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If you became a Formula 1 fan in 2021, you may have spent the last few years wondering when things would get better again.

That season, as fraught and poisonous as it was due to the intense championship battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, was F1 at its best. Two drivers and teams were all in for the championship and the momentum swung back and forth all season long until the very last race.

Emerging from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in a year that saw live sport return in full force, F1 experienced rapid growth and interest, with momentum peaking in 2021. All the work Liberty Media had put in since acquiring the series in 2017 had paid off. Fans who wanted the thrill of “Drive to Survive” every other Sunday felt satisfied. The good times seemed here to stay.

Verstappen and Red Bull then ushered in an unprecedented period of dominance in Formula 1, a stark contrast to the ultra-competitive, ultra-tense sport that had attracted millions of new fans.

During 2023, they sat down with the knowledge that they would likely spend the next 90 minutes to two hours watching another Verstappen victory and hearing the latest version of the Dutch national anthem at the end.

Last year I wrote about the potential impact such dominance had on F1, particularly in the United States. The rise in viewership in 2021 had continued to record levels in 2022, only to fall by 9.1 percent last year.

The numbers were still good, but the dip proved that no matter how much push was put behind new races like Miami or Las Vegas to continue to capture the American market, there was still no better advertisement for F1 than the product on the track itself. If the sport wasn’t competitive, people might not stick around. The start of this season, when Verstappen won by an average of 15 seconds every weekend, did little to assuage that concern.

If this continues, can we get through a few more years of one driver dominance and still remain as positive about the direction Formula 1 is heading?

It was in McLaren’s camper on Saturday, when I spoke to Zak Brown as part of a written media session, that it really hit me. Yeah, things to have changed. We are finally back to the good times in F1.

Brown, the McLaren Racing CEO, recalled Lando Norris’s closing-race collision with Verstappen. The day before, he had criticised Red Bull for a “lack of respect”. He called on the FIA ​​to step up stewarding to prevent a repeat of what happened — even though Norris himself drew a line under the whole affair on Thursday, saying Verstappen did not need to apologise.

That it was a conversation at all was a sign of how much more competitive Formula 1 has become; that we could even ask Brown about the prospect of taking the fight to Red Bull this year and whether, as one reporter put it, McLaren was prepared for a fight that could potentially be as “nasty” as the 2021 one.

“We’re prepared to have a neck-and-neck race,” Brown said. “McLaren doesn’t race in a nasty way. I think you can have a neck-and-neck race, but you don’t have to be mean about it.

“They sometimes seem to have a ‘win at all costs’ mentality. That’s not how we race. But we think you can beat them in our own way.”

I couldn’t help but grin. Not because of Brown’s comment, but because the needle that was missing was back. F1 has been such a done deal at the front for the past two seasons that there has been little mudslinging or tension between teams. Everything has been cordial. A little too cordial, in fact.

Sports thrive on rivalry. It helps to provide some of the most delightful and exciting stories. With the rise of competition, rivalry comes more easily.

And it builds both ways. When asked Sunday about Brown’s “disrespect” comment, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said he “wouldn’t honor that with an answer.” Speaking to the Dutch press on Saturday, Verstappen simply said, “Who is Zak Brown?” He laughed and walked away.

So Red Bull versus McLaren is heating up. And now Mercedes is on the rise, ramping up the tension at the front by giving us six winners from four teams in the first half of the season. It’s the kind of competitive picture that F1 has long craved, but seemed a long way off just a few months ago.

“Formula 1 couldn’t be better at the moment,” Horner said. “If you look at the last five or six races, we’ve had Lewis, Lando, Max, Charles Leclerc… It’s moving. You can see from the crowd that it’s delivering and so on.”

The TV numbers are also looking up. Before the Spanish Grand Prix, ESPN reported five consecutive races with year-on-year increases in ratings. As the battle at the front develops and the intrigue over who wins each week grows, the increase can only continue.

“It’s been amazing,” Brown said. “From the last few races, really outside of the first three or four races where we all thought it was going to be more of the same, I think Formula 1 has been epic.

“Would you be shocked if one of the top eight drivers wins on Sunday? That’s a pretty cool place for the sport to be.”

It’s a testament to the direction F1 has taken under Liberty, particularly with aspects such as the cost cap and restrictions on aerodynamic development, to create a more balanced field. Verstappen retains a significant points lead going into the second half of this season, but few would think that 2025 is a foregone conclusion, as it seemed a few months ago.

And then, in 2026, it could all fall apart again. The start of a new regulatory cycle will always create a divide between those who are doing it right and those who are doing it terribly wrong, just as we saw in 2014 and 2022. One team could once again gain the upper hand.

Brown admitted there was a “little bit of concern” that it would upset the growing competitive balance in Formula 1, but noted that these types of overhauls are necessary to “stay true to what Formula 1 is” ​​by improving the technology.

Top photo: Bryn Lennon/Formula 1 via Getty Images