Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali believes Red Bull’s dominant start to the 2023 season will not be frowned upon by new fans of grand prix racing.
Red Bull has continued where it left off last year by outperforming the opposition, securing a victory in each of the opening three races this season.
The RB19 has been the class of the field, considered to be around one second faster than the next-best team, as shown by its performance in race trim.
There are growing concerns that Red Bull’s domination could be a turn off for fans, particularly for those of the ‘Drive to Survive’ era.
But Domenicali disagrees with this theory, suggesting avid followers of F1 are more likely to be disillusioned with having one team winning.
“First of all, if a team is faster than the others, congratulations, they did a better job than the others,” Domenicali said, as quoted by Motorsport.com.
“It’s the duty of FIA as the regulator to make sure that they check the compliance of the car with the regulations.
“If you look at the others, the other teams are very close, very, very close. I’m very confident that with the budget cap, the situation will evolve in the best way for the better competition.
“But on the other hand, there is one thing that is interesting to see, in the new markets, where the new audience is coming in, that is not a really important factor.
“It’s more let’s say for the avid fans that if you see a car that is dominant, that’s creating a level of less interest. For the new markets, for the new fans that are coming to the business, this is not really very important.
“And for us, it’s important because we want to make sure there is a great competition in the ecosystem.
“But I would say if I look today, in the markets where we are growing, this factor is not so relevant as you think. And this is, in a way, very interesting to share. But that’s the truth.”
Red Bull’s perfect to the season comes despite it being handed a punishment for breaching F1’s cost cap at the end of last year, docking the team a further 10% reduction in aero testing.
The penalty runs over a 12-month period that is due to end in October and Domenicali believes this gives the rest of the grid plenty of time to close the gap to Red Bull.
“For sure we see in the first three races Red Bull was very, very competitive,” he said. “I’m expecting the others to catch up.
“We need to wait and see the effect of the penalty that they had last year with the wind tunnel reduction. The championship is very long. And I think we’re going to have good surprises before the end.”
