The 2019 Season - Your Verdict

[Nitrodaze]

In my view the total effort of any team can only set the bar higher, but I can't consider it superhuman. It is a combination of the great driving talent and the great efforts of the teams to provide that driver the best possible chance to win races or otherwise gain as many points as possible on that day. And without doubt some rise to the top of both sides of the equation, that we can agree on.

No team in the history of the sport has won both the Drivers and Constructors title six times in a row. That is kind of special. It is above what we have seen as humanly possible in the past and qualifies as superhuman. Because all the people at Mercedes that made this happen dug deeper than any other before them to ensure they achieved this feat. To call it anything else is to belittle the incredible achievement.

As for driver pairings, IMO often all the outside factors along with team factors make it a lopsided comparison to say that there was equal chance to win titles and such. If all the teams always got the driver they wanted, and always opted to pick what they felt the two strongest drivers were, we [i]might[i] see a better comparison there. But only one team can get any driver, and often teams choose to allow a #1 driver and "wingman" status within the team. Though we agree that Bottas lacks that special talent we often see in the very top level drivers, he has upped his game. But Lewis has continued to refine his game as well, so there is no real challenge there. But I think we could probably agree that Seb, Leclerc maybe even Ricciardo and a couple others would have made for a much tighter battle at Merc if they were paired with Lewis. Vettel was proven to not be as strong as some think by the up and coming Leclerc, but not without some team tensions and problems due to the fact that they have two very solid drivers.

The Hamilton - Rosberg pairing was the strongest at Mercedes up until 2016. It was a very close and highly competitive pairing. Unfortunately, Bottas has not measured up to that standard. That does not takeaway anything from Hamilton, in my opinion.

I suppose it would be nice to have someone in the other car to give Hamilton a harder run. But Ferrari and Redbull are much closer to the Mercedes now, they cannot afford in fighting that could cost them the championship. From that perspective, Bottas is a great driver to occupy the other seat at Mercedes.