Former F1 driver David Coulthard has voiced his concerns about Red Bull racing’s current dominance in F1, arguing that the team’s unprecedented success could diminish the sport's appeal and excitement.
Red Bull’s wave of success has seen the Milton Keynes-based outfit and its star driver Max Verstappen win back-to-back double world championships.
Last year in particular, Red Bull's supremacy was crushing with the bulls winning a staggering 21 of the season’s 22 races, with Ferrari the only outfit to inflict a defeat on the reigning world champions thanks to a flawless performance in Singapore.
Given the continued stability of F1’s regulations, Red Bull is widely expected to remain at the head of the field when the season gets underway in Bahrain next month.
And that’s a prospect that concerns Coulthard, who drove for Red Bull between 2005 and 2008 and remains closely associated with the team.
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“That expression ‘familiarity breeds contempt’? If you adapt that to sport, the same thing goes,” Coulthard told The Telegraph.
“Too much success kind of takes away the magic. With sport, we look to be inspired, to grow, to move forward, and if one team is doing all that, then it doesn’t give enough hope for everybody.”
Unpredictability and close competition that have traditionally defined F1 are essential to maintaining its appeal to fans and keeping the latter engaged.
While Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is confident in his outfit’s chances of successfully defending its world title, the Briton believes the magnitude of its dominance in 2023 won’t be repeated.
Horner is also anticipating the field to converge, with closer racing a consequence.
“I'm expecting the cars to look more familiar to a (RB)19 because it's inevitable that they will do,” he said. “I'm sure over the next two years we're going to see much closer racing.
“We will not repeat the year. It will go down as a unicorn year for us, that's for sure.”
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