SINGAPORE - Red Bull are dominating Formula One. And that is putting it mildly.

The Austrian team have won every race in the 2023 season and every Grand Prix except one for more than a year.

The run of Red Bull victories started with the French Grand Prix in July 2022, with George Russell’s Brazilian Grand Prix success with Mercedes the only outlier.

With eight races to go, starting from Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix race, history is at stake as Red Bull look to become the first team to complete the clean sweep of races in a season.

While entertainment and unpredictability are the biggest sellers in sport, the crushing superiority displayed by the two Red Bull cars can be viewed in either a positive or negative light.

When asked by The Sunday Times for his thoughts on Red Bull potentially winning every race this year and what it means for F1, Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack said it acts as a “great motivation for us to achieve similar levels”.

“I think in sports or in competition, you always have to respect your competitors and us as a team. We do that. We look on the other side, we see what is achievable. And we are not at that level yet.

“It’s inspiring for us to see what you can achieve, if you have the right people, the right processes and the right partners in the right place at the right moment.

“It is about eliminating weaknesses in your system. And we have to honestly acknowledge the great work that is done.”

Central to Red Bull’s superiority has been the brilliance of current world champion, Max Verstappen, who has now won an unprecedented 10 races in a row this season.

Earlier in 2023, it led Mercedes boss Toto Wolff to say that the season has been like “a field of Formula 2 cars” competing with a Formula 1 car.

Veteran motor racing journalist and ST columnist David Tremayne said that Verstappen’s lack of competition has set this era of dominance by Red Bull apart from similar ones previously.

Tremayne said: “It’s greater than, say McLaren in 1988 or Mercedes in recent years, because both of those teams had drivers of similar talent and let them race.

“What has made such a huge difference and rendered things less exciting than, say, Ayrton Senna v Alain Prost, is that Sergio Perez is nowhere near Verstappen’s class, thus making race results predictable.

“Back in 1988 when McLaren so nearly won all the races, you never knew who would win, Alain or Ayrton. That made it electrifying at times.”

Perhaps Michael Schumacher in 2004 when he won 13 out of 18 races, or in 2020 when Lewis Hamilton won 11 out of 17 races, are similar types of domination in the modern era.

But in both cases, F1’s governing body, the FIA, would then make sweeping and sudden regulation changes.

In 2005, tyre changes during the race were outlawed and this delivered the desired effect in stopping the Schumacher-Ferrari juggernaut.

For the 2021 season, FIA tweaked the regulations to ensure a 10 per cent reduction in downforce for the cars. Wolff had recently described those changes as being meant to stop Mercedes domination.

So will history repeat itself?

Tremayne is not a fan of such moves. He said: “Absolutely not. They did that with Mercedes in 2021, clipping the floor in particular, but I don’t agree with that sort of manipulation.”

Mercedes’ seven-time world champion Hamilton, however, suggested a way the FIA could stop one team from dominating for an extended period – by banning teams from starting car development for the following year too early in the current season.

But, for all the outside noise being generated about their success, Verstappen is focused on delivering his best for Red Bull.

Asked if he thought such a domination is good for the sport, the Dutchman told ST: “I don’t know. Some people say it’s not good.

“Some people say it’s good, of course, you want to see maybe closer battles, but it’s a fair sport, everyone has the same opportunities and same possibilities.

“So we are just very happy with what we are achieving as a team.”

Tremayne, however, is not betting against Red Bull from going perfect this season.

He said: “For the rest of the teams, it means three things: Demoralisation, work harder and smarter.

“I could easily see them (Red Bull) winning all of the races, the way things are going.

“I think they would have to meet some ill fortune to lose one, rather than another team managing to beat them.”