Horner dismisses 'seven years of domination' by Red Bull

Christian Horner says Red Bull is unlikely to emulate Mercedes and exert "seven years of domination" on F1 as convergence and stable regulations will gradually tighten the field.

In 2022, Red Bull put a firm grip on the F1 World Championship thanks to its first ground-effects design, but the Milton Keynes-based outfit has further tightened its hold this season with its invincible RB19.

Red Bull's advantage is such that the team has felt no need to introduce any updates, contrary to its rivals, which has allowed it to focus its attention on next season's contender well ahead of time.

However, Horner believes that Red Bull's supremacy won't go unchecked as teams improve their understanding of the RB19's strengths and eventually converge on the design front, a predictable move that is already happening according to the Red Bull boss.

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"One thing that we know from this sport is that things will converge," Horner explained at Silverstone last weekend. "You can already see it starting to happen.

"And the most important thing to have convergence is to have stability. Stability of regulations will bring all of the teams much closer together. You can see this is already starting to happen.

"It’s not going to be another seven years of domination.

"The power units are all pretty similar now and the chassis evolve much quicker than the engines do. We can already see from the start of the season to now, that things are already converging."

Case in point, McLaren's new-spec MCL60 that was rolled out in Austria, and which received further updates at Silverstone, successfully integrates several elements and concepts directly inspired by Red Bull's RB19.

"It’s a very similar concept," commented Horner. "I was looking at the car on the grid.

"It’s the first time we’ve really seen it this year and you can see the philosophy they’ve borrowed is very similar. They’ve chosen a similar path. It’s flattering, isn’t it?

"It’s inevitable that this will happen and why wouldn’t you? When you have got a car that is performing like ours, it’s fairly logical that you look to emulate it, which some teams have chosen to do.

"Their performance at this circuit has been very strong but it will be very interesting to see how that pans out over the next few races."

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