Hamilton says FIA has “failed” in bunching up the F1 field

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton believes the FIA has “failed” in bringing the field closer together as Red Bull are running away with the drivers’ and constructors’ championships.

Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Ferrari have accounted for every single win so far in the 2022 season after Sergio Perez fought off late pressure from Charles Leclerc in Singapore to seal his second victory of the season.

The FIA introduced a series of changes into Formula 1 this year in an effort to reduce the predictability of a race outcome in F1. From a $140 Million budget cap to limited wind tunnel time. Teams have been hampered from making improvements to the cars.

The Technical directive from the FIA surrounding the build of the cars has been the biggest change in F1, with aerodynamics designed to avoid dispersing ‘dirty air’, Formula 1 fans have been treated to tighter racing packed with overtakes.

Unfortunately for those same fans, the season has remained alarmingly predictable. With Max Verstappen already able to secure his second world title after just 17 races, Hamilton believes the regulations about achieved what they were supposed to.

When asked by Sky Sports F1 if he remains optimistic that the pack can tighten up he replied: “Yeah, they’re supposed to do that, but it’s not achieved what it was supposed to achieve, so yeah, we failed in that.

“But when you fail once you try again and fail a second time and continue to try,

“I hope more changes are made to try and bring all the teams closer and create better quality throughout the racing space.

“It’s my hope that we are all closer so we can have better racing and more overtaking. Red Bull have walked away with it this year. They have done a great job.”

Equalling out the field

Hamilton has previously stated that he “feels” for F1 fans due to the championships being wrapped up so early.

“I feel for the fans because that’s for everyone and even for us, last year, going right down to the wire, that was intense for everybody,” Hamilton said.

“So it’s never great when the season finishes early, even when I’ve experienced having it finish early, in places like Mexico. For you as the one individual it’s great, but for the actual sport is not spectacular.

“So I’m really grateful to have had it like 2008, right down to the last 17 seconds, and obviously last year pretty much the same thing. So yeah, let’s hope for the future that it’s a bit better.”

Verstappen will have his chance to seal his second career world title in one week’s time when Formula 1 heads to Asia for the Grand Prix of Japan.