Winter Testing is finally upon us, the wait is almost over until the season opener in Melbourne. But first, Barcelona testing, the first official running of the 2019 cars. Unfortunately, Williams Racing are unable to make it to the first and second day of the Barcelona Testing, but they are due to be at the circuit on Wednesday. All this comes after the FW40 was deemed to be unready after delays in the construction of the new car, this also led to a cancellation of a few shakedown laps earlier this week. Claire Williams, team principle, said earlier this week, "It's clearly not ideal, but equally it's not the end of the world. Our absolute priority is to always ensure we bring a car to the track that is the best that it can be and sometimes that takes longer than you'd anticipate or like."
After much excitement last week over car launches, the whole F1 world are in anticipation of actually hearing the roar of these new engines and seeing how these new challengers perform when put to the test on track. However, this might not be the place where all our questions are answered. Many Formula 1 teams keep their real performance and pace under wraps until Melbourne. For one, last year Red Bull seemed to have pulled a blinder by topping all the time sheets, unfortunately, throughout the season the winter testing performance seemed to be a dud next to the ever-winning cars of Mercedes and Ferrari.
But don't let that put you off. There are still plenty more questions to be answered!
Such as, who will be a genuine mid fielding team this season? Will it be the usuals of Renault, Haas and Racing Point? Or will the likes of McLaren and Williams storm ahead? At the end of last season Sauber, now Alfa Romeo Racing, stormed ahead unexpectedly and even managed to finish in sixth, a huge achievement for a team previously scoring a best of eleventh. Can Alfa Romeo Racing take the Swiss team back to the top, especially with a World Champion behind the wheel, Kimi Raikkonen?
Another new addition to the F1 Paddock are the new rookies of the 2019 season: Lando Norris, George Russell and Alex Albon. How will these newbies fair under the spotlight of Formula One? All three rookies have proved their worthiness to compete in Formula One, however, do they have what it takes to maintain the ever-desired race seat?
Additionally, the Paddock is receiving a few familiar faces this season in the form of Robert Kubica, Daniil Kvyat and Antonio Giovinazzi. Robert Kubica has been absent from the sport for many years now, the Pole was previously a force to be reckoned with and was feared by many including Lewis Hamilton. But after such a long period of time, should we be treating Kubica as a rookie? Daniil Kvyat has been in and out of the sport many times over the past few years. After such a whirlwind career from the Red Bull junior programme to Toro Rosso and then to Red Bull, did everything happen too fast for the 'torpedo', a name given to the Russian by Sebastian Vettel after a collision in Russia in 2016. Antonio Giovinazzi, on the other hand, although not new to the sport has actually competed in two official races whilst Pascal Wherlein recovered from injuries. How will the Italian fair for a whole season?
Red Bull are a team to watch this week, after switching engine suppliers from Renault to Honda, many will be watching with baited breathe as to whether the Austrian team can actually become a championship contender this year. And if they were to be, would their previous driver, Daniel Ricciardo, come crawling back to try and achieve the dream of World Champion? But, it may not be as easy as an engine switch, McLaren attempted just that with the Honda engines, however, that partnership ended rather abruptly...
Mercedes, a name everyone knows, will they continue their domination? Can Ferrari actually secure the World Titles? Last year, the Ferrari's were very close at many points throughout the season and were genuine threats to the silver arrows. But after operational errors and driver mistakes, 2018 marked a decade since Ferrari secured at least one title.
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