Hamilton sees off challenges for sixth title
MERCEDES superstar Lewis Hamilton clinched his sixth F1 world title in dominant fashion this season, racking up 413 points to his team-mate and closest rival Valtteri Bottas’ 326. There were, however, some highly entertaining races during the year, as the fortunes of the other two ‘Big Three’ teams, Red Bull and Ferrari, waxed and waned.
Hamilton and Bottas emerged from the first four races with two wins and two seconds apiece, and for the first time since he joined the team, it looked like the Finn was about to put up a proper championship challenge to his team-mate. But a run of victories in Spain, Monaco, Canada and France enabled Hamilton to gradually pull away, and he never looked back.
At Ferrari, Charles Leclerc underlined his speed and maturity with seven pole positions and two race wins, but he missed some other chances as the team continued to suffer strategic and tactical slip-ups.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped the podium three times as the team’s Honda partnership began to bear fruit, but there continued to be flashes of immature arrogance from the Dutchman, suggesting Leclerc is currently closer to being ‘the full package’.
Sebastian Vettel was the only other driver to take a race win in 2019, with a lone triumph in Singapore. He brushed off suggestions of retirement at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, but clearly has some thinking to do over the winter if he’s to present any sort of a challenge to Leclerc in 2020.
In the midfield, McLaren completed a remarkable turnaround from the misery of its Honda years by finishing ‘best of the rest’: fourth in the constructor’s championship. A near-perfect season from Carlos Sainz and an impressive rookie campaign by Lando Norris were instrumental in securing this result.
Renault, Toro Rosso and Racing Point were a little further back in fifth, sixth and seventh, Alfa Romeo had a lonely run to eighth, and Haas underperformed badly to wind up ninth on just 28 points. Williams never looked like moving off the back of the grid all season, scoring just a single point, but Briton George Russell still impressed in difficult circumstances.