How F1 2016 would've gone without Mercedes

The appeals were expensive and arduous, but in the end Mercedes lost - again. After being thrown out of the 2015 Formula 1 world championship for contravening the FIA's new 'anti-dominance' regulations, Mercedes tried desperately to get itself reinstated for 2016.

To no avail. The W07 was deemed potentially even more superior than its predecessor during pre-season testing, and despite much legal wrangling Mercedes was banned from F1 for another year ahead of the first race in Australia.

F1 simply cannot afford to have one team running away with the championship year after year, announced FIA president Jean Todt. This is bad for motorsport. It's why people prefer to watch videos of cats being cute on the internet, or going out for Sunday strolls in the park, instead of watching grand prix racing.

Unfortunately these new regulations - designed to increase F1's appeal by closing up the competitive order - had already backfired in 2015. Removing Mercedes from the championship for being too strong in '14 actually allowed Ferrari to dominate to an even greater extent.

Kimi Raikkonen had enjoyed a close battle with Williams's Valtteri Bottas for second in the standings, but Sebastian Vettel had simply scorched to a fifth world title with ease during his first season at Maranello, winning 13 times from 19 starts, in similar fashion to his dominant display for Red Bull in 2013.

Many argued (correctly) that Ferrari should now be thrown out too, but the FIA discovered an ancient covenant within the regulations that allowed the Scuderia a single season's exemption. Known as 'Enzo's Law' it granted Ferrari immunity based on its historical contribution to the championship since its inception.

Mercedes was paying a price for lacking permanence in F1. But the FIA told Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne in no uncertain terms, another year like 2015 and F1 would no longer hold a place for the prancing horse either...

It's not looking good when Ferrari wins each of the first four races in succession, Vettel winning from pole in Australia - when Raikkonen's car catches fire in the pits - and recovering from first-lap contact to take victory in China.

But some solid scoring by Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo (who takes a brilliant pole in China), coupled with misfortune for reigning champ Vettel in Bahrain (engine failure on the parade lap) and Russia (eliminated by contact with Daniil Kvyat on the first lap), helps keep the title race close.

Raikkonen assumes an early lead in the standings thanks to victory in Bahrain (where Romain Grosjean scores a stupendous podium for the new Haas team) and overcoming Valtteri Bottas's polesitting Williams in Russia.

Just as the clamour for abolishing Ferrari's presence in this championship reaches fervent pitch, Red Bull breaks the spell with a closely fought victory in the Spanish Grand Prix, Max Verstappen fending off Raikkonen to become F1's youngest ever race winner on his Red Bull debut, after swapping his Toro Rosso seat with Kvyat.

Ricciardo feels he would have won that race himself with a better strategic call from Red Bull, but makes amends regardless with a dominant display from pole position in Monaco to claim the championship lead (despite a botched pitstop) as Raikkonen crashes out early on.

Vettel hits back to reclaim his place at the top of the standings with wins in Canada and Azerbaijan - where Sergio Perez sensationally qualifies fastest for Force India before a grid penalty is applied - but suffers a tyre blowout while leading in Austria, then an underwhelming race to seventh (after a grid penalty of his own) in the wet British GP, where Verstappen claims his third win of the year (and second in successive races) with a virtuoso display.

At the midway point in the season the championship is finely poised, with the top four drivers all covered by just 21 points, Ricciardo leading by just three from Raikkonen, with Vettel only four points further back, and Verstappen coming up fast from behind.

Then Ricciardo goes on a crucial winning spree, taking victories in Hungary (from pole), Germany (despite being passed around the outside by Verstappen at Turn 1) and Belgium (where Verstappen collides with the Ferraris after a poor start from the front row of the grid).

The title race swings decisively back in Ricciardo's favour, and although he loses some ground when Vettel breaks Ferrari's five-race losing streak by leading a famous one-two finish for the Scuderia in September's Italian GP, further wins for the Australian in Singapore and Malaysia (after a close race with poleman Verstappen) stretch his championship lead out to 61 points with just five races remaining.

After a quiet race to fourth in Japan - where Verstappen beats Vettel to victory after inheriting pole thanks to yet more Ferrari grid penalties - Ricciardo's eighth win of the year in the US GP puts the championship tantalisingly within his grasp.

This race also marks McLaren-Honda's return to the podium as a unified force for the first time since 1992, as Fernando Alonso hunts down Felipe Massa's Williams and Carlos Sainz Jr's Toro Rosso to finish best of the rest.

Ricciardo finally seals the deal in bizarre fashion in Mexico, inheriting victory when poleman Verstappen is penalised for going off the circuit and gaining an advantage while racing Vettel for the win, then Vettel is penalised for defending second place too aggressively from Ricciardo while bottled up behind the other Red Bull.

The final two races are effectively rendered dead rubbers as F1 hails a new champion, though Verstappen seals the constructors' title for Red Bull with a brilliant drive to victory in atrocious conditions in Brazil, charging through the field in the closing stages to deny Perez a famous win, earning favourable comparisons with the wet weather greats of F1 history.

Verstappen also overtakes Raikkonen for third place in the championship at Interlagos, after the 2007 world champion crashes out of the lead on the main straight after starting from pole position.

Vettel at least signs the season off with a consolation victory for Ferrari in the Abu Dhabi finale (his sixth triumph of the year and Ferrari's eighth), but rues a campaign beset by poor reliability and difficulty extracting performance from an inconsistent car.

FINAL DRIVERS' STANDINGS

1 Ricciardo 368
2 Vettel 312
3 Verstappen 283
4 Raikkonen 260
5 Perez 162
6 Bottas 141
7 Hulkenberg 124
8 Massa 101
9 Alonso 89
10 Sainz 84
11 Grosjean 55
12 Button 47
13 Kvyat 42
14 Magnussen 17
15 Gutierrez 10
16 Nasr 7
17 Palmer 7
18 Vandoorne 4
19 Wehrlein 4
20 Ericsson 3
21 Ocon 1

FINAL CONSTRUCTORS' STANDINGS

1 Red Bull 655
2 Ferrari 572
3 Force India 286
4 Williams 242
5 McLaren 140
6 Toro Rosso 122
7 Haas 65
8 Renault 24
9 Sauber 10
10 Manor 5

Vettel can at least be satisfied Ferrari won't be kicked out of next year's championship for being too dominant, having lost the constructors' battle to Red Bull by 83 points.

But, daydreaming aside, would this season really have been any better without Mercedes present?

Sure, four different drivers would have won races, and the constructors' championship would have been much more keenly contested, but F1 would also have lacked the tense title decider we saw in Abu Dhabi - the final chapter of Lewis Hamilton's and Nico Rosberg's bitter personal rivalry.

But there would have been no dominance by a single entity. F1 2016 would have featured two competitive teams duking it out for victory at almost every race, thanks to Red Bull's continuing improvement and Ferrari's stuttering form.

That's what the naysayers want isn't it - a multi-team battle for supremacy? If Red Bull's current rate of progress continues amid potentially favourable real-life regulation changes, perhaps this dream may finally come true in 2017.