The factors that could end Mercedes F1 domination in 2020

It's been more than six years since a team other than Mercedes won a Formula 1 world championship. Since the introduction of the turbo-hybrid engine regulations, the Silver Arrows has racked up 89 wins with three drivers, 94 poles, 179 podiums, and the headline accomplishment of six title doubles.

But in 2020 there's more than just a chance that things could change. The main thinking behind this theory (which some fans hold as hope for a change, any change) is that because F1's rules are stable going from 2019 into the new campaign, the field will close up.

This isn't to suggest AlphaTauri or Alfa Romeo will suddenly take the fight to be the championship's top dog to Mercedes, but that there is the possibility that another one of F1's big three could emerge victorious.

Last year, in addition to tweaks to the rules governing bargeboards, rear wings and brake ducts, the biggest change to the regulations concerned the front wings. The resulting designs were much simpler than the convoluted (not to mention expensive) downforce-laden contraptions used previously. This was an attempt to fast-track some of the thinking behind F1's comprehensive 2021 rules overhaul, in a bid to ease the issue the current cars have when it comes to following closely.

But in one sense, this change robbed F1 of a concentrated three-way fight for the 2019 world title. While Mercedes went on a success rampage in the early season as Ferrari regularly underwhelmed from strong positions and Red Bull took a while to get rolling, both of Mercedes' closest challengers were ultimately undone by their initial designs.

That shouldn't be a problem this time around.

"Theoretically, the Melbourne [2020] car will be an upgrade of the Abu Dhabi [2019] car," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner at the end of last season.

So, let's examine the three biggest threats to Mercedes' superiority in 2020, starting with the reddest one.

Renewed Ferrari challenge

Ferrari was again Mercedes' closest challenger in 2019, but it should have done much better. Although it did get its act together in the second half of the season - particularly when its much-discussed engine gains were allied to a breakthrough update package introduced at September's Singapore Grand Prix - Ferrari haemorrhaged points.

We should give Ferrari the benefit of the doubt and believe that a team of its size and strength should be able to address its shortcomings

It lost certain wins in Bahrain (to Charles Leclerc's heartbreaking engine-cylinder failure when he was clear in the lead, below), in Canada (to a controversial penalty that followed Sebastian Vettel making another error under pressure), and in Russia (where a team-orders row for a second race in a row came before Vettel's MGU-K-induced retirement, which cost Leclerc the lead to Lewis Hamilton under the ensuing virtual safety car).

There's also a case to made for further lost wins in Baku - Leclerc showed the speed to qualify at the front, where he could have at least disrupted Mercedes' march to a fourth (out of a total of five) 1-2 in succession at the start of last year - and Austria.

In the latter race, Max Verstappen capped a storming recovery from a poor start to overcome Leclerc in battle late on, with the Ferrari driver left feeling that the lesson learned in that moment might have saved the victory.

Although any suggestion about performance improvements are of course pure speculation at this point in the season, we should give Ferrari the benefit of the doubt and believe that a team of its size and strength should be able to address its shortcomings. If the Scuderia can avoid wasting points in 2020, that will immediately eat into Mercedes' advantage.

Another reason why the Tifosi should be looking forward to the coming campaign concerns Ferrari's drivers. By any measure, Leclerc's first season with the team - and let's not forget that it was just his second in F1 - was a success. Even if reliability and his own mistakes did cost him on the occasions we've outlined, the 22-year-old had a breakout season, which led to Ferrari rewarding him with a contract extension to the end of 2024.

That's a fine show of faith and, allied to his clear ease at living in the spotlight at the front of the F1 grid, there's every reason to expect Leclerc to make another step forward in 2020. If Ferrari's new car can present the same problems for Mercedes as the SF90 regularly did last year, then Leclerc's ultimate potential as a world championship-winning-calibre driver should become clear.

On the other side of the garage is a mere four-time world champion. That's not a misguided attempt to goad Vettel fans, it's a reminder of just how good he is. It may feel like a long time since his last title triumph with Red Bull back in 2013 - and as we covered at the beginning, it is - but Vettel has it within him to triumph at the highest level.

The worrying element to his form over the past few seasons was how quickly he seemed to go to pieces under pressure. There was the lost win in the rain in Germany in 2018, plus the spins in battle with Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo and Verstappen at Monza, Austin and Suzuka respectively that year.

Then there was another spin while racing Hamilton in Bahrain in 2019, which was followed by his win-costing Canada off, the crash with Verstappen at Silverstone, and his rejoining madness at Monza involving Lance Stroll. Then there was the big one - the clash with Leclerc in Brazil that put both Ferraris out.

That underwhelming run ended with Vettel finishing fifth in the 2019 drivers' standings - his worst result as a Ferrari driver. It's no wonder that when he spoke to TV crews, quite candidly, after last season's Abu Dhabi finale, he said he feels: "As a team we must perform stronger, as an individual I think I can. I must do better. I can do better - it wasn't a great year from my side."

Just as Ferrari has the right raw materials, it's possible to believe that Vettel can return to the performance level that took him to those four world titles. Last year, rumours swirled that he would walk away from F1, and Leclerc's new Ferrari deal means the team sees him as its future, not Vettel. But a multiple world champion with a point to prove is dangerous to bet against.

A fired-up Ferrari using Machiavellian tactics to gain every advantage is worth taking seriously

His team also clearly thinks he can do it. Speaking to Autosport at the end of last year, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said: "I must say the performance offset has been always great [meaning not large] - except for maybe the mistake in Monza, but the performance there was still good. So, in the second half of the season, certainly Seb's base was as good if not better than Charles.'"

If its drivers can step up in 2020, then Ferrari must give them a car that can challenge Mercedes. Although the FIA technical directives issued late last year shed some light on what many assume Ferrari was doing to get such potency from its engine in 2019, it cannot be assumed that its advantage will be gone in this area. If Leclerc and Vettel can use this to get ahead in qualifying in the early races, then there's every chance they can endanger Mercedes' dominance.

There's one final intriguing area to keep an eye on with Ferrari in 2020: F1's political theatre.

"We are not good enough in polemics, and there are people who are stronger than us - even in using the media to put pressure on," Binotto explained. "So it is something that we need to understand how to do better, and to better act in the future, because that's part of the overall balance of a season."

A fired-up Ferrari using Machiavellian tactics to gain every advantage is worth taking seriously.

And there's also the spectre of F1's 2021 cost cap to consider. Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri said at the end of 2019 that the team is "prepared to invest" and is expecting 2020 to be "significantly more expensive" in budget terms as it gears for the new era, when the budget cap arrives.

Ferrari is already committed to building a new simulator and it's not unreasonable to expect such investments to benefit the team this season, as well as in the future. One caveat here is that Mercedes and Red Bull can take the same approach...

The rise of Red Bull-Honda

The rules stability for 2020 significantly increases Red Bull's threat to Mercedes. It must start the season as strongly as it finished last year - especially if Horner's upgrade prediction rings true. In 2019, the team made another slow start - somewhat undone by the changes to the front-wing rules.

But an update introduced for the Austrian GP in June turned things around, and during the run into the summer break Red Bull provided stiff opposition to Mercedes. The team and Verstappen capitalised on chaos in Germany and showed impressive form in Brazil to add two victories to go with Verstappen's triumph over Leclerc in Austria.

They probably should have won in Mexico too, given Red Bull's historical strength at altitude and the fact that Verstappen was quickest in qualifying before receiving his penalty for not slowing under yellow flags.

This season is the second test for Red Bull's new relationship with Honda, but there's every expectation that the engine builder will make another step forwards. As long as Verstappen and Alex Albon aren't hamstrung by grid penalties necessitated by Honda needing to introduce early upgrades out of sequence with its rivals - for reliability or performance purposes - they should have the tools required to take the fight to Mercedes and Ferrari on the power front.

Verstappen is untested in the world title fight arena, but there is nothing to suggest this utterly determined driver doesn't have what it takes to prevail when the pressure is at its most intense

Red Bull knows it and Honda must start fast in 2020, with its motorsport advisor, Helmut Marko, recently telling Autosport: "We want to fight for the championship and to do so we know that we have to be competitive with the chassis right from the start - and that means the very first race.

"Honda has good increases for this year. And since everything has been fulfilled so far, we assume that this will happen. That means we have no more excuses."

As with Ferrari, Red Bull can be confident that its drivers will also raise their respective bars in 2020. Like Leclerc, Verstappen has a freshly inked, new long-term deal, which will keep him at Red Bull until the end of 2023. Not only does this give him the solid foundations needed to perform excellently consistently, but it is also a serious sign that he feels Honda can deliver what it must for Red Bull to front a title challenge.

Verstappen is untested in the world title fight arena, but there is nothing to suggest this utterly determined driver doesn't have what it takes to prevail when the pressure is at its most intense.

Albon heads into 2020 knowing he'll have a full winter test programme with the new Red Bull, which will surely help him when it comes to the new campaign. This time last year he had zero F1 experience, and 2019 didn't exactly work out badly. The RB15 was a demanding car, so Albon can be given credit for stepping into it midway through the year, after the Pierre Gasly seat-swap, and not disgracing himself.

It will never be known how much of a boost that lost Interlagos podium would have given Albon - it certainly capped Gasly's late-2019 form resurgence - but it's fair to assume that if he can avoid the sort of troubled pre-season his predecessor endured, then he'll have every chance of starting 2020 strongly.

Red Bull's line-up may be youthful, but it has the needle needed to exploit any chinks in Mercedes' armour.

Why second drivers could be key

If Ferrari and Red Bull are going to have a hope of defeating Mercedes in the constructors' championship, then both squads need both sides of their respective garages to be bagging maximum points. As was evidenced at last year's Hungarian Grand Prix, having two drivers capable of winning can turn the tide during races, which will add up over the course of a campaign.

Had Gasly been in a position to back up Verstappen during the race at the Hungaroring, then Mercedes would not have been able to take the strategic gamble that led to Hamilton's charge to victory.

Ferrari's drivers need to avoid taking points off each other, while Red Bull needs Albon to get among the leading positions rather than making up the end of the top six in races where conditions or reliability don't play a part. After joining the senior Red Bull squad for the final nine races of 2019 - three fewer than Gasly had before the summer break - Albon scored 76 points, which isn't bad considering Verstappen picked up 97 in the same period. But being a regular podium threat must be the minimum Red Bull expects Albon to produce in 2020.

Assuming Ferrari can stem the implosions and Red Bull does have both its drivers firing in top results, this will eat into Mercedes' points potential. In that case, Valtteri Bottas's performances will become a key focus point for the season.

Bottas has already said he wants to make it a "no-brainer decision" for Mercedes to extend his contract into 2021, and he can make that a reality by taking second place in the drivers' championship again - or by going one better.

He almost halved the gap between himself and Hamilton from 161 points in 2018 to 87 last season, but, even though Bottas secured his personal best championship finish, that was still adrift of the 58 points to his team-mate in 2017, his first year at Mercedes.

If the usual assumptions about leading points scorers at Mercedes and Red Bull holds true, and Ferrari can find a way not to squander results, then it could well be the second-best finishers per round at each of F1's top three teams that make the difference in 2020.

Why Mercedes is still the favourite

For all the analysis and outside hope that Mercedes will finally lose its crown in 2020, it must be acknowledged that the team goes into the new season as the heavy favourite. After all, it is unbeaten in the hybrid era, and the W10 saw off all its challengers last season, thanks to its undeniable strength in slow corners and the way it worked with the thinner-gauge Pirellis that are staying the same for the new season.

"We're actually very keen on doing a better job than we did in 2019. Although we won the championship we don't feel it came in the way we anticipated" Toto Wolff

Mercedes has the same chance to benefit from a year of heavy spending before the cost cap comes in for next season, which is why any expectations that it will take its eye off the ball with major regulation changes coming should be headed off for now.

The team already proved in 2017 that it can overcome a rules reset, when it picked up where it had ended 2016 when the cars became wider. There's also something about Wolff and the culture he has created at Brackley that make it hard to see it dropping any balls.

Mercedes may be unbeaten in the championship stakes since 2014, but it has lost individual races. We're a long way past the high-water mark of 2016 - when Mercedes lost just twice, to Red Bull - and, while the team recovered from 10 defeats in 2018 to six last year, it feels clearly intense pain at each one. But the days you lose, Wolff reiterates, are the days you learn the most.

"In our industry, or with our background, finance and sports, it is less naivety, it is more being OK with the worst possible outcome," he told The Bulletin with UBS podcast.

"You can launch yourself into a project if you can cope with the worst possible outcome. If not, I think if you say it would have a massive impact on my life, a massive impact on our future, then we are always on the risk-averse side - we would rather not do it.

"I think every year you need to define objectives that motivate you. Every single year since 2013 we have come up with targets that were exciting for us. And, in the same way, 2020 looks like an exciting year where we are maybe able to provide Lewis Hamilton with a car that he can win a seventh championship.

"We're actually very keen on doing a better job than we did in 2019. Although we won the championship we don't feel it came in the way we anticipated. And then we prepare for 2021, which is a completely new set of regulations - everything is upside down - and we'd like to prove that we're capable of maintaining our position as one of the leading teams."

None of that suggests Mercedes will be caught on the blindside in 2020 - it may even be an acknowledgement that the team knows it had things easier than they could have been at the start of last season.

But if those of us on the outside can spot potential pitfalls, you can bet Mercedes has done that already.