Whatever way you look at it, the changes introduced this season in a bid to allow closer racing haven't worked. It was always likely that the teams would get on top of them and the usual order would be restored, but almost from the outset of the season it was clear that the changes hadn't worked.

At a time many believe the drivers should be more involved in the rule-making process, Max Verstappen suggests that the constant tinkering with the rules is one of the main problems with the sport.

"One team will always do a better job with the rules than the others," he tells De Telegraaf. "In the end I think it's better if you keep the rules the same for a long period of time, because then everything comes together.

"At some point you just have to say, 'these are the rules and we will stick to these for the next ten years', he adds, "and after five or six years you will see that it will be really close together.

"I also think that if we had left the rules alone last year, with the front wings and all that, it would have been closer together now."

Another change this year has been the switch to thinner treaded tyres, a move which has pleased Mercedes but left rival teams frustrated. As Ross Brawn and his team seek to overhaul the sport in 2021 creating a formula that will encourage closer racing, the Red Bull driver insists that tyres are the key.

"The big problem we have as drivers is that we can't push when we're behind someone because the tyres get overheated, and you can't follow each other because there's too much downforce loss.

"In the end, those are the most important things we have to work on to make it better for the audience. On certain tracks you can go a second slower than you actually have to go, and still nobody will pass you because you just can't follow each other."

Asked if he feels the sport's powers-that-be value the input of the drivers, he said: "We did say in 2015 and 2016 that the cars were too slow, gave too little grip and were sliding too much. We then went to wider cars with more downforce.

"But of course there are other ways to create downforce, so you lose a bit less when you're chasing someone. I think they should take a look at that. We're now setting a track record here and a track record there, but in the end I don't think that's what it's all about.

"If you just want to go faster and faster, you might as well put a robot in the car. But it also has to be fun for the fan. If everything slows down by one or two seconds, then that's fine, that doesn't matter, as long as we can follow each other closely."

As the teams prepare to meet to discuss the 2021 rules package, the youngster doesn't hold out much hope, believing that the current democratic approach doesn't work in F1.

"You know what it is, everyone's talking for themselves," he says. "Mercedes, of course, is very happy with these regulations. In their view little needs to be changed. And teams who are not doing so well at the moment, they want different regulations, but then maybe they have a smaller say.

"If you have a Ferrari engine as a customer team, you are with Ferrari, and if you are a customer team at Mercedes, you are with Mercedes. There is so much politics behind it. There should be just one person at the FOM or the FIA who says: 'OK guys, this is it'."