Formula 1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali said Red Bull rivals They may have missed opportunities to beat them in 2022 and expect a tighter title fight next year, he said.
This year’s race was decided shortly after the 2021 championship battle came down to the final race of the season. Max Verstappen won his second world championship with four races to go at the Japanese Grand Prix.
F1 has introduced new technical regulations for 2022 aimed at improving the quality of racing and cutting the performance gap between teams. Domenicali said that despite the championship fight ending early, F1 is “absolutely positive about the impact of the rule change this year”.
Mercedes have struggled since the start of the year and have recently become a victory contender, while Ferrari started the year with two wins from three races but have seen their early advantage slowly overturned by Red Bull. Domenicali suspects Red Bull’s rivals have missed opportunities to beat them this year.
“Red Bull and Max Verstappen have done an incredible job on this,” he said. “Maybe it’s a team that didn’t take the right opportunity.
But the wheel-to-wheel racing we saw on the track is exactly what we want. And I am absolutely sure that next year the fight will come on the road [until] End of the Calendar”
He said there was still a lot of interest in the last two races, with several lower levels yet to be decided in both the drivers’ and team’s championships.
“The final competitions, on the sports side, there is a lot of attention,” he said. “From the point of view of the teams, there is a fight for places related to the financial position and the prize money that they get if they finish better than the other teams. So I think there will be a lot of interest in Brazil and Abu Dhabi, no problem.
The early ending of this year’s championship will not have a negative impact on the championship from a financial point of view, Domenicali said. “We never see any danger.
“First of all, we have the last two races where we sold tickets and the numbers are growing. The focus is obviously on other fights from a sporting point of view. It’s part of racing.”
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