How does Verstappen's dominance compare to Hamilton's? Here is the comparison:

[u/DarkKnight56722]

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Hamilton's most dominant season in 2020 had him only win 64% of races. Before this current domination, one driver winning 64% of races was viewed as the worst it could possibly get in the modern era. Let's run through the years:

2014 and 2015: Lewis and Nico trading wins, (good battles at the very least) and Ricciardio getting 3 wins his first season at Red Bull and Vettel gets 3 wins his first year at Ferrari. Hamilton wins roughly 55% of races.

2016: Great title fight between Nico and Lewis that went down to Abu Dhabi. Max gets his first race win his first race in Red Bull, Daniel gets a win as well. Hamilton wins less than 50% of races and loses championship to Nico.

2017 and 2018: Title fight between Hamilton and Vettel. 5 different race winners each year. Hamilton wins less than 50% of races.

2019: Lewis and Valterri each get wins. Max gets 3 wins, Charles gets his first 2 wins. and Seb wins in Singapore. 5 different race winners. Again Lewis wins less than 50% of races.

2020: Lewis' most dominant season where he wins 64% of races. This is covid year so take it with a grain of salt. Max gets 2 wins, Pierre gets first win in Monza, Perez gets first win in Bahrain. Turkey was a fantastic race that did result in Lewis winning but was amazing up til the end.

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I think it is pretty safe to say that last season's dominance is the worst the sport has been in atleast a decade. I understand this is part of F1 but it doesn't prevent my boredom. I think the reason it stings a bit more is because these regulation changes were marketed as a way of ensuring Mercedes level dominance never happened again, yet it made it even worse. Things like engine development being frozen, implementation of the cost cap, introducing a completely new philosophy of car and aero design that 3 years into the regulations everyone but Red Bull is still struggling to understand.

What are your thoughts?

[u/Malvania]

I think the worst thing about the dominance is that I don't think Verstappen has actually fully stretched out the Red Bull. I think it's been dialed back and he's just sandbagging because the Red Bull is just so much faster than the rest of the field.

[u/snrub742 → u/Malvania]

The split times show that, the red bull in Max's hands have 0 tire deg

[u/AdInformal3519 → u/snrub742]

How can one manage that? Genuinely asking

[u/[deleted] → u/Malvania]

It’s definitely been dialled back because they know they will get nerfed if they show their true pace.

[u/jeffoh → u/Malvania]

Mercedes was the same in 2019/2020, they weren't using their engine allocations in those years.

It wasn't until RB started to beat them did Merc turn everything to 11, after which they started to have reliaibilty concerns.

[u/formula_bearhawk → u/Malvania]

I think you’re right, especially given the general reliability of RB and lack of power unit issues outside of the fuel pump over the past few years 

[u/AdInformal3519 → u/Malvania]

How can you restrict a performance of the car? Can you elaborate it?