George Russell has openly admitted that the introduction of the budget cap and the new aerodynamic regulations haven’t “drastically changed anything”, with Aston Martin having been the only team to have made significant progress.
The budget cap was introduced at the start of 2021 whilst the new aero regs came into effect last year, resulting in the start of Red Bull’s current domination.
As well as that, Formula 1 introduced the sliding scale aerodynamic regulations, which sees teams given a certain amount of wind tunnel time dependant on where they finish in the Constructors’ Championship.
Effectively, the lower a team finishes in the standings, the more time they receive in the wind tunnel for the following season.
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The idea behind the system is that those at the bottom can catch up with those ahead; however, Aston Martin are the only team to have really made the most of the regulations.
As a result of finishing seventh last year, Aston Martin received more time in the wind tunnel than all the frontrunners, giving them an edge this season.
Hiring several high key employees has also helped the Silverstone-based team move through the field, something Russell has noted.
The Mercedes driver is unsure how the field can be brought closer together, with the current system not working as planned.
“From a technical standpoint, I have no view or idea how that could be achieved and obviously, we’ve only been a couple of years now into the aero regulation and the handicap system, but it hasn’t drastically changed anything up and down the order,” Russell told media, including RacingNews365.com.
“Maybe the only team you can argue is Aston Martin, but I think that’s probably via, you know, certain engineers joining to help push in the right direction.
“You could give quadruple the amount of wind tunnel time to the team at the bottom over the one at the top and the one at the top would probably still come out in the lead.”
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Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen believes the best thing to do is to keep the regulations how they are “for a longer period of time”, something which would perhaps extend Red Bull’s domination.
“Just keep the regulations the same for a longer period of time,” Verstappen said.
“If you keep on tweaking stuff, people always find something or one particular team will always find something a bit better than the others, and then it takes a bit of time for everyone to close up.”