• The Austrian Red Bull team largely dominated the start of the Formula 1 championship with five wins and four doubles in five races.
  • A total domination that could cause some boredom among the followers of Formula 1 and Grand Prix unspectacular as in Miami and Baku.
  • But for Franck Montagny, consultant at Canal+, Red Bull's competitors, starting with Ferrari and Mercedes, will go up sooner or later and the Barcelona Grand Prix should give good indications on the rest of the season.

Will the most legendary Grand Prix on the calendar turn to boredom again with a new demonstration of Red Bull? That's what Formula 1 fans fear ahead of this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix. More famous for its stars than for its overtaking, the race in the streets of the principality could lead to an unspectacular Grand Prix, still marked by the domination of Max Verstappen and his teammate Sergio Perez.

A bit like the last Grand Prix of Miami, won by the defending champion, or that of Baku, in which Perez emerged victorious. Races deemed boring by viewers of Canal +, the official broadcaster, as evidenced by the scores of 11.7 and 11.4 obtained by these last two meetings of the beginning of the Formula 1 season. It's simple, Red Bull takes everything with already five victories, including four doubles in five races.

"Better work than others"

A domination born of the very good work of the Austrian team as the CEO of Formula 1, Stefano Domenicali agrees in the Financial Times, "this year we have to tell the truth: Red Bull did a better job than the others, that's a fact", and Günther Steiner, Hass' team manager, "Red Bull did a fantastic job. They just did a better job than others," he explained to Motorsport.com.

Franck Montagny, Canal+'s F1 consultant, agrees with them on this point: "It's just that they worked better than everyone else. They had already won everything last year with reliability problems at the beginning of the season that they do not have this year. So it's not surprising to see Red Bull doing one and two."



"You force yourself to look at something else"

To the point of already getting tired of this ultra-domination of Red Bull after only five races? "It's not that it tires me, but you force yourself to look at something else, the battle for places 1 and 2 is not interesting, the domination is too big," says Franck Montagny. To the point of believing that "this is not the right year to start taking an interest in F1. If your first Grand Prix is Miami, there is indeed something to wonder where the interest is."

It's hard to prove him wrong when you see Max Verstappen's race in Miami. Starting only 9th on the starting grid, it only took him 15 laps to overtake Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin, the first of the others, when the double world champion predicted before the race 25 laps to see his young rival in his retros. Enough to make Romain Grosjean, the former Formula 1 driver and consultant for Canal+ when he does not race in IndyCar, say that there was "a normal Grand Prix and a Red Bull Grand Prix in Miami". Max Verstappen won by more than 5 seconds over his teammate Sergio Perez, and 26 (!) over Fernando Alonso, 3rd.

Lovers of Formula 1 are therefore finally forced to focus their gaze on second-zone issues, and fortunately there is spectacle. "There is still a lot going on, for example nobody would have bet a euro on Fernando Alonso's 3rd place, and the good performance of Aston Martin. Alpine also has a lot of problems. If we didn't have these two Red Bulls there would be all the ingredients for a great championship," said Franck Montagny.

Barcelona, the revelation

Fortunately for Formula 1 fans, the gap should eventually close between Red Bull and other teams, starting with Ferrari and Mercedes. It remains to be seen when. "We will review battles, Monaco is not necessarily the Grand Prix where it doubles the most. But we can expect Barcelona [next weekend] to give information on the evolution of the cars. Red Bull should stay 1 and 2, but more with so much lead, the classification should be more compact, "predicts Franck Montagny.

Formula 1, which has always wanted to highlight the spectacular side of the discipline like the Netflix series, Drivers of their destiny, would not let a team outrageously dominate several seasons and "technical changes could help other teams," says the former driver. A bit like Moto GP, where the bottom of the standings have more days of testing the following season.

Change regulations?

But for Günther Steiner, "it is normal that they stay in the lead without the need to intervene on the regulatory level. It's not fair to intervene just because someone is faster." Especially since the new aerodynamic regulations introduced last season aimed precisely to ensure that the cars can follow each other more, for more spectacle.

Could the tightening between the teams rather come from the establishment of the "budget cap", to get out of financial fair play in the auto sauce? Franck Montagny is skeptical: "It's only been two years since it was introduced and it's too early for it to bear fruit. We have to wait another two or three years. Because the teams that had budgets of 500 million, against 140 million today, invested all this money before the cap budget," he said. Like Aston Martin and its brand new factory which is not yet fully operational. And yet we already see the fruits on track with their 2nd place in the manufacturers' standings, they who finished 7th last season.

Canal+ celebrates 10 years of Formula 1 on its antennas

The official broadcaster of Formula 1 in France, Canal+, celebrates this weekend on the occasion of the Monaco Grand Prix, the 10th anniversary of the discipline on its antennas. The queen discipline of motorsport landed in 2013 on the encrypted channel. "It went by incredibly fast, I didn't see the time spent. So I've been having fun in this new consulting job for 10 years now, it's really cool. We have found our cruising speed and we all love each other as much as each other, "says Franck Montagny.

10 years during which Formula 1 fans were able to experience the Mercedes domination, but also the victories of the French Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon or the coronation of Max Verstappen by the voice of Julien Fébreau, Jacques Villeneuve, Franck Montagny, Margot Laffite and Laurent Dupin, among others. "We receive a lot of thanks, people say thank you for my rants, my technical descriptions. The spectators also ask us to come to the pitlane on Thursday to exchange a few words with them. In any case, I am serious hot to continue another 10 years, "warns the consultant.

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