WCC Unbroken Dominance

[Greenlantern101]

I have seen a few articles about people including Alonso and Brawn fearing Redbull will continue in their dominance in 2014. That got me wondering which constructors have had the longest unbroken dominance in F1.

Ferrari 6 years (1999-2004)
McLaren 4 years (1988-1991)
Redbull 4 years (2010-2013)
Williams 3 years (1992-1994)
Lotus 2 years (1972-1973)
Cooper 2 years (1959-1960)
Brabham 2 years (1966-1967)
Renault 2 years (2005-2006)

Quite interesting that Redbull have already matched McLarens dominace in the Senna, Prost, Berger era. I don't recall the same level of despair when McLaren were winning back in the day.

Ferrari on the other hand, had everyone in the world apart from the Italians and Schumy fans on the verge of F1 Hara Kiri. Without a doubt in my opinion the darkest era in F1. You could reasonably say that Ferraris domination would of continued longer if the Bridgestone clad Ferraris had not been let down by their tyre supplier in relation to the Michelin runners.

Scary to think just 2 more years of Redbulls wins and we will be back in this darkest of times for F1.

Everything crossed the new regs shake Redbull out of their tree.

 

[Incubus]

Quite interesting that Redbull have already matched McLarens dominace in the Senna, Prost, Berger era. I don't recall the same level of despair when McLaren were winning back in the day.

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Possibly because a two-horse race for domination between the top two drivers of their day was a lot more exciting for the viewer than a one-man one-team procession?

 

[Il_leone]

Greenlantern101

depends how you call the dominance

Mclaren was an integration of everything - drivers, enigines, engineers

luckily for viewers Prost vs Senna kept viwers interested and Mansell , Berger and Piquet challenged now and then

Williams was obviously lead by the engineering brilliance of Newey which is what is currently reflected with Red Bull

Ferrari was an integration of everything possible

What concerns people is the margin of dominance and at the moment Vettel is winning races by 30 seconds plus only driving about 80-90% effort

 

[Greenlantern101]

I was really just looking at championships rather than race margins Il_leone

If you do look at individual seasons / races then Redbulls current dominance is still not as extreme as McLarens was in 1988 and 1989
You also have to remember that Redbull didn't have it too easy in 2010 only just beating McLaren.

So yes you could say Redbull are not as dominant as Mclaren from 1988-1991. But at the end of the day a championship win is a win, nobody really cares how easy it was.

 

[Il_leone]

Greenlantern101 I think people are concerned its a return to the Schumacher days where it is so one sided and boring

at least with Mclaren you had Prost and Senna going at each other to keep it exciting

Its the predictability issue where Vettel pole , Vettel leads lap1 , Vettel Fastest lap , Vettel wins which is boring everyone to death plus the fact that no one gives Ricciardo much hope next season means its more dread for everyone else that Vettel will walkaway with another title as Red Bull appear to have placed all their eggs with Vettel for next seaosn

 

[Greenlantern101]

Yup absolutely. I really hope Ricciardo can step up and annoy Vettel. False hope possibly but hope none the less.

 

[Incubus]

Yes,today we talk of drivers "throwing their toys out of their prams".

In the 1988-91 period you sometimes had Prost, Senna and Mansell actually throwing their entire cars at each each other.

 

[LifeW12]

Here's all the car designers since 1990:

1990 - McLaren - Oatley
1991 - Williams - Newey
1992 - Williams - Newey
1993 - Williams - Newey
1994 - Bennetton (WDC) - Byrne, Williams (WCC) - Newey
1995 - Benetton - Byrne
1996 - Williams - Newey
1997 - Williams - Newey (even though he was on a sabaticcal, he penned the car)
1998 - McLaren - Newey
1999 - McLaren (WDC) - Newey, Ferrari (WCC) - Byrne
2000 - Ferrari - Byrne
2001 - Ferrari - Byrne
2002 - Ferrari - Byrne
2003 - Ferrari - Byrne
2004 - Ferrari - Byrne
2005 - Renault - Bob Bell
2006 - Renault - Bob Bell
2007 - Ferrari - Aldo Costa/Tombazis (with help from Mike Coughlan and Nigel Stepney)
2008 - McLaren (WDC) - Lowe (with help from Oatley), Ferrari (WCC) - Costa/Tombazis
2009 - Brawn - Zander
2010 - Red Bull - Newey
2011 - Red Bull - Newey
2012 - Red Bull - Newey
2013 - Red Bull - Newey

So you could say the success has been chiefly with 2 men, Byrne and Newey.

 

[FB]

How long has Rory Byrne been out of the game? It will be interesting to see if he still has his Mojo and if the testing restrictions have an effect.

 

[The Pits]

To be honest, I think that rule changes help to reset things, however, I think coming in cold will be a disadvantage, as there will be learnings and concepts which will need to be fully understood, rather than just getting out the crayons.

As an aside, when was the last time a team maintained a significant period of dominance either side of a major rule change? I cannot recall.

 

[FB]

Williams survived through the auto-everything era (Mansell '92) into the driver back in control rules but there weren't major aero changes.

 

[Incubus]

I think the majority of major rule changes in the past 20 years or so has tended to be more engine-related.
Also, while LifeW12 's list is fairly comprehemsive, iy's gotta be kept in ind that a lot of the engineers listed (like the Ferrari designing team for instance) essentially inherited existing designs from their predecessors. It's easier to design a good car when the basic concept is quite good to begin with.

 

[The Pits]

I thought that change was 1993-1994? In which case, I am not sure that is completely the case, even before Imola, the Williams guys were having trouble getting to grips with the car.

 

[Incubus]

Yes it was. What changed in 1993 was rear tyre-width, from 18" to 15".

So even though Williams still had the advantage it wasn't quite as big as 92 because of the reduction in useable grip for everyone.

 

[Chris Stevens]

I don't see much point in trying to guess what will happen next year. It's the biggest shake up in regs in the sport's history, the order of the grid may change, it may not. Surely the main thing is that it provides us with some great racing

 

[sushifiesta]

It gives us something to do for the next two months.

 

[Il_leone]

REd Bull have admitted they are playing catch up having spent more time on securing 2013 titles than the other times especially having complained about the tyres and gone away in the summer and found more speed

There is a chance the field will be closer together because the engine freeze era means that most of the speed has to come from aerodynamics and Newey was pretty much always ahead of everyone else apart from not interpreting the double diffuser situation correctly

Having said that Red Bull have plenty of money to throw around and catch and the team has a lot of skilled and intelligent engineers who at least know what data they are analysing to good effect unlike Mclaren who seem to want to analyse everything

 

[Slyboogy]

How long has Rory Byrne been out of the game? It will be interesting to see if he still has his Mojo and if the testing restrictions have an effect.

2006 I think, when the rest of the dream team apart Todt left.

 

[Jen]

Not really retired and is already up to speed, perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Byrne

 

[Titch]

When you look at that list above, it becomes very obvious how good Newey is. I wonder if he will suffer from burn out, the day has to dawn surely when he's all out of ideas.