If you believe that anyone other than Lewis Hamilton will win this year’s Formula 1 championship you’ve got another thing coming! The Mercedes-AMG driver has been in a class of his own throughout the year and, bar his poor showing in Germany, has been pretty consistent.
In the early parts of the season, it seemed as if his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, might get the better of him, but Lewis fought back and quickly asserted his dominance on this year’s title race. That’s classic Hamilton right there. Take about one or two races to settle in (if a win comes his way, great), and then start handing out hammer blows to the rest of the field. We’ve seen it before and he’s been doing it since coming to F1 in 2007.
He dealt with Fernando Alonso when the pair were teammates at McLaren in 2007. He did it to Heikki Kovalainen, he owned Jenson Button at the turn of the decade, and he did it to Nico Rosberg from 2013 onwards when the two were teammates at Mercedes-AMG. Interestingly, 2016 was the only year a teammate beat Hamilton, but Rosberg retired at the end of that season after winning his sole championship.
Bottas joined the team in 2017 and Hamilton has been sweeping the floor with him ever since. Lewis not only beats his opponents on the track, but mentally, too. Teammate or foe, he will bring the Hammer down.
First half of the season
After 12 races F1 teams will be taking their mandatory four-week break. For Hamilton these 12 races saw him finish outside of the top three only twice. In Austria he finished fifth and in Germany he was classified ninth following the disqualification of the two Alfa Romeo drivers.
Hamilton won eight races over the course of the season’s first half and with each passing race, he’d be one step closer to securing his sixth F1 World Championship. At the season-opening race in Australia, he finished second behind Bottas, as well as in Azerbaijan. Having dominated eight of the 12 races really does say a lot about Hamilton’s determination to want to be the best.
Hamilton currently sits on a points tally of 250 – a 62-point advantage over teammate Bottas.
Second half predictions
Betting against Hamilton to not win the 2019 championship would be unwise. In Germany, despite being unwell that weekend, he qualified first. In Hungary, facing another weekend of being under the weather, he chased down Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to make the victory his. His resolve and determination is that of a true champion and is it virtually inevitable for him not to be this year’s champion.
The majority of the remaining nine races this year should fit Hamilton and Mercedes like a glove, but he will have to stave off strong challenges from a resurgent Verstappen.