Max Verstappen dominance splits F1 fans as Lewis Hamilton pleas ignored

Max Verstappen’s dominance has split F1 fans as he heads towards a third consecutive world title. The Red Bull superstar narrowly overcame Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton at the final race of the 2021 season before storming to championship success last year. And this time around the Dutchman is already 110 points ahead of his team-mate Sergio Perez after 11 races.

With Verstappen showing no signs of easing up, we asked Express Sport readers whether the current season was too boring because of Red Bull’s dominance. And the results were virtually split down the middle as 8,664 people said it was too boring and 8,739 people said it wasn’t.

Red Bull have managed to build a car which is far superior to the vehicles of their rivals, with Aston Martin and Mercedes battling it out to be the best of the rest. Red Bull are 229 points ahead of the Silver Arrows in the Constructors’ Championship after getting their hands on the team title for the first time in nine years last season.

Verstappen appears to be following in the footsteps of Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton, who have all had periods of dominance since the turn of the century. And at the age of 25, the Dutch ace could have years ahead of him at the F1 pinnacle.

Meanwhile, Hamilton has been ignored after he pleaded for F1 chiefs to ban Red Bull from developing their 2024 car to give other teams a chance to catch up. “If you are so far ahead, you don’t need to develop the car so you can start early with the next car and with the budget cap you can spend this year’s money on next year’s,” the 38-year-old said last month.

“But if everyone had a time where you could only start on next year’s car – say August 1 – no one has a head start. Then it is a real race in that short space of time for the future car. Maybe that would help everyone be closer the following year. I might be wrong, but something has to change.”

F1 boss Stefano Domenicali has already refused to follow Hamilton’s advice by vowing that he doesn’t intend to manipulate the power balance. And Verstappen has hit back at Hamilton by saying: “We were not talking about that when he was winning his championships right, so I don’t think we should now.

“That is how Formula One works. When you have a competitive car it is great but at one point you have to look ahead to the next year. A lot of things in life are unfair so we just have to deal with it.”