Red Bull's team boss, Christian Horner, has warned Formula 1 to consider its actions with the double points decision it recently made in which the last race of the 2014 season will pay out twice the points for the top 10 finishers. Red Bull's dominance, securing four world championships on the trot, has prompted the sport to take measures that might thwart the dominance and the answer was double-points.
The notion has been met with a strong backlash from fans and even Horner now admits that F1, and its regulatory body the FIA, should consider carefully what it's doing telling Bloomberg:
"It can either work for or against you," Horner said. "Is it right to put so much predominance on one race? Does it undervalue what you've done in the rest of the year? I think arguably yes it does. We need to think very carefully about it.
"It's not our fault or responsibility if the competition hasn't been prevalent in the last few races,"
His final comment could be seen as slightly aloof but that's not how it is meant. In the early 2000's, Ferrari's dominance was comprehensive and the sport's regulatory body, the FIA, changed the regulations in an effort to balance the power and slow the Ferrari down. McLaren team boss Ron Dennis stated that it was not incumbent upon the FIA to change the regulations to hamper Ferrari so much as it is the other teams responsibility to raise their game and take the fight to the Italian car maker.
The 2013 season started off with Pirelli, the sole tire supplier to the sport, bringing a new tire compound that effectively was intended to hamper Red Bull's aerodynamic advantage over the rest of the field. This created tires that, for a host of reasons not solely Pirelli's own, succumbed to blowouts prompting a change back to the 2012 construction methods and as fate would have it, the Red Bull's thrived on that format winning the last remaining nine races of the season.
The 2014 notion of double points seems to be another construct intended to tie one hand behind Red Bull's back. Should the season be close, double points could be a non-issue but should Red Bull have a decent lead, the final race could marginalize everything they'd accomplished in the season.
Overwhelmingly, fans have voiced their disproval of the double-points idea but the FIA have yet to revers the decision with some defending its intentions as a way to "spice up the show".