, even at the height of their dominance, with every season from 2014 onwards being punctuated by Red Bull or Ferrari wins—and even a couple of surprise winners in 2020, a highly successful season for the Brackley-based team.
Asked how Red Bull’s dominance compares to Mercedes’s most dominant period, Toto Wolff told the media, “I don’t know whether our dominance was similar or less. I think we had years where we did it in the same way.”
However, he did point to a key difference.
“But at least we had two cars that were fighting each other so that caused a little bit of entertainment for everyone. And that’s not the case at the moment.”
The most notable intra-team battles at Mercedes were waged between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, from 2014 to 2016. Although many fans lamented Mercedes’s advantage over the rest of the field, the pair’s rivalry and its flashpoints kept the championship fight interesting (and even earned itself a dedicated Wikipedia entry.)
Photo credit: Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team
After Hamilton secured his second consecutive title with the team, Rosberg responded by maintaining a winning streak across seven races between late 2015 and early 2016. The championship fight came down to the wire, and Mercedes wrapped up the 2016 season with a total of 19/21 victories overall, split 10-9 between their drivers. The remaining two wins went to Verstappen and former teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
“It is what it is and I often say that it’s a meritocracy and it’s up to us to fight back,”
“Did we expect that gap? Certainly not. I think with the last step of upgrades it seems to me they have another advantage that they are able to exploit.
“But again, it always gets me back to the point of… we’ve just got to dig in and do the best possible job.”
