The Summer Break Update: F1, Season 2019
- Santosh Mishra
- Aug 9, 2019
- 4 min read
F1 is a sport that gives u adrenaline rush. Watching racers push the vehicles at speeds only imaginable in gaming consoles and that the winning margins can be in milliseconds, is outright thrilling! And just when you are convinced that a driver’s gonna take it home.. Err. He crashes.. To call it Unpredictable is an understatement.
To describe 2019 F1 I would like to start with, we have to wait almost 170 days and 8 races to see someone not having the Silver arrows winning a race, and it was Max who did it in Austria Grand pix. Altogether it was a more dominated effort by Mercedes with 10/12 races won by them and of course Hamilton making it 8 out of those 10. Which seems to be a boring race till race 5 when Silver arrows made sure they occupy both the top 2 positions with Valtteri competing with Hamilton neck to neck till then. After that, it was a distant dream for all to come near Hamilton after he won 4 consecutive races, but there are still 9 races left and 2 race wins by Valtteri or Max can turn the table to them and they should equally expect some disasters like German Grand Pix.
Below par performance by the leading team like Ferrari and the strong midfield teams from the last year including Haas and Renault disappointed me a lot.The Redbull breeding ground Toro Rosso has entered the midfield battle in style and McLaren is showing signs of returning to its historic glory by taking the 4th spot in the Championship. The two teams have already mopped up more points compared to what they scored in the entire Championship last year! Disappointments are part of F1, but Ricciardo and Renault don’t seem to be a combination we would like to see next year with Ricciardo standing at 11th after 12 races and Renault at 6th after 12 Races.The dream top 3 of Renault has backfired badly (or seems to have backfired) as they stand at a position they would have never dreamt of! So when we are discussing disappointment, how can we forget Ferrari. 12 races with only 11 Podiums and more importantly not a single Pole position after the Race, skipping the controversial penalty for Vettel. The expectation from Pierre Gasly is high, but maybe he is still getting accustomed to the Red bull team with not a single podium.
F1 is all about surprises right with Daniil Kvyat getting the 3rd position in German Grand Pix which is supposed to be the best one for all the fans and who will forget “Turn 16” of German Grand Pix and the brilliant come back by Vettel to be at 2nd position starting at 20th. The home race was fun for Mercedes of course :D. So discussing good things, how can we forget Promising Charles Leclerc who has almost won the heart of everyone at Bahrain GP and even would have won the Race. Somehow still the plan B for Ferrari, which was observed in Australian Grand Pix. 746 Laps are over till date, but 9 Races are still left for the season, and much more fun is waiting in this season. Two retired at German and Monaco had made the difference between Vettel and him and what he needs to focus on is more Podiums as number 5 being his favorite till date in 2019 season and I know everyone wants to see him at the top someday. Already discussed about the upliftment of Mclaren and the prime reason is Carlos Sainz Junior. “We fall to rise again “Right. After getting retired for the first two races, he has been performing better and better with two 5th position in the last two races. High chances are there he may surpass Gasly very soon.
With both the teams having Honda engines ranked within 5, we can say Honda is finally back on to the Race after the backlash in 2017 association with Mclaren. Can we think of Mclaren going back to Honda again after a year or two? Time will say. Future of Williams Mercedes is still in doubt as they are yet at Bottom? Can we see 9 teams in 2020 F1? If they fail to get enough sponsors. Modest results mean fewer revenues from both F1 and sponsors, leading to less budget spent on car performance, leading to disappointing results that in turn impact on revenues, and so on and so on.
What’s next? Lots of expectation from last 9 races expecting some pole positions by teams other than Mercedes. Can we see Max being in the second position by winning a few more? Will this be a season with Ferrari not winning a single Race. Can Haas change their fate by improving up to midfield region or will it be the last season for Romain Grosjean? Lando Norris and Alexander Albon moving up to top 10 positions?
Let’s wait for the action after the summer break.
References
Data sources
Image sources
Comments