F1 Fanatic

I read this claim a few times in comments on articles and in the forum.
Whoever claims that, could you please support this with numbers?
In my view, someone who would even think that has no idea whatsoever of Formula 1 history. Actually, Red Bull’s is a great feat in times were lap times are closer than they have ever been, in hitory.

McLaren ’84 through ’91 was similarly dominant.

See today’s Stats and Facts articles for details on how they’ve compared to Ferrari and McLaren since entering the sport:

Title battle goes down to the wire for 27th time

It is astonising indeed.
But it is far from dominant. People forget that there used to be times when it was not unusual for someone to be a second faster than all the others, or even more. Williams 1992/93 were probably the most dominant cars ever.

Well yeah it is a view that is ignorant of Formula One’s past. Even last year Red Bull didn’t approach the levels of domination by Mclaren in the 80′s (88/89 in particular) and Williams with Mansell and then Prost. Not to mention Schumacher’s Ferrari years. And these are recent examples as well.

Here’s the list of the WCC champions since the start of F1 racing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_World_Constructors%27_Champions

Red Bull’s domination has been matched/surpassed as follows:

3 WCC – Ferrari (1975-1977)
4 WCC – McLaren (1988-1991)
3 WCC – Williams (1992-1994)
6 WCC – Ferrari (1999-2004)

It’s been surpassed twice in the past and matched twice. I do stand corrected:-) The corrent word is Matchett’s choice which was “remarkable”.

That being said if you look at the list, you’ll see that usually a team wins 2 WCCs in a row or skips a year and wins it the next year so it’s very unlikely to have a 1-off where you win 1 WCC. Brawn and Tyrell are probably the only constructors that have won it once without a repeat…

So WCCs go in pairs usually – you win one, you get one free…

@mnmracer how can a car that lead for four races in a row not be classed as dominant. If dominance means outright pace at every circuit then obviously in 2012 no one is dominant. But given thats since Singapore RB have won 4 races, recovered to the podium from the pit lane and lost the last race due to a backmakers interference, whilst being on pole on 4 out of 6 races, they are obviously the team to beat.

@rbalonso
Well, there’s your answer isn’t it? If you considering winning by less than a second, your definition of dominant is very skewed.

I will not insult your intellligence and assume that you know that Red Bull (along with Mercedes) is a car that has better qualifying pace than race pace (like Ferrari and Lotus have better race pace than qualifying pace). Then it should not be that surprising that (one of) the (two) best qualifier(s) qualified on pole in a car with better qualifying pace.

McLaren was on faster in 5 of the last 9 races and on par in another. Again, that doesn’t even take into consideration the first 10 races of this season. Claiming Red Bull is dominant is ignorant of what actually happened.