01/03/2023
NEWS STORY
Zak Brown believes it won't be too long before F1 experiences IndyCar levels of competitiveness whereby we could see four or five teams regularly battling for wins.
There was the Ferrari era, a couple of years of Renault, McLaren and Brawn, followed by the Red Bull era and finally Mercedes, while currently the Austrian team appears most likely to dominate again.
However, courtesy of a number of factors, not least the budget cap and rules stability, Zak Brown believes that F1 could be heading for a golden age whereby four or five teams are regularly battling for wins.
"I'm looking forward to the first race," he tells RACER, "I think it's going to be mega-tight.
"I think what we're going to start seeing is it's going to be like IndyCar levels of competitiveness," he continues, "where one weekend you might be P7 and the next weekend you're P17 and you're not actually really much slower.
"Because in IndyCar, it's like one weekend we're pole and the next weekend we're 16th, but that's how the whole field is.
"I think that's what's exciting, is Formula 1's going to get to the point where maybe there's four or five different teams that can win and the spread will be 'one weekend they're at the front, then the next weekend another team's at the front', but everyone just needs to catch Red Bull at this point."
Another metric where F1 might want to give IndyCar a run for its money is TV viewership, with the former averaging 1.21 million viewers per race last season in the US and the latter 1.3 million.
However, despite the constant proclamations that F1 is the big one and enjoying an unprecedented boom, both pale into insignificance compared to NASCAR.
The recent Daytona 500 saw 8.17 viewers tune in, broadcasters lamenting that though it peaked at 10.1 million, this was 8% down on 2022 and the third lowest audience in the event's TV history.
Meanwhile, coming off the back of an unconvincing test, Brown is hoping that upcoming developments will enable McLaren to mix it at the front of the midfield.
"We're not happy with where the car is, which we've been public about, no point over-egging where we think we are," he admits. "But we've got good development coming... so has everybody else but hopefully ours is at a quicker pace to get caught up, because that midfield doesn't look like there's any backfield now. It's Red Bull, a couple of cars and then a big midfield. The last three teams look to be bloody quick now. They all look on top of each other, so I don't think there's a clear tenth-placed team like there was... Williams look to be pretty good now."