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Formula 1: Why ‘boring’ Abu Dhabi may point to exciting 2020

By Asher Fair

ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - DECEMBER 01: Top three finishers Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Mercedes GP, Max Verstappen of Netherlands and Red Bull Racing and Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Ferrari celebrate on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit on December 01, 2019 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - DECEMBER 01: Top three finishers Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Mercedes GP, Max Verstappen of Netherlands and Red Bull Racing and Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Ferrari celebrate on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi at Yas Marina Circuit on December 01, 2019 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images) /
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While the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a rather boring runaway victory for Lewis Hamilton, it may point to an exciting 2020 Formula 1 season.

In Abu Dhabi earlier this month to close out the 2019 Formula 1 season, Lewis Hamilton did exactly what Mercedes have done since the start of Formula 1’s V6 turbo hybrid era in 2014: dominate.

Without a pole to his name in more than four months, Hamilton took the pole position for this 55-lap Abu Dhabi Grand Prix around the 21-turn, 3.451-mile (5.554-kilometer) Yas Marina Circuit road course on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Throughout the race itself, he was once again in a class of his own.

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The 34-year-old Briton led the race from lights out and never looked back, coasting to a flag to flag victory and doing so in dominant fashion with a margin of victory of 16.772 seconds, securing his sixth career Grand Chelem in the process.

In short, it was arguably the most boring race of the season (No, I didn’t forget about the French Grand Prix).

The top three drivers all started where they finished, and while fourth place finisher Valtteri Bottas started all the way back in 20th, it really didn’t come as much of a surprise that he managed to move up 16 spots since he also drives for Mercedes, which have now led 289 of the 330 laps that have been contested in Abu Dhabi since the 2014 season, many times only not leading due to varying pit strategies.

But while this race was yet another lackluster race won going away by the six-time world champion who has dominated the last six seasons, winning five championships and every one of the last three, this race could point toward a 2020 season that is anything but lackluster.

It was Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen who finished in second place following a tight battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who settled for third.

Hamilton, Verstappen and Leclerc all won their respective teammate battles in the 2019 season, and notably, Red Bull Racing and Ferrari made big strides in the back half of the year, netting Verstappen and Leclerc a third place finish and a fourth place finish, respectively, in the driver standings.

In the nine races following the summer break, Leclerc, who had not previously won a race, won twice, Verstappen won once and Hamilton won three times. Verstappen could have easily won twice, taking away one of Hamilton’s wins, if not for a qualifying controversy in Mexico at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, arguably his most dominant track over the last few seasons.

This all took place following one of the most dominant starts in Formula 1 history by Mercedes, which won the first eight races of the year and 10 of the 12 races prior to the summer break.

Hamilton himself claimed eight of these victories and basically had the championship won when he took the lead of the driver standings for keeps over Bottas, who had a career-best start to the year, in the season’s fifth race in Spain back in mid-May. It even looked like he could set a new single-season wins record.

But if the progression and, in some cases, big improvements that Ferrari and Red Bull Racing displayed throughout the remainder of the season can continue into 2020, especially at the tracks where they haven’t had a ton of recent success, there is no reason that we can’t have a three-way championship battle among three drivers representing three different teams next year.

So while the podium of Hamilton, Verstappen and Leclerc in Abu Dhabi was pretty much a foregone conclusion, it could very well represent something much bigger and much more exciting throughout an entire season.

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Could we see a tight three-way championship battle in the 2020 Formula 1 season among these three drivers representing three different teams? That would certainly be exciting, and it would definitely be a first for the V6 turbo hybrid era.

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