Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2018 23:21:52 GMT
With respect of all these suppositions and predictions for 2019 I think we should all take careful consideration of the small nuances that have been put forward over the past few weeks.
Last week Sebastian was going to great pains to stress that Charles and he should work together next year; that is fine in its simplest of forms however it could also be construed that he was getting a bit jumpy and knew he was in for trouble with the young Monegasque driver.
Earlier this week it was reported that Lewis Hamilton had stressed that he was going to have to "up his game" next season to deal with Max and Charles. I do not think that those are the words of the Hamilton of old where he was trying to play mind games with opponents. I believe that Lewis is painfully aware of the fact that these two are the ones who are going to present him with the biggest challenge.
Sebastian is very quick in a car that is set up to his distinct driving style which I believe needs great rear end grip. Charles Leclerc is very Prost like in my opinion, super smooth; deceptively quick and extremely clean in all that he does. I stand by my earlier prediction; he will be WC in 2019 if Ferrari produce a good car and get the team management sorted out.
Robert Kubica's story is just astonishing as the guy should not be able to drive competitively at all, let alone in F1. Yes, he has brought a substantial amount of cash to Williams, something that Sirotkin could no longer do. However it has been mentioned on various sites this week that Williams have lots of data regarding his time in this years car, and it appears that when it is all balanced out he was way better than both of this years incumbents. "Fake News" maybe; maybe not!
George Russell has huge potential from what I have seen of him in F2 this year, and has to use Bill's favoured expression, "smashed" Norris. Excusers have tried to make out that has been because Russell is older; total rubbish, age has nothing to do with talent, Power Point presentations or not!
I think Sainz Jnr will handle Norris, and then Alonso will return .
It will be an interesting one, Seb v Charles. It's great that you are predicting a Leclerc WDC!! That is a brave and hardy and borderline awesome prediction if heinously misguided. I applaud your prediction whilst calling it out as being profoundly unsound, Charles. Carl, I think, is perhaps more 'on the money' in saying that Vettel, as the incumbent Lead Pilot, will soundly beat Leclerc while being occasionally surprised by the young Monégasque.
Having said that, part of me wants to see Seb dominated by Leclerc next year on the way to Leclerc's Championship - it would mean we have another SuperAce on the grid and a polite and fair one ie an anti-Max