Joey
Tebben
Editor
The
2019 Formula One season is approaching fast. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes
clinched their fifth and sixth world championships, respectively, in 2018 and
they’ll be back to defend their title in 2019. They will face some of the same
rivals as they did in 2018, but the main story of the F1 off-season has been
the massive amount of driver changes throughout the field. Along with these
driver changes, the other main story has been the trend of questionable
sponsors, from disguised tobacco companies to blatant Ponzi schemes, jumping on
board F1 teams.
Mercedes - The 2018 World Constructors’
Champions return with an unchanged driver lineup of defending champion Lewis Hamilton (UK) and Valtteri Bottas (Finland). Hamilton,
as the reigning champion and the only 5-time champion on the grid, doesn’t have
much to prove and his only task in 2019 will be to defend his championship. If
he wins a sixth championship, he will be second in the all-time ranking, only
behind 7-time champion Michael Schumacher. Bottas, on the other hand, will be
fighting for his job. In his first year with Mercedes in 2017, he won three
races (his first in F1), but 2018 was a winless season where he ended 5th in
the championship while his teammate won. With Mercedes junior drivers like
George Russell and Esteban Ocon waiting in the wings, he needs to have a much
better 2019 to keep his Mercedes seat.
Ferrari - Ferrari lost yet another
championship to Mercedes in 2018 and they’ll be hoping 2019 can be the year
they finally win their first championship since 2008. They will enter this
season as “Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow,” running major sponsorship for
Philip Morris International’ Mission Winnow brand, which is basically a way for
PMI run sponsorship without actually advertising their tobacco products, as
tobacco advertising is illegal in most countries. 2018 runner-up and 4-time
champion Sebastian Vettel (Germany)
returns for his fifth year at Ferrari. He is accompanied by new hire Charles Leclerc (Monaco). After many
impressive races with Sauber last year, Ferrari promoted the 2016 GP3 and 2017
Formula 2 champion after only one year in F1. Facing off against a 4-time
champion only his second year in F1 will be a challenge and it will be
interesting to see if he can handle it.
Red Bull - The last of the “big 3” teams in
F1, Red Bull has not only changed drivers, but they’ve changed engines. After
12 years (and 4 championships) with Renault power, Red Bull switched to Honda
engines for 2019. Red Bull is another team running questionable sponsorship in
2019, accepting sponsorship from FuturoCoin, a multi-level marketing scam that
claims to be a cryptocurrency. Max
Verstappen (Netherlands) was retained for his 4th year with Red Bull. He’ll be accompanied by 2016 GP2
champion Pierre Gasly (France), who
graduates from Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso. Toro Rosso was powered by
Honda in 2018, so Gasly will actually be the only driver on the grid with
previous Honda engine experience. The switch to Honda power was a big risk for
the team and it will be very interesting to see if it pays off.
Renault - Besides Mercedes and Ferrari, the
only other manufacturer-supported team on the grid is Renault. Nico Hülkenberg (Germany) was retained
for his third year with the team after finishing “best of the rest” behind the
top 3 teams and top 6 drivers in 2018. He will be accompanied by Daniel Ricciardo (Australia), who
shocked everyone when he announced he’d be moving from Red Bull, the team he
won seven races for, to Renault, a team that hasn’t even got a podium since its
return to F1 in 2016. Both drivers will be hoping Renault can make a step above
the midfield to fight with the top three teams in 2019.
Haas - America’s F1 team had its best
year ever in 2018, finishing 5th in the constructors’ championship. They are
the only team other than Mercedes to keep their 2018 driver lineup in 2019: Romain Grosjean (France) and Kevin Magnussen (Denmark). The main
question about Haas in 2019 is about their new title sponsor: Rich Energy. Rich
Energy is a supposed British energy drink company who promised millions of
dollars to the Force India and Williams F1 teams. Both of those teams turned
them down and rumors circulated that Rich Energy were not a real company and
did not actually have any money. Somehow, they brought enough money to convince
Haas to sign them as a title sponsor. Haas has already received Rich Energy’s
payments so even if Rich Energy is shut down as some sort of money laundering
scheme, Haas won’t be affected. Pietro Fittipaldi, their test driver, brings
even more illegitimate sponsorship with his personal sponsor AirBit Club, a
Ponzi scheme. Even with all of the questionable sponsors behind the team, Haas
will be looking to improve on their fantastic 2018 and potentially even score
their first podium finish.
McLaren - After another horrendous year in
2018, McLaren enters the second year of their Renault engine partnership and
hopes for more success. They recently accepted sponsorship from Huski
Chocolate, a Swedish company that claims to be a hot chocolate machine company.
However, there’s no evidence that these hot chocolate machines actually exist
outside of the company’s publicity stunts, which puts Huski Chocolate as yet
another one in the “questionable sponsors” category. They are another team on the
grid who has partnered with a major tobacco company. Partnering with British
American Tobacco, McLaren’s cars will display the logo of “A Better Tomorrow,”
which is basically just a way for BAT to advertise themselves without illegally
advertising tobacco. McLaren’s drivers have also changed and they will run an
all-new lineup in 2019. Their lead driver, 2-time champion Fernando Alonso,
retired from F1 and he’ll be spending 2019 in sports cars and the Indy 500. His
teammate Stoffel Vandoorne was dropped, but he has found his feet in Formula E.
They will be replaced by Carlos Sainz
(Spain), who moves from Renault, and 2018 Formula 2 runner-up Lando Norris (UK). Sainz, with 4
seasons under his belt, will be the most experienced driver in the pairing
despite only being 24. Norris only started racing cars in 2014 and will enter
his first full year of F1 at age 19. McLaren had an awful second half of 2018
and it is still unknown how much their relatively inexperienced drivers will be
able to help bring McLaren back to their former glory.
Racing Point - After Force India, the smallest
team in F1, went into administration halfway through 2018, Canadian billionaire
Lawrence Stroll saved the team from bankruptcy and purchased all of its assets,
renaming the team Racing Point. Sergio
Pérez (Mexico) will return for his sixth year with the team, and he will be
accompanied by Lance Stroll (Canada),
son of team owner Lawrence Stroll. It is obvious that his father’s purchase had
some influence in his hiring, but Stroll proved his talent in the last two
years with Williams, where he scored a podium and plenty of points. With
Lawrence Stroll’s personal billions and his business relationships bringing an
influx of cash, Racing Point looks like it will be a surprisingly strong team
in 2019.
Alfa Romeo - The team formerly known as Sauber
has now been completely rebranded to Alfa Romeo Racing and it is yet another
team with a completely new driver lineup in 2019. Their star of 2018, Charles
Leclerc, is off to Ferrari and his teammate Marcus Ericsson is off to Schmidt
Peterson Motorsports in IndyCar. They have been replaced by 2007 world champion
Kimi Rӓikkӧnen (Finland) and 2016
GP2 runner-up Antonio Giovinazzi (Italy).
39-year-old Rӓikkӧnen, the oldest and most experienced driver on the grid, was
dropped by Ferrari after losing to his teammate for the last five years. The
day after he was announced to be leaving Ferrari, however, he announced that he
would be returning to the team he made his F1 debut with in 2001. Giovinazzi has
also raced for the team before, but only for two races at the start of 2017.
This will be a very interesting team in 2019, with Rӓikkӧnen driving for a
midfield team for the first time in many years and Giovinazzi making his debut
alongside the most experienced driver in F1.
Toro Rosso - Red Bull’s junior team is yet
another team with an all-new lineup. Pierre Gasly is off to the senior Red Bull
team after a little over a year with Toro Rosso, and Brendon Hartley was picked
up by Ferrari as a simulator driver. Alexander
Albon (Thailand), the 2018 Formula 2 season’s third-place finisher, was
surprisingly promoted in late 2018. He was dropped as a Red Bull junior driver
in 2012, but seven years later, he’s been promoted to F1 with one of their
teams. He will be accompanied by Daniil
Kvyat (Russia), who is arguably the more surprising of the two. Kvyat
started his F1 career with Toro Rosso in 2014, was promoted to Red Bull in
2015, then got demoted back to Toro Rosso in 2016, then got fired by Toro Rosso
halfway through 2017. After one year as a Ferrari development driver, Kvyat
will return to Toro Rosso, the team that arguably destroyed his career. With
Red Bull’s new young drivers like Dan Ticktum and Jüri Vips waiting in the
wings, there will be a lot of pressure on Albon and Kvyat in 2019. Toro Rosso
also wasn’t missing from the questionable sponsor party, announcing a
partnership with myWorld, a division of Lyoness, a multi-level marketing
company that has been ruled as a pyramid scheme in most European countries.
Williams - The third-winningest team in F1
history had possibly their most disappointing season ever, finishing dead last
in the constructors’ championship with only five points. For 2019, they
announced a title sponsorship with phone company ROKiT, becoming ROKiT Williams
Racing. Williams will also have an all-new driver lineup. Lance Stroll moved to
Force India after two years with Williams and Sergey Sirotkin is off to SMP
Racing in the World Endurance Championship. Williams’ 2019 lineup is arguably
much stronger. 2018 Formula 2 champion George
Russell (UK) was signed for his first F1 season in 2019, meaning that the
top 3 in F2 in 2018 (Russell, Norris, and Albon) will have all graduated to F1
in 2019. He’ll be partnered by Robert
Kubica (Poland) who has one of the greatest comeback stories in F1 history.
At his peak in the late 2000s, he was considered one of the best drivers in F1.
However, his F1 career was cut short in 2011 when he was nearly killed in a
rally crash. Eight years later, with the support of Polish oil company Orlen,
he’ll be making his return to F1. Whether he’s still on the same level as he
was in his “first career” remains a question, but it is a great comeback story
either way. With the rising talent of Russell and the potential of Kubica, Williams
will be hoping for a much better 2019.
There’s
many questions that will finally be answered when the season starts. Will
anyone be able to take down Hamilton and Mercedes? Will Red Bull’s partnership
with Honda (and MLM scam FuturoCoin) work out? Can McLaren and Williams return
to their former glory? Do Huski Chocolate and Rich Energy actually exist? No
one knows yet. Formula 1 returns with the Australian Grand Prix on Mar. 17 on
ESPN2. In this time zone, the race will be on at 1 AM Sunday morning. That is
not an ideal time for most people, but the second race in Bahrain on March 31
is typically one of the best races of the season and airs at a much friendlier
11 AM.
