F1’s New Formula Tastes Like Bitter Medicine to Ferrari and Mercedes

When the marshal waved the checkered flag at the Azerbaijan Formula One race on April 28, the result came as little surprise: The first car across the line was a Mercedes. The second was, too. In Shanghai two weeks earlier, the outcome was the same. Ditto the other two races this year. That puts Mercedes in pole position to win the 2019 team championship. Just as it did last year. And the four years before that. In fact, only two teams have won the title in the past nine years, and about the only mystery in the competition is which Mercedes driver will come in first, and whether third place will fall to Ferrari or Red Bull.

That predictability has become a headache for John Malone, the Denver billionaire who in 2017 paid $4.4 billion for Formula One. Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. has sought to revive the troubled series by supercharging the competition, but the wealthiest and most powerful teams don’t like the idea. The three leading entrants, at risk of being dethroned, have threatened to pull the plug on their Formula One efforts unless they can shape the rules to their liking. “One of the teams could quit if things go in the wrong direction,” Niki Lauda, a three-time F1 champion and now a part-owner of the Mercedes squad, told Germany’s WirtschaftsWoche last year.