So still that question hangs in the air as Formula One hurtles towards its European leg of the season. is anyone good enough to beat Mercedes? On current form, the answer is a resounding no.
The team may well win races with Honda this year, just as it probably would’ve done with Renault, but it won’t be until 2020 and beyond that the true success of the relationship can be judged. Best the team doesn’t get ahead of itself before then.
What a difference 12 months can make.
Nothing fires up the formula one public quite like team orders, and it’s taken only three races for the sport’s favourite subject to become a major talking point in 2019.
The 2019 Chinese Grand Prix, Formula One’s 1000th anniversary, is more significant than the major milestone alone.
We’re only two rounds into the new Formula One season but 2019 has most certainly been unkind to Williams.
There’s a strong argument to be made that Renault has had the most disappointing start to the 2019 season.
Motorsport can be a cruel and fickle sport, and for no-one was that truer than Charles Leclerc in the final 15 laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
For all the interest and intrigue that comes with the first round of the season, Formula One left the Australian Grand Prix asking only one major question: what happened to Ferrari?
What is the perfect form of Formula One? There are no easy answers, but the sport’s authorities hope the plan they’ll present to teams today will be convincing enough to settle the long-running battle for the championship’s soul.
Okay, it’s far too early to definitively declare Valtteri Bottas as a serious threat to the runaway championship train that is Lewis Hamilton, but you’ve got to admit that a sporting story beginning with several nights of heavy Scandinavian drinking has a certain appeal.
Only the bravest of punters would’ve tipped Valtteri Bottas to romp into the setting Melbourne sun at such a convincing canter at the first race of the season.
Mercedes has been Formula One’s dominant force for five long years, but that could all be about to change in 2019.
When the flag drops the bullshit stops. Finally, with just days until the season-opening 2019 Australian Grand Prix, we’re about to get some concrete answers on just what kind of Formula One season we’re in for.
As much as the 2019 season is hotly anticipated as the next chapter of Ferrari vs Mercedes, important too is that it’ll be the very first chapter for a new crop of F1 debutants.
There’s only so much you can do with eight days of testing two weeks out from the season opener, but with tens of thousands of kilometres of running completed, we’re starting to get an idea of what to expect for the Australian Grand Prix.
Closer and faster for longer: that’s the aim of a series of small regulatory changes designed to have a substantial effect on the quality of racing in Formula One this season.