Formula 1 has been around since 1950 and has always been about making the best car, whether through pushing the rules or bringing new ideas to the table. But has F1 become too predictable?
Since 2010, Mercedes’ first year in F1, there have been 352 races and of those races, only five races have been won by teams not named Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.
In 2010 and 2011, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull won all 38 races that took place across the two years.
In each of 2012 and 2013, Kimi Raikkonen won a race with Lotus, but Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes won the other 39.
Between 2014 and 2019, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari won all 121 races with Mercedes winning the most with 89 Grand Prix’s won.
The first year since 2009 where a team outside the big four won a race was 2020, when Pierre Gasly won the Italian Grand Prix with AlphaTauri, and Sergio Perez won the Sakhir Grand Prix with Racing Point.
The most recent year a team won besides Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari was 2021, when Esteban Ocon and Alpine won the Hungarian Grand Prix. Since then, it has been all the big four. Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari won all 22 races in 2022 and in 2023, Red Bull won 21 of the 22 races with Ferrari winning the Singapore Grand Prix to prevent a Red Bull sweep.
In 2024, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren won all 24 races and in 2025, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes won every race. Despite the regulation change in 2026, this trend hasn’t changed, with Mercedes winning 12 of the first 18 races while Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren have won two each.
To find the first-year Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes or Ferrari didn’t win the most races, you have to go back to 2009 when Brawn GP, who was bought by Ross Brawn for £1, won eight races before Mercedes bought the team in 2010 for around £110 million.
Since 2010, F1 has had a power balance problem. The big teams thrive and continue to dominate while the smaller teams have to fight for scraps and in the current cost cap era of F1, things will most likely not change.
The current cost cap rules are set up so the team who wins the Constructors Title gets the most money towards the next season, while getting the least amount of wind tunnel hours. Meanwhile, the team who finished at the bottom gets the least amount of money, but the most wind tunnel hours.
This may not seem bad, but the big teams like Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari bring massive amounts of money which help them meet their cost cap while teams like Haas F1, struggled to get funding and until last year, didn’t get enough money to fill their cost cap.
What F1 should do is have first place in the Constructors Title get the least amount of cost cap and wind tunnel hours, while the worst team gets the most amount of cost cap and wind tunnel hours.
This would make it so the bottom teams could spend the money to catch up to the bigger teams and fight for points, podiums and wins so there is more parity. F1 having the same four teams winning races year in and year out isn’t fun for the fans, and it isn’t good for F1.
If F1 doesn’t fix this, the racing product will continue to go downhill, fans of midfield and back marker teams might leave the to flock to other series that provide a closer and more exciting on track product, like the World Rally Championship, IndyCar or endurance racing like IMSA and WEC.