David Coulthard warns too much Red Bull success ‘could take away magic’ from F1

David Coulthard has admitted his former team Red Bull’s domination of F1 risks taking away some of the magic from the sport.

Since the introduction of ground-effect regulations in 2022, Red Bull have emerged as F1’s dominant force, winning back-to-back double world championships for the past two seasons.

Red Bull won 21 of the 22 races last year in what turned out to be the most dominant F1 season in history, as Max Verstappen romped to his third straight crown with a record-breaking 19 victories.

But with Red Bull blowing away their opposition and being the red-hot favourites for more silverware once again in 2024, there have been suggestions their success might have a negative impact on F1.

Even Coulthard, who ended his F1 career racing for Red Bull between 2005 and 2008 and is still involved with the team as a show run driver, has shared his concerns.

“That expression ‘familiarity breeds contempt’? If you adapt that to sport, the same thing goes,” Coulthard told The Telegraph.

“Too much success kind of takes away the magic. With sport, we look to be inspired, to grow, to move forward, and if one team is doing all that, then it doesn’t give enough hope for everybody.”

However, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner does not believe there will be a repeat of the team’s domination in 2024.

“I don’t think we’ll ever see a repeat, certainly not in our lifetimes, of what we managed to achieve [last] year with a car that’s managed the kind of dominance of RB19,” Horner told F1.com.

“I’m fully expecting with stable regulations, [there’ll be] diminishing returns for us, because I think we got to the top of the curve quicker than others.

"The field is going to converge. For us, it’s difficult to know who that will be. Will it be McLaren? Will it be Ferrari? Will it be Mercedes? It keeps moving around behind us. But that’s what we’re fully expecting going into [this] year.

“There’s always a reset as you go into the following year. I’m convinced that you’ll see a lot more cars that look like the RB19 philosophy going into next year.

“If you stand still in this business, you tend to be going backwards. I think we have got up that curve quicker than others, but we’re into a law of diminishing returns.”