Formula 1 2020 Season Preview

The months of waiting are over as the new Formula 1 season finally kicks off in Spielberg for the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend.

The new season will be very different to those we have become accustomed to due to the coronavirus pandemic. The race calendar has been altered dramatically and the regulation changes due to be introduced in 2021 have now been pushed back to 2022.

Here’s a complete guide to get you up to speed for the new season.

The teams:

Mercedes AMG Petronas

Mercedes will race in a black livery this season in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mercedes has been the force in the hybrid era of Formula 1 winning six consecutive Constructors and Drivers World Championships and in 2020 their mission is both simple and clear – make it seven out of seven.

Consistency is key at the team in terms of its personnel. Toto Wolff remains in charge of the team, James Alison in charge of tech and the same of course is true with the drivers. Lewis Hamilton returns to the fold to defend his championship and gun for a seventh Formula 1 World Championship crown in a year which could see him beat Michael Schumacher’s all time win record of 91.

He will be partnered once again though by Valtteri Bottas, the team making clear while last year saw a reinvented Bottas 2.0 this year sees a Bottas 3.0 as he hopes to mount a consistent challenge to his World Champion teammate.

While the Mercedes W10 won the majority of race in 2019 it wasn’t the absolute world beater of previous seasons. The car had weaknesses most notably a balance that the drivers sometimes weren’t completely on top of and a straight line speed deficit. Both areas the team hopes they have rectified with the W11.

The team’s objectives for 2020 then are clear – winning that all important seventh consecutive World Championship while also however maintaining their competitive advantage into the new regulations in 2021 and all the while maintaining the team that has been responsible for their recent run of success.

Team Principal Toto Wolff focused on this at the car launch earlier this year “And this year’s championship is a two year championship. It is not only about 2020 under the current regulations there is such a massive regulator change for 2021 that balancing your allocation of resources will be crucial. The pain of losing is so much more intense and lasts so much longer than the joy of winning and this is in a way what drives us”.

Are Mercedes the favourites? Unquestionably. 2020 is the year this team could make history.

Scuderia Ferrari 

The F1000 is very much a case of evolution rather than revolution for Ferrari, sticking to many of the core concepts of their 2019 challenger. The team seconded Simone Resta back from Alpha Romeo to help with its design and it needs to be competitive, not only to give Charles Leclerc a shot potentially at his first World Championship but in order to insure Sebastian Vettel can enjoy his last season with the team.

Speaking at the car launch Vettel said “There’s a lot of stuff hidden in the car that sooner or later I guess will come out but we believe it’s going to be quite big and hopefully gives us an edge. Ultimately the stopwatch rules.”

Ferrari’s focus and its objective remains exactly the same now as it has been for everyone of their almost 1,000 races in Formula 1 and that is the World Championship. To win that though they’re going to need both a competitive car and a harmonious environment. If they lose either one of those the title could go with it. Team principal Mattia Benotto will hope for less headaches than last season when his drivers clashed on several occasions.

Leclerc touched on this at the launch of the F1000 “This year will be all about not repeating the mistakes and try to get better at a little bit of everything. My focus will be mainly on the race pace, race management, time management I think this is very important obviously but also where I have got the most margin so I will focus on that.”

During the long off season Ferrari made the shock announcement Vettel will not be retained for the 2021 season with McLaren’s Carlos Sainz taking his seat. This could very well be the four time World Champion’s last season in the sport.

Ferrari are the team with arguably the most to prove after their disappointment in 2019, only the best will do.

Red Bull Racing Honda

Red Bull Racing enters its second season with engine partner Honda and after race victories in 2019 they’re determined to turn things into a championship challenge against the might of Mercedes and Ferrari.

Having settled into his role as team leader Max Verstappen is hoping, like the team, that 2020 will bring not just race victories but also a fight for the World Championship.

Verstappen was bullish about his teams hopes at testing in Barcelona: “We definitely improved the car and the areas we wanted to so now we just have to do a lot of laps and test all the parts out and see where we can improve it further and hopefully its going to be enough.

He’ll be joined on the other side of the garage by Alex Albon who so impressed in his half season with the team. He will be hoping for his first podiums and first wins.

Albon was more coy when asked about the Red Bull challenger: “We were obviously focused more towards reliability and just checking some stuff out. Got some laps in which is important, got good baseline.”

The team may have lost its deputy chief designer to Williams but nobody is under any illusion that the RB16 design under the watchful eye of Adrian Newey will be anything other than competitive. That said the team has to make good for the mistakes it made in 2019 and hit the ground running in Australia.

It seems like an incredibly long time since Red Bull Racing tasted championship success and that will be their sole aim in 2020 but for that to happen the car and both drivers have got to be at the very top of their game.

McLaren Renault

After an impressive year of rejuvenation in 2019 McLaren has a big job ahead of it in 2020.  Not only in maintaining its fourth position but in taking the fight to the top three.

The bromance continues as Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz return for a second year together as teammates and there is a hope that an increase of competitiveness on track won’t lead to a diminishing of their friendship off track.

Sainz has already seen an improvement in performance from preseason testing: “The car feels amazing, we are already much quicker than last year at this point. Obviously everything feels much better but then you see the lap times of the others and they’re all feeling the same. Where are we gonna be? That’s the tricky question.”

After an impressive rookie season Norris is looking for perfection in the little things: “On the whole I do feel a lot more comfortable than this time last year but over the next few days again theres always little things you want to adjust in the seat or steering wheel to get even better.”

Andreas Seidl starts his first full season as team principal as does James Key as technical director. Seidl has a clear goal for the season ahead “For me it’s more important to clearly see that we make the next step as a team, of course in terms of car performance but also in terms of how we approach development, how we approach race weekends, reliability, pitstops and so on to make sure we reach the goal we all have that we get back at some point to where we have been in the past.”

The MCL34 was the surprise of last season but from even midway through the year the team was instant they would be changing car concept into 2020. Surprisingly though the MCL35 is an evolution albeit a vastly different one. All eyes will be on James Key’s very first McLaren.

With the midfield looking as tight as ever and an awful lot of focus on Racing Point, McLaren look set for an epic fight.

With Sainz moving to Ferrari McLaren have acted promptly by announcing Daniel Ricciardo will join the team from Renault for the 2021 season.

There’s a quiet confidence at McLaren that 2020 will continue their upward trend. Put simply, they’re up for the challenge.

Renault

Renault used an all black livery in testing but will have their famous yellow on for the season.

After a tremendously disappointing season in 2019 Renault know they need a huge turnaround in their fortunes in 2020 but with outward expectations already set low is this season set to become yet another of rebirth and regrowth.

Following a year on the sidelines in 2019 Esteban Ocon returns to a full time race seat at the team for whom he was once a young driver, he’s absolutely desperate to get back to racing ways. Daniel Ricciardo was left bitterly frustrated by his 2019 season at Renault and although he’s stated he always knew it was a long term project another year of frustration could see him question his future at Renault.

The smiley Australian was upbeat at testing but is well aware of the challenges the team face: “Expectations were kinda medium last year you know I was excited. I want to say they’re a little higher this year but you know we’re not getting ahead of ourselves”

This year’s RS20 is the product of a design team which has already left, Renault Dirk de Beer and Pat Fry have been brought in to steer the ship and head up both the design and technical sides of the team. But with Renault’s priority already stated as the new regulations in 2021 the looming question remains over their competitiveness in 2020.

Team principal Cyril Abiteboul knows the team failed to meet expectations last year but is also looking beyond 2020: “I think last year was a reality check and I think if you ask about this year hopefully we have learned and hopefully we will demonstrate that we have learned. If we cannot do better in the current set of regulations there is no reason why we will not be able to do that better in the next set of regulations.”

The loss of Daniel Ricciardo to McLaren for 2021 is a huge blow for the French team who are yet to announce the Australian’s replacement.

Renault has to fight for points and podiums. It has to show forward momentum and development it simply cannot have another year of disappointment like 2019.

AlphaTauri

Familiar faces but an unfamiliar name, AlphaTauri is hoping to hit the ground running in 2020.

The team formerly known as Toro Rosso has been renamed and rebranded in 2020 in honour of Red Bull’s clothing brand AlphaTauri and that’s pretty much where the largest change begins and ends. Franz Tost is still in charge of the team and Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly are still his drivers.

Kvyat who recorded the team’s second ever podium finish last year feels they have taken a step forward: “The initial feeling is we made some progress compared to last year obviously it’s hard to say how much and is it enough but we’re still trying to unlock the last bit of potential in the car in both shorter and longer runs”.

Gasly who was demoted to the team by Red Bull enjoyed himself at testing: “I was happy of course I missed it a lot for the last two months since Abu Dhabi, not much driving except on the simulator and some karting so it feels good to feel the power of a Formula 1 car and I really enjoyed my first day back in the car.”

The AlphaTauri’s AT01 is an aggressively designed car and so far in testing has impressed both its drivers and its rivals. The team is hopeful that it can compete with the midfield and improve on the sixth place in which the team finished in 2019.

Team principal Tost is well aware that his team must continue to improve if they are to compete with their rivals: “We must increase our performance, we must become better, we worked very hard during the winter months and it looks like once again the midfield is very very close together and I hope that we are in the front part of the midfield.”

With their name the only substantial change over the winter there’s real hope at AlphaTauri that the upward trend they showed towards the end of last season will continue into 2020.

Racing Point

With a car which has courted controversy in some quarters but impressed in others Racing Point is already hitting the headlines in 2020.

The team struggled for consistent competitiveness in 2019, a hangover from their previous incarnation Force India’s administration proceedings in 2018. 2020 then could be seen as Racing Point’s first real season and the RP20 their first real car – or is it?

On launch it bore much in common with Mercedes all conquering W10 and while the similarities are striking the team insists it isn’t a carbon copy.

Technical director Andrew Green had this to say about the striking similarities: “Everything we do this year is finished theres no carry over to next year it’s all completely different, so why don’t we take a risk, why don’t we do something different? Why don’t we take what we know from the Mercedes gearbox and their suspension and how they run the car and why don’t we just try and go with that philosophy?”

Team principal Otmar Szafnauer was eager to explain his team’s decision: “Because of where we are financially now it was the first opportunity we’ve had to actually switch concepts because it takes quite a bit of effort and resource to do that”

Lance Stroll returns for a second season at the team owned by his father with an improvement in qualifying his core objective for 2020. Meanwhile Sergio Perez is of course back at the team that has been his home for so many years and may finally have a car at his disposal to show off his talents.

The Mexican felt the car had potential during testing in Barcelona: “I think as I’ve said we have good pace I think its something that has good potential but we’ve gotta work very hard in the coming days to make sure we arrive in Melbourne as prepared as possible”

Fourth in the championship is this team’s objective for 2020 and a return to best of the rest.

Quick, reliable and the talk of the town there’s a feeling that 2020 could be something very special indeed for Racing Point.

Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo never quite hit the heights for which it had hoped in 2019 but with solid leadership and consistency in its driver pairing for 2020 much is expected this year.

The now 40 year old Kimi Raikkonen returns for what could be his final year in Formula 1 but the atmosphere at Alfa Romeo has allowed a really fun side of the Finn to come out in recent times. He’ll be joined once again by Antonio Giovinazzi who so impressed in the second half of his rookie season in 2019, but he’ll be incredibly mindful that he has to maintain that form through 2020 if he wants to hang onto his seat into 2021.

The young Italian is looking forward to getting stuck into the midfield battle: “Yeah I’m really excited, you know it was a really long two months but I’m really happy to be back in the car. I think still the midfield will be really close and so the details will make the difference.”

Frédéric Vasseur remains in charge of the team but with Simone Resta being called back to Ferrari Jan Monchaux has taken over in the technical department. As such the C39 remains very much an evolution of the C38 but the team has to keep on top of the development race in which it suffered last year.

Alfa Romeo wants to be fighting at the front of the midfield in 2020 and as such regular points are the objective for the season.

2020 could be a hero or zero year for Alfa Romeo, in a flooded midfield they have to prove that they can swim.

Haas F1

Last year was unquestionably the most difficult so far for Formula 1’s youngest team but with lessons learned can Haas return to form in 2020?

Speaking ahead of testing Kevin Magnussen was upbeat about the season ahead: “You know last year was tough but I think we’ve learned a lot from it and we’ve come out stronger and I’m very positive and hopeful we will come back to our good level.”

The team’s results in 2019 were hamstrung by a baseless misunderstanding of their car and so both drivers have been given a stay of execution into 2020 despite their on track antics often costing the team dear. No slip ups will be tolerated in 2020.

Who can forget this radio message to Magnussen during the Spanish Grand Prix: “Kevin the message from Guenther to both drivers is to calm down. So both drivers calm down” Team principal Guenther Steiner made his feelings clear to the Dane over the radio post race: “Kevin the first one to come and see is me please.”

With no major changes to the technical team or design philosophy the VF20 maintains many of its key Ferrari influences. Last year’s VF19 struggled massively with its tyres operating within a very narrow window. If that’s transferred onto this year’s car the team will struggle once again.

Steiner is adamant the team has learned from its errors last year: “We learned the direction we need to go and we are pretty with what we are seeing at the moment”.

2020 simply has to be better for the Haas F1 team indeed the team’s owner Gene Haas has said if they don’t discover their competitive form he may have to question their continued participation in the sport.

While it’s far too early to know exactly where this team will fit into the competitive landscape what is undeniable is just how important this season will be for the squad. Ultimately only Gene Haas knows what his expectations are and whether they’re relaistic.

Williams 

Williams were forced to change their livery following the loss of title sponsor ROKiT.

The once mighty Williams suffered its annus horribilis in 2019. 2020 is as much about respect as it is results.

Formula 2 graduate Nicholas Latifi joins the team in 2020 and alongside him is one of the highest regarded drivers in the sport, George Russell the doyen of the Mercedes’ junior programme really helped turn this team’s fortunes they are a young lineup but a potent one.

In terms of team management the teams been on something of a shopping spree throughout the pit-lane picking up the best it could from other teams to help it get back to the front.

After just its first laps out on track in Barcelona George Russell described the FW43 in glowing terms saying it was better in every single area compared to its predecessor. “From within it feels nice to drive but obviously lap times are the important thing I think we’ll only know by the end of next week how that is but faster than it was this time last year because this time last year the car was still in bits so thats one bonus.”

Just a few short seasons ago this team was taking pole positions and finishing on the podium. They know what it takes to be at the front. There’s an old saying it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight it’s about the size of the fight in the dog. Williams are coming out swinging.

However, the coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the team. Main sponsor ROKiT have pulled their financial backing resulting in a redesigned livery but more importantly they recorded losses of £13m in 2019 and could be forced to sell a minority or majority stake in the team.

Williams desperately need their fortunes to change in 2020 or the iconic team could be lost from the grid.

Race Calendar:

At present only 8 races have been confirmed for the 2020 season with plans for further races to be added as the season progresses. As it stands no spectators will be present and some tracks will host multiple races.

Race Calendar:
Date Grand Prix Venue
July 5 Austrian Spielberg
July 12 Austrian Spielberg
July 19 Hungary Budapest
August 2 British Silverstone
August 9 British Silverstone
August 16 Spain Barcelona
August 30 Belgium Spa
September 6 Italy Monza
More dates to be added

Last season’s standings:

Be sure to visit this site for full qualifying results, race reports and all the latest news as it happens.

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