Lewis Hamilton’s winning streak at Mercedes has become a turn-off for Formula One fans, according to Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel, who has also been accused of turning viewers away from the sport after he won four consecutive championships with Red Bull between 2010 and 2013, said F1 is too complicated.
Mercedes – winners of 32 of the last 38 races – have dominated the sport for the past two seasons and with very few changes to the regulations over the winter they will head into the new campaign as the favourites.
But Vettel believes their incredible run of success, as well as the sport’s complicated rules and quieter engines, has forced fans away.
“The dominance of Mercedes in the past two years took away a lot of excitement for the fans,” Vettel said in a Q&A on his website published on Monday.
“The new rules focus too much on details. Today the car plays an important role, like it did in the past, but we shouldn’t get lost in overcomplicated rules.
“Our audience has to be able to identify with our cars again. At the moment F1 is just too complex and we’re lacking sound.
“I think we have to be careful not to lose the roots of motor racing and I certainly hope the cars of the future will be more within their grasp.”
Vettel, who won three races last season after making the switch from Red Bull to Ferrari, will hope to take the challenge to Hamilton when the season gets under way in Melbourne next month.
But the German’s comments will do little to allay fears that the sport could be in for a repeat of last season’s relatively unsurprising championship which Hamilton largely dominated.
Vettel’s remarks emerged as Toto Wolff, the Mercedes boss who has overseen his team’s rise to the very top of grand prix racing, urged those involved in F1 to be more positive.
“As a team because the environment always changes, the regulations change, the politics, you need to adapt yourself,” Wolff said.
“I have read once that the most successful species is the one that is able to adapt itself most quickly and this is about Formula One, this is how Formula One functions.
“So there are threats that we know today but there are ones that we don’t know and they will appear tomorrow, so we just need to be aware that everything is possible in Formula One.
“In terms of the sport itself I think we need to stop talking ourselves down. This is important as there is some great news around the sport.”
The season-opening Australian Grand Prix takes place on March 20 while the first of two four-day winter tests gets under way in Barcelona next Monday.
vettel should probably get that blindspot seen to. domination in f1 used to be something that was celebrated as it’s a very hard thing to do, now all people, including bernie, do is talk the sport down. no wonder fans stop watching
You do realize it was a Q&A right? His part was the A to the Q.
Vettel: Pot and Kettle spring to mind!
It’s not the complexities of the cars that is causing fans to switch off it’s the lack of overtaking and close racing, in a word ‘excitement’. There are many reasons why people watch F1, some like the technology, some the drivers personalities and skill, but I think they all want uncertainty in who will win. We don’t want the race over on Saturday after Quali.
Aeros needs reducing and mechanical grip increasing but not by making the cars wider as that will hinder overtaking opportunities especially on street circuits.
Bernie and Co should be looking at motorbike racing, virtually no aero, overtaking like it’s going out of fashion, it’s exciting to watch.
All but one fan. Am I right fortis? 😉
Never gets bored when the champ wins…. 😂😂….
Ok Lewis, you know what time it is……
Sebastian Vettel, straight out of the Red Bull Horner/Marko school of bullsh!t comments.
“The dominance of the Mercedes in the past 2 years took away a lot of excitement for the fans”
So what happened in the previous 4 years? I take that it was the best 4 seasons in the modern history of the sport…
Someone should ask him which fans is he referring to, his, Alonso’s, Button’s, Ricciardo, Hamilton’s etc etc etc
He is right.
Never in those 4 years have RB been as dominant as Mercedes. Such is their dominance that It makes Lewis’ WC,s make it look as less of an achievement.
Well I guessed you missed 2011 and 2013, but hey those don’t count….
They may not have been as dominant as the Mercedes during the races (but they had their moments), however they were the dominant championship team as their quadruple WDC and WCC proved. So in other words, they were dominant.
Less of an achievement to naysayers…
He is right. Never has F1 been so boring since the Merc domination started. When He was at RB there was a lot more competition.
Where exactly does it say above that is the winning streak by Hamilton that has bored fans? By Merc, yes, but Hamilton is not named. And it’s not appropriate to make the extrapolation, because if Rosberg was doing a poor job or the car didn’t suit him (as it was happening with Webber), then other drivers would be closer and other teams would have won more than 6 races in 2 years.
Perhaps he needs to stop dangling his bits in the pool and work harder….
Actually, Finger boy actually became likeable when he went to Ferrari.. then he goes and reminds us he’s a Richard
Vettel is not stupid enough to name Hamilton directly as the cause, he singles out Merc in line with the Red Bull argument that their 4 year streak had closer team competition.
Once again quality clickbaiting!!
Article and headline was written by Associated Press – who write a lot of Autosport articles 🙂
Your and other ‘click bait’ continual criticisms are boring and will no longer be published. Suggest you go read the OED.
Was it also a turn off when Vettel was winning everything?
Ahh Vettel finally drops to Hamilton’s level when Red Bull was dominating, I guess he just misses the top spot. He was pretty supportive to Mercedes’s dominance so far, saying they were all doing a great job, but now that’s boring to him. Well, complaining about it won’t stop Merc, they need to come up with a better winning formula than Mercedes has done
Difficult to stoop that low. As i remember, Lewis in his usual moaning self, always was snipping at Vettel and RB when they were winning.
You can’t really force there to be competition in races. You can keep the rules stable and hope that the teams catch up with each other, but you can’t really force it. So you’re probably always going to have periods where cars are driving around tracks by themselves. And a current F1 car driving by itself is actually pretty boring – they don’t slide around and they don’t make much noise. So all that drama and theatre of an F1 race car on a race track has been diluted. No wonder the fans are drifiting away from the sport.
I think Vettel is slightly more talented then Hamilton, and would like to see him dominate the sport rather then someone I perceive as less deserving. Vettel dominated in a car that was never as dominant as the Mercedes of the last 2 seasons, and in Vettels championship winning years competition was fairer because much more development was allowed, now look at the ridiculous engine rules, Hamilton might win 5 world championships in a row purely because of Mercedes engine domination.
And Seb won 4 in a row purely because of Adrian Newey’s aerodynamic designs, same difference, or does that not count?
Seb’s car might not have been as dominant as the Mercedes, but it was still the class of the field for 4 years straight, but hey 2 is greater than 4.
And why do you perceive Lewis to be less deserving? Did he take someone else’s seat at Mercedes who is more deserving? Did he get an unfair advantage over everyone else?
Just look at the stats from those 4 years compared to the last 2.
Winning margin was much less. Pole position times and race fastest laps were a lot more disputed simply because because RB advantage was much less compared to the Mercs. Yes there was an advantage, albeit much less.
One thing is a winning streak, another is just crushing your opponents which is what Mercedes have done.
Yea whatever 😏😏
Check The Stats Both For Driver And Team On Consecutive Winning Races.
LEWIS And MERCEDES Are Not On Top, And Both Are Bellow WHITEFIVE And RBR Respectively.
If You Can Not Find Another Site To Confirm It, Check The Site STATSF1.
GO, 44 !
That Is Rich.
I Do Not Recall LEWIS Ever Winning 9 Races In A Row.
At Least, LEWIS Had Some Competition.
I Do Not Remember The POS #2 Driver Being Even Close In 2011 And 2013.
GO, 44 !