Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has received significant support from Formula 1 fans following the Miami Grand Prix, with the fifth round of the 2023 season having been labelled as ‘boring’ by many.
Max Verstappen was victorious once again on Sunday at the Miami International Autodrome after the Dutchman recovered from ninth on the grid, whilst team-mate Sergio Perez had to settle for second.
It meant Red Bull claimed their fourth 1-2 of the season, with Fernando Alonso having finished third once again.
Behind the top three, it was the usual case of Mercedes and Ferrari being best of the rest, with George Russell having claimed fourth ahead of Carlos Sainz in fifth.
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It was by no means the worst race of the season; however, it certainly wasn’t a thriller, with Red Bull’s superiority starting to become too much for fans.
The Miami GP was at least more enjoyable than the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, a race which left Wolff adamant that changes needed to be made.
“There was no overtaking, even with a big pace difference,” Wolff said after the Azerbaijan GP.
“It made it not great entertainment. We have to analyse the weekend with the sprint format, whether there’s positives we can take out. At the end it all comes down to racing.
“It needs the tough battles and I think the highlight you could see on Saturday [in the sprint race] was George and Max being able to battle it out and on Sunday there was none of that. Even if you were within 0.2 seconds it was very difficult to overtake, nearly impossible to overtake unless the other driver makes a mistake.”
Following Sunday’s race, 75-percent of fans who took part in a recent vote conducted by Express Sport sided with Wolff, with those being in favour of immediate changes to improve the quality of the racing.
The big issue, though, is that apart from making tweaks to the format, there is very little that can be done in regard to the regulations, given that the sport is still very much in the early stages of the new aerodynamic era.
Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton openly admitted after Sunday’s race that he’s unsure what the “solution is for the future”, with the Mercedes driver recognising that the racing isn’t good enough.
“It’s not my job to convince people to watch a sport,” Hamilton said in Miami.
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“I’m not watching so it’s not boring for me. But as a fan watching, I can understand because it’s not as competitive as maybe the NFL or the NBA at the moment.
“As a sport they (F1) have tried to bring the teams closer but it never seems to work. All I can say is that we’re working as hard as we can to close up and get back and give them more of a fight.
“It’s just unfortunate that we still see the same sort of gaps between the teams. I don’t know what the solution is for the future, but we are going to have to adapt to these regulations. Otherwise it could be the same as it is now for years.”