Can anyone stop the Max Verstappen and Red Bull juggernaut? The Dutchman goes into his home Dutch Grand Prix with a 93-point lead in the title race and nearly twice as many wins as the rest of the field combined following his most dominant performance of 2022 at Spa last weekend.
Even with eight races left on the calendar, it now feels like a slow march to a successful title defence for Verstappen.
And the man he pipped to the title in nail-biting fashion last year, Lewis Hamilton, warned it had all the makings of another period of dominance in the sport, not just for this season but beyond.
“The chances are very high that’s already happened,” said Hamilton when asked if Red Bull were set to replace Mercedes as the new dominant force. “They are already on that way. It’s going to be very tough for teams to close that gap.
“If your car is fast one year, it evolves into a faster car for the next year, so the gap they have now will be hard for anyone from third down to ever close in this cycle of car design.”
Initially, this season had all the makings of a thrilling head-to-head between Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, but Ferrari have been beset by all manner of issues since the early races when the Monegasque driver led the championship.
And Hamilton credited Red Bull’s technical mastermind, Adrian Newey, for the current state of play in both the drivers’ and constructors’ battles. “His understanding has been an advantage to them and they have done a great job,” said the seven-time world champion.
Spa proved a weekend to forget for Hamilton. He was way off the pace in qualifying and then crashed out after a coming together with former team-mate Fernando Alonso.
Despite languishing in sixth place in the drivers’ title race and with virtually half the points of Verstappen, he said he was confident that Mercedes could still close the gap to the front.
“We have won the last eight world titles,” he said. “As a team, we’ve got amazing and talented engineers. I don’t doubt they can. There are limitations with budget and wind tunnel and CFD time so we have to be very clear and precise in the direction we want to go and very efficient in our time.”
