The 2019 Formula 1 driver championship has been all but won by five-time champion Lewis Hamilton. But should things get tight, who would be his chief rival?
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton sits quite comfortably atop the Formula 1 driver standings through the first nine races of the 21-race 2019 season even after recording a fifth place finish, his worst finish since the Austrian Grand Prix last July, in this past Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix.
The 34-year-old Briton appears to have the 2019 driver championship, which would be his sixth career championship, his fifth in the last six seasons and his third in a row, all but locked up.
But should things get tight at the top of the driver standings over the course of the season’s final 12 races, which is still more than enough time for things to change, who would be his chief championship rival?
Teammate Valtteri Bottas currently sits in second place in the driver standings, 31 points behind Hamilton for the lead (197 to 166) and 40 points clear of the third place driver, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen (166 to 126).
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Bottas is clearly the driver with the best chance to finish in second place in the driver standings behind Hamilton, as Mercedes have been dominant so far this season with eight victories and six 1-2 finishes in nine races.
But as far as the best chance to knock Hamilton off the top spot, it doesn’t belong to the 29-year-old Finn. It belongs to Verstappen.
Think about it like the NFL or the NBA. When the clear top two teams are in the same conference, the top team in the other conference has a better chance of winning the championship than the second best team in the first conference. While Formula 1 doesn’t have conferences, that’s almost what this season feels like because of Mercedes, and not just because of what’s happened so far in 2019.
Bottas isn’t going to beat Hamilton head to head this year. There is no other way to put it. While Hamilton has won six races so far this season, Bottas has won just two in what was praised as an “impressive start”, and since Bottas arrived at Mercedes two years ago, Hamilton has won 26 races while Bottas has won just five. Meanwhile, Hamilton’s most recent five victories have come within the last two and a half months.
If anyone is to beat Hamilton this year, it’s going to have to be via an outside threat not within the Brackley-based team, and Verstappen has the best chance to do that.
Scuderia Ferrari have shown good pace on several occasions this season, but they have made it a habit of either shooting themselves in the foot with terrible strategy calls or simply experiencing bad breaks that are out of their control.
Ferrari teammates Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc don’t trail Verstappen for third place in the driver standings by much with 123 points and 105 points, two marks that are three points and 21 points behind Verstappen’s point total, but it would be miraculous if either one of them is able to chase down, much less pass, Hamilton.
It would be miraculous for Verstappen to chase down and pass Hamilton as well given the fact that Mercedes are still the top team in Formula 1 and the 21-year-old Dutchman trails the 34-year-old Briton by 71 points in the driver standings, make no mistake about it. But he has the best chance to pull it off.
Verstappen became the first non-Mercedes driver to win a race since last season by winning this past Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix, and he was the class of the field in this race, rallying from seventh place and 15 seconds behind the leader after a terrible start to take the checkered flag.
In doing so, he cut 15 points out of his 86-point deficit to Hamilton, the highest point total by which anybody has beaten Hamilton this season. Additionally, a non-Mercedes driver had not won any of the last 10 races, and the last time one of them pulled it off was when Verstappen dominated last year’s Mexican Grand Prix in late October.
After winning this race, he said five important words on the radio to his team.
“We are definitely catching them.”
He can say that again.
And let’s be honest; he probably will get the chance to before long.
After switching from Renault engines to Honda engines ahead of the 2019 season, Red Bull Racing’s upside in the V6 turbo hybrid era skyrocketed to due to the prospect of increased reliability and speed. We have seen both of those on display this season with Verstappen, whose average finishing is 3.56 in nine races without any finishes outside of the top five.
His victory in the Austrian Grand Prix was particularly notable, as he was the class of the field throughout this race. While he won this race last year as well, he did it via mechanical issues and a major strategy blunder at Mercedes. The progression from year to year is clear, and it showed itself in a race that Mercedes entered the 2018 season having never failed to win since the V6 turbo hybrid era began in 2014.
Whether or not this progression continues for the Milton Keynes-based team to the point where Verstappen can start challenging for victories every race remain to be seen, but based on what we saw at the Red Bull Ring, he should start challenging for victories a lot more than he had been.
Verstappen challenging Hamilton for this year’s driver championship is a long shot at best, but he has by far the greatest upside to be the driver who does so if someone can indeed pull it off.
Will Max Verstappen give Lewis Hamilton a run for his money throughout the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season, or is the driver championship battle truly all but over like it has seemed to be over the last few months? Regardless of whether or not he ends up doing it, he is in a position where he has the best chance to do so, as small as that chance might be.