Lewis Hamilton claims FIA introduced several regulation changes to slow down Mercedes during their glory years

Mercedes came on top after the regulation change in 2014 which switched F1 to hybrid cars.

Lewis Hamilton claims FIA introduced several regulation changes to slow down Mercedes during their glory years

Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff (Credits: IMAGO)

Red Bull and Max Verstappen have dominated the sport since the regulation changes in 2022, which increased the downforce effect on the cars. As they reign unchallenged, it has been discussed whether some regulation changes should be made to make the competition more even. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton recently came out to support the argument claiming that Mercedes was also given the same treatment during their dominant years.

Hamilton was asked whether new regulations should be added to reduce Red Bull’s domination. He readily agreed with it, as he claimed that several rules were reformed against them as well. He noted that Mercedes had an excellent qualifying pace, but after the rule changes in 2020, their performance drastically fell. However, he also said that those changes were made in the best interest of the sport as everyone wants an even competition.

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“But we’ve experienced lots of changes, which were put in place to slow us down over the years and I think that it was better for the sport. If you look at 2021, for example, our qualifying pace was amazing…but where they took away our qualifying mode, for example, brought us closer in qualifying,” said Hamilton, as per Motorsport Week.

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Lewis Hamilton hopes that no single team dominates Formula One again

Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton (Credits: PlanetF1)

Formula One has a long history of a single team dominating the sport for many years. Be it Mercedes from 2014 to 2020, or Red Bull from 2010 to 2013, as well as presently, the outcome for P1 in every race becomes very predictable. Mercedes legend Lewis Hamilton talked about his disagreement with the trend as he hopes that all the teams stand on a fairground.

Hamilton talked about the difficulties of making the sport even. He said that teams like Haas and Williams don’t have enough resources when compared to the big players, who invested a lot of money during their early years, due to which it seems almost impossible for them to catch up now.

“Some teams don’t have the same resources in terms of whether it’s wind tunnel, whether it’s stuff that’s at the factory that the bigger teams had because they had loads of money to throw at it a long, long time ago and they can’t catch up now,” said Hamilton.

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