After seeing Valtteri Bottas cruise to a staggering victory at the season opener in Australia, critics are already claiming that the 2019 season will be a boring season and that Mercedes will take the title with little effort. However, I think it’s difficult to judge how the season will play out based on the really odd race that we just watched.
Naturally, I think it’s fair to say that it’s too early to judge an entire season by the first race under any circumstance. But this year’s season opener seemed a little off to me.
For whatever reason, Bottas seemed to be the only lead car with any pace. Lewis Hamilton in the other Mercedes and Sebastian Vettel in the rival Ferrari both didn’t see to have the grip necessary to push their cars to the limit. It would have been great to see Charles Leclerc show what he can do in the other Ferrari since he appeared to be having a much better time than his teammate, but unsurprisingly the team prevented him from challenging his teammate, in turn hindering his car performance.
It’s far too early to guarantee that Valtteri Bottas or Lewis Hamilton will be the World Drivers’ Championship based solely on the results of the race in Australia. We will still have to wait for a few more races until we see which drivers and teams will have the advantage.
That’s not to say that Bottas can’t win the championship title. He appeared to be a totally different driver compared to what we saw in 2018 and he will be trying as hard as he can to silence the haters who labelled him as Hamilton’s sidekick. But I beleive his performance in Australia may not be the most ideal picture of what we will see in the months to come.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Assumptions made in any analysis contained within this article are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author.
