British racing driver Lewis Hamilton clinched his sixth Formula One Driving World Championship in Texas on Sunday.
The sixth title is his third consecutive one and his fifth with the dominant Mercedes team.
Mercedes, under strict rule of team boss Toto Wolf, has been dominating the sport since 2014, winning both the driver’s and constructor’s titles in each season.
Ferrari, with their star driver Sebastian Vettel, came close in 2017 and 2018, but driver error and poor team strategies left them in the dust of Mercedes, with the driver and team coming out runner-up in both seasons.
Although Hamilton is undoubtedly the most talented driver of his generation, his domination highlights a glaring problem which has been damaging the sport’s appeal, and threatening its livelihood.
The big three teams, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, all sit in the front row of the grid, with the other seven or eight teams one second or more behind them.
This makes most of these races feel like three horse races, with the no real wheel-to-wheel racing that made prior years so exciting.
This all comes down to team budgets; Ferrari and Mercedes both have $400-million (R5 898 634 038) to develop their cars and hire the best engineers and mechanics, while smaller teams like Renault and Williams have less than half of that to play with.
Many teams are driving with second-grade engines, which are basically the motor sport equivalent of hand-me-downs.
For example, the Alfa Romeo team get their engines from Ferrari, although a cheaper, older and less powerful one than Scuderia Ferrari team’s engine.
This problem began in the early 2000s with Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari winning five titles in a row, causing many viewers to point out the predictability of the sport.
In the 2010s, it was Red Bull with Sebastian Vettel.
So the pattern is one team’s domination swaps with another whenever regulation changes are put in place.
As a result, Formula One has slowly become stale, predictable and barely produces exciting races.
However, there is light at the end of the tunnel for many fans with regulation changes in 2021, which will be limiting all team budgets to $175-m (R2 580 652 391), which will hopefully create a more even playing field.
In addition, a new design template for the cars that all teams have to follow will nullify many down-force advantages that the top teams have, which will allow for cars to follow one another more closely, making for more overtaking and wheel-to-wheel racing.
These regulation changes have come as a relief to many fans who are tired of seeing one team and one driver dominate, while many talented drivers in smaller teams are not able to show their abilities.
Formula One has been the pinnacle of motorsport for more than 70 years and has delighted fans all over the world.
It has a rich history with great drivers and great stories and its legacy shouldn’t be destroyed by boring, unfair racing caused by uneven financing.
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