"They could make mistakes and still win easily": The Mercedes and Red Bull dominance compared

Former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve feels one cannot compare Red Bull's and Mercedes’ eras of dominance in F1, saying that the Silver Arrows were far more superior than the Austrian team currently are.

Red Bull have won all four races this season and the team does not appear to have a match in races. At Baku, Ferrari did muster a strong challenge in qualifying. Charles Leclerc put the car on pole for both races but once the main race started, the Red Bulls were unmatched.

However, former Williams driver Jacques Villeneuve has a different view, saying that Red Bull have to be perfect to win races and cannot afford to make any mistakes. He further stated that Mercedes could make mistakes and still win comfortably.

Mercedes dominated the sport during the inception of the turbo hybrid era. The Silver Arrows tended to have a huge performance advantage over the rest of the grid, winning seven consecutive constructor's titles between 2014 and 2020. Lewis Hamilton won six world championships in that period, with his former teammate Nico Rosberg winning the title in 2016.

In an exclusive interview with RacingNews365.com. Villeneuve said:

"It's not as big as the Mercedes domination that used to be, so why are we complaining about it? It's not massive. They didn't get pole [at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix]. They're just working better. When you had the Mercedes domination, they could make mistakes and still win easily. Red Bull cannot afford to make a mistake. They win because they're better, the car's a little bit better."

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Only if they work properly: How Red Bull wins this often

Jacques Villeneuve said that the reason why Red Bull are this successful is because it does everything perfectly. Drivers like Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez do their job perfectly and they all work in unison.

He said that while their car does give them a bit of a margin for error, it is not as huge as what Mercedes had earlier. He said:

"The driver works better with the engineers, there's no chaos, there's no politics. They all work in the same direction, so they end up winning. But if they make a mistake, they don't win. So it's not clear domination, they're just ever [so] slightly better. That gives them maybe a little bit of margin, but only if they work properly."

The Austrian team though has been on a dominant run in the new regulations and with the kind of advantage it enjoys in the races, it's hard to see anyone closing the gap anytime soon.