1996 champion, the former Formula 1 driver admitted that Red Bull has a knife and a knife in its hands to take the category titles this year, but also emphasized: the fight is far from being settled
World Champion in 1996, Damon Hill said that because of its experience in 'thinking outside the box', Red Bull is at an advantage in the current Formula 1 season. According to the former driver, Ferrari and Mercedes traditionally do not opt for risky on-track choices like the Taurine team - and offered such a factor as justification for the energy dominance in 2022.
"I used to call Williams an engineering team that raced. Benetton was a racing team that did engineering. There are two sides to that and Red Bull, to me, looks like a very sharp racing team. They know they had to fight tactically to get the advantage and they are very experienced and very good at analyzing race strategy, reacting quickly and having an alternative plan up their sleeve," Hill explained.
"The other teams are not as good in that sense. Mercedes was in front for so long, they never had to think as inventively as Red Bull. I think Ferrari is in the same boat. They have focused so much on making their car fast, that they haven't developed their race strategy as well as Red Bull. It seems that Red Bull sometimes takes a risk and does something clever - like they did in Abu Dhabi (in 2021) - and the rest are a fraction of a second behind them," he added.
In the Drivers' World Championship, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez are the leaders, with 175 and 129 points respectively, while Charles Leclerc is third with 126. In the Constructors' Championship, Red Bull is 'swimming in the water': 304 points against Ferrari's 228.
Still, even with the winds fully favoring the Austrian team, Hill made it clear: the fight in F1 2022 is far from defined and should really be between the reigning world champion and the Monegasque of the Italian escuderia - provided that Ferrari 'transfers' its reliability problems to Red Bull.
"I see the outcome of the championship as being between Max and Charles - but it probably needs a few Max abandonments for that to happen. I don't rule out Mercedes finding the magic they lost, but if you look at the historical evidence, (F1 2022) is pointing to a Ferrari-Red Bull tussle," Hill said.
"(Distance between Verstappen and Leclerc) seems to be a lot of points - but all it needs is two slip-ups and that's 50 points lost. It's very close and it could go either way. Ferrari has stumbled over mechanical failures so far, there have been a lot of them. But Max had to deal with that too at the beginning of the season," the 1996 champion finally concluded.