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  1. #1
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    The 2019 Season - Your Verdict



    This was a season that did not disappoint. It produced thrills, setbacks, resurgence and a great showcase of brilliant newcomers to the grid. Though Mercedes produced a magnificent car, it found the second half of the season a real challenge as Ferrari stepped up and stole the show. Redbull against the odds claimed three wins for Honda and showed how much behind Mclaren really is from the sharp end of the grid.

    Leclerc got the measure of four times world champion Vettel, and demonstrated amazing racing skills as he became a force to reakon with when the Ferrari was in form. We noticed a brewing rivary between Verstapenn and Leclerc shaping up. We saw both of these guys give Hamilton a hard time when the Mercedes was not in good form. With these young guns snapping at Hamilton's heels, 2020 promises to be a great season of racing.



    Mclaren seemed to have turned a corner this season and have rose to 4th in the championship. After four years of dismal performances, they can hold their heads high again. The fourth place was a very convincing archievement as they thoroughly thrashed 5th place Renault with a handsome points clearance. Their operational performances this season was poor though as they left a lot of points on the table with shabby strategies and poor pitstops on a number of occassions. That said, there was good indication that they can do much better and l look forward to it.



    Torro Rosso finished the season sixth but were the stars of the Midfield in my opinion. They underperformed l think. But they were the only team in the midfield with two podium appearances this season. Sainz was a late recipient of third at Brazil but did not partake in the podium ceremony and the only other midfield driver with a trophy this season.

    LEWIS HAMILTON moved into a unique historic position this season as the only driver in F1 history with six drivers World Championship titles to his name. Second only to the Meteoric Michael Schumacher [The Red Baron] with seven titles and the most successful f1 driver ever.



    As we come to the close of the 2019 season, we noticed Ferrari has caught up with Mercedes. We saw enough to guess that Ferrari may be the dominant force in 2020. The Ferrari engine is now superior to the Mercedes engine but the Mercedes chassis is still more superior in every department.

    We also notice that the Honda engine is now within touching distance of the Mercede engine. With Honda's projection over the last three years, they should be there about [closer] in 2020 and on par 2021.



    Gasly faltered on his Redbull debut and gave way to Alex Albon who delighted and grasped his opportunity with both hands. For a rookie in his first year in F1 and thrown into the deep end halfway through his first season, he was exceptional and did Redbull and us, his British fans very proud. If there is any fairness in the F1 system, he should be awarded the rookie of the year award.

    Alex Albon has been confirmed as Verstapenn's teammate for the 2020 season.

    Formular racing lost another one of its bright young talents this years, we should remember Antione Hubert. And remember that this is also a very dangerous sport.
    Last edited by Nitrodaze; 7th December 2019 at 20:35.
    Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
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  2. Likes: gm99 (2nd December 2019),truefan72 (2nd December 2019)
  3. #2
    Senior Member N. Jones's Avatar
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    Great season. Lots of drama. Bottas will never be Hamilton's equal. Sad to see the Hulk leave. Interested in how Ocon does next year. Kubica was a nice try but should of been replaced many races ago. Love Russel's attitude. Ferrari are still a mess and they cannot figure out who to back. Hurting Charles' career. Honda should stay as they are close to having a winner in Red Bull. STR too. Great drives by Albon, Gasly, and Kvyat. Good to see McLaren in the points again. I wish Stroll would leave. I hope Renault are better. Ha, I also hope there are more teams in 2021. Ten, with ten drivers scoring, is a joke.

    That's my brain dump on the season.
    " Lady - I'm in an awful dilemma.
    Moe - Yeah, I never cared much for these foreign cars either."

  4. #3
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    Great season again for Mercedes, winning over 70 % of the races, and Lewis Hamilton in particular, who won his sixth title in a dominating fashion.

    Honda did far better than most expected, winning three times and having a driver in the top three of the championship. Said driver (Verstappen) has impressed with a far more mature approach.

    McLaren have done extremely well, too, to finish fourth in the constructors' championship and young Lando Norris has shown his talent in an outstanding rookie season. Alex Albon has had a great rookie season as well, whereas Gasly looked out of his depth in the Red Bull, but did quite well once he was back in the Toro Rosso.

    LeClerc got the better of his far more experienced team-mate, but still has a bit to learn before becoming a true championship contender.

    The biggest loser this season for me has been Renault, who have set out to finish at least fourth and maybe even challenge Red Bull for third. In the end, they ended up barely ahead of Toro Rosso and miles behind the customer Renault-powered McLaren.

    The other big loser of the year is Vettel, who just made too many stupid mistakes and didn't take too well to being beaten by his younger team-mate.

    Williams have had an appaling season again and are looking more and more like the new Minardi - except that Minardi never had Mercedes engines, of course. Kubica demonstrated why nobody had been willing to give him another chance in F1 after his accident.
    Last edited by gm99; 2nd December 2019 at 19:46.
    Oct. 31, 1999 - one of the blackest days in motorsports.

  5. Likes: airshifter (5th December 2019)
  6. #4
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    Overall a great season. Though Merc stayed dominant long enough to secure things fairly easy in the end, the resurgence of both Ferrari and Red Bull stepping up and stealing some wins still made for some good action. I smell disaster at Ferrari if they don't recognize Leclerc for this season, and the antics within the team will keep costing them points if they don't put an end to it all. Max stamped enough dominance at RB to make sure that didn't become a concern, and Lewis continued to do the same. I think they ended the season with cars close enough that things could get a lot closer next year.

    The mid field was a lot more fun to watch this year. It more than made up for the fact that the frontrunners occasionally had races with obvious dominance and the only deciding factors being mostly strategy. I hope Mclaren and the others in the middle of the pack continue progress, as it's obvious that there are plenty of good drivers in the current pack. If the cars become closer to equal, they could step up now and then and steal points from the front of the pack teams.

    Sadly, Williams are still a far cry from the team they could be. It's just embarrassing at this point, and I can't see much future for them if they don't at least challenge for something other than last soon.

  7. #5
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    2019 was a major disaster for Haas. They built a temperimental fast car that showed brilliance on rare occassions and simply faded backwards at every race this season. Though they haven't got Williams type of problems, they had enough to want to toss this 2019 car into the skip. The true cost of a bad season would sting Haas when they approach the financial planning for the new 2020 season. The car had brilliant pace inherrently, thus l expect Haas would turn up with a better car next season.

    Also puzzling was Alfa Romeo. What happened there?

    The Williams cars seemed to improve as the season progressed but not enough to really make it into the midfield club. Somehow they managed to score one solitary point this season. One had to pinch one's self to remind myself the this team is a multi- world championship winner. It was a big mistake to lose Paddy Lowe. Smedley departing cannot be a good thing either. Williams needs new management blood to help steer the team back to winning ways. Its current constitution is unlikely to get the team out of the tail of the grid. But the only way is up from here, so "go Williams!".
    Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
    William Shakespeare

  8. #6
    Senior Member Jag_Warrior's Avatar
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    I thoroughly enjoyed this season. I was happy to see Hamilton and Mercedes overcome some early challenges from Ferrari to seal up another WCC and WDC (happier for Lewis than Mercedes though). I like Leclerc and was really happy to see him do so well and get the better of Vettel. When Lewis retires, I'll be pulling for Leclerc to win the WDC over Lil Verstappen - for the first time in 20 years or so, I'll be cheering for Ferrari again. I was pleased that Honda overcame the bad years with McLaren and are on song now. And lastly, I was happy for me, in that I got to attend my first F1 race after being a fan for almost 50 years. Circumstances or other commitments always got in my way before.

    I'm sorry to see Hulkenberg have to ride off in the sunset (probably). I liked him from his GP2 days and thought that he would have a better career than he has. Too bad for Haas. I hoped to see them do well from the beginning, since it's something of a local company and I've done business with them in the past. Maybe a better car next year... but their choice of drivers confuses me. I don't know what in the world happened that they kept Grosjean and Nico Hulk didn't get that seat. Oh well, that's on them. And Williams... what can one say? I tend to think that Villeneuve is right (for once). I agree with Nitro that a complete management overhaul is necessary there. Claire Williams is a perfect example of why nepotism is not good for the long term health of a business. But the blame is on the ones who put her in that position. When an experienced team can't even get a car built to start pre-season testing and they're consistently short on spare parts throughout the season, it's time to shake some monkeys out of the tree.

    Yep, great season. And I'm thankful that this board is still here for us to share our thoughts about F1 with each other.
    "Every generation's memory is exactly as long as its own experience." --John Kenneth Galbraith

  9. #7
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    Well, this season really surprised me. The Mercedes-Hamilton performance early on was so dominant that I have written this season off after the fourth or fifth race, and said to everyone "good bye, see ya all next year". But then, the competition picked up somewhere around the Canadian GP, and it was good competitive racing since then. In fact, the season was very interesting after the first five or six races or so. But alas, with Hamilton picking up such a huge lead in the first one-third of season, it was clear that, excluding 1999-like Schumacher crash and injury, Lewis will still win the champion title.

    Nonetheless, there were many interesting things happening. The biggest takeaway of the season is that Leclerc now established himself as the top young talent who will go on racing against Max Verstappen in the next decade. The other takeaway is that Bottas "v2.0" is more like Bottas "v1.1" (same old Bottas), and finally Vettel botched another possibility for a "comeback". Man, things are going to get only tougher for Seb from now on.
    Last edited by zako85; 10th December 2019 at 14:25.

  10. Likes: Zico (12th December 2019)
  11. #8
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    What are the chances that Ferrari would win the 2020 titles; constructor and driver? Would Leclerc therefore win his first driver's title before Verstapenn? Better still, would Vettel rack up his fifth drivers title chasing down Hamilton?
    Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
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  12. #9
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    It was a good season but at the half way point it was obvious that Hamilton was going to be a six time WDC. It's also pretty clear that it is very unlikely Bottas will ever be able to match Hamilton. The only reason Bottas was close was because of the engineer swap from Hamilton's side to Bottas with Riccardo Musconi and, even though that disadvantaged Hamilton, like it did in 2016 when Mercedes swapped Rosberg's engineers Hamilton beat him comfortably. This was really Bottas's year to show what he could do and, although he was improved massively, he was nowhere near Hamilton over the course of the season.

    We saw once again in Vettel that he is a slightly above average driver and nothing more. Beaten comprehensively by Leclerc in qualifying and the only reason Leclerc doesn't have 5 race wins to his name is because of mechanical reliability or Ferrari screwing him over like in China and Singapore. At least they started to readdress that balance in Russia a little.

    A tough year for Riccardo at Renault but he performed well and impressed outpacing Hulkenberg from the start really.

    Max had a good year overall but he had no challenge from his teammates so hard to gauge where he really was performance wise.

    It was a good season but not one that I'm going to look back on and think, wow that was so exciting.
    Last edited by The Black Knight; 24th December 2019 at 16:05.

  13. #10
    Senior Member journeyman racer's Avatar
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    Let's take a moment to take stock that in a thread about the 2019 season, TBK has posted about 2016 and given Nico Rosberg a dig.

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