2019

The 2019 World Championship had 21 rounds, from the Australian Grand Prix on 17 March to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 1 December 2019. Mercedes won 15 races and took the Constructors’ Championship for the sixth year running with 739 points; Ferrari had 504 and Red Bull 417. Lewis Hamilton became champion for the sixth time, with 413 points and 11 wins, and his team-mate Valtteri Bottas was second with 326 points and four wins.

Red Bull and Ferrari split the other six races equally. Max Verstappen won the Austrian, German and Brazilian Grands Prix and finished third with 278 points. In his first season with Ferrari, Charles Leclerc took the first two wins of his career and finished ahead of his team-mate Sebastian Vettel — 264 points to 240; Vettel’s only win that season came at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Mercedes won the first eight races of the season, with their drivers finishing one-two in the first five. Bottas won the Australian Grand Prix, where he also collected the new point for fastest lap, and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix; after the fourth round he was one point ahead of Hamilton. Hamilton moved in front after the Spanish Grand Prix on 12 May and never gave up the lead again: by the summer break, after the Hungarian Grand Prix on 4 August, his advantage had grown to 62 points.

Verstappen ended the Mercedes run at the Austrian Grand Prix on 30 June. After the break Ferrari won three races in a row: Leclerc won in Belgium on 1 September and in Italy on 8 September, both times from pole, and on 22 September Vettel won in Singapore.

The title was decided at the United States Grand Prix on 3 November: Bottas won from pole, Hamilton finished second from fifth on the grid, and with two races to go he was 67 points ahead of his team-mate — more than Bottas could score even with fastest-lap points. It was Hamilton’s third title in a row.

At the Brazilian Grand Prix on 17 November Verstappen won from pole, Pierre Gasly took his first podium with second place for Toro Rosso, and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz finished third after starting last, in 20th. Hamilton won the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 1 December from pole — his 11th win of the season.

From 2019 an extra point was added for the fastest lap of the race, provided the driver who set it finished in the top ten. At the Singapore Grand Prix the fastest lap was set by Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, but he finished 17th and did not get the point.

Red Bull switched to Honda engines, which Toro Rosso had already been using in 2018. Force India raced under the new name Racing Point, and Sauber as Alfa Romeo. After the summer break Red Bull swapped drivers: from the Belgian Grand Prix Alexander Albon stepped up from Toro Rosso to Red Bull, and Gasly went back to Toro Rosso. McLaren finished fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with 145 points; Williams scored one point all season.

Lando Norris made his debut with McLaren, George Russell with Williams and Alexander Albon with Toro Rosso. Robert Kubica returned to the championship with Williams — for the first time since 2010 — and scored the team’s only point with tenth place at the German Grand Prix. Daniil Kvyat came back to Toro Rosso after a year out and finished third in the same race.

Antonio Giovinazzi, who had driven two races in 2017, had his first full season — at Alfa Romeo, as Kimi Räikkönen’s team-mate. After the season Nico Hülkenberg and Kubica lost their race seats: in 2020 Hülkenberg raced only as a stand-in, and Kubica came back for two races in 2021.