How F1 2019 could've looked without Ferrari's blunders

Mercedes is dominating the 2019 Formula 1 season and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Ferrari could have, but it's just fluffed its lines too many times.

After 12 races, Ferrari is somehow winless in 2019 while Mercedes has triumphed 10 times. It's the F1 equivalent of a football team creating plenty of clear-cut chances, yet losing 4-0. Or a tennis player getting in plenty of class shots, but finding themselves at two sets, five games and 0-40 down and their opponent serving for the match.

Red Bull and Max Verstappen have picked up the pieces of the Ferrari challenge and, in the races leading up to F1's summer break, posed a consistent threat. If the championship is all but over, at least we have the prospect of race-by-race battles to get excited about.

But might we be having something sweeter to savour had things gone differently?

Lewis Hamilton's eight wins have established a commanding lead in the championship. His 250-point tally is so impressive that Ferrari, the star of winter testing, has no driver within shooting distance. Sebastian Vettel is 96 points behind already and Charles Leclerc is 118 points adrift - meaning he needs to score four wins and a second place, and have Hamilton retire five times in a row, just to get back on terms...

It is unrealistic to expect Ferrari to have pieced together a perfect season. Even in Mercedes/Hamilton's dream world, Hamilton admits his team has had chances to do things even better.

But let's imagine the reality Ferrari could, and probably should, have given us.

Ferrari gets rid of its monkey early

It's so ridiculous, we should say it a second time: Ferrari has not won any of the first 12 races in 2019. And the reason this feels so obscene is it should have won one of the first two...

Even a perfectly functioning Ferrari team would not have won in Australia. Mercedes was dominant, Ferrari had some soul-searching to do. It can be granted the odd miserable grand prix: like Mercedes' real-life woe in Germany.

But Vettel should have finished third in Melbourne. He outqualified Max Verstappen. Australia is a tricky place to overtake, but whether it was set-up or engine settings or cooling requirements, Ferrari capitulated in race trim after hardly inspiring in qualifying. That's not a huge difference, but Vettel should have held off Verstappen and got off the mark with a podium and three more points.

The big, ugly truth is the next race was a far bigger missed opportunity.

Vettel was not quick enough to win in Bahrain, despite leading early on. But Leclerc was, and he drove well enough to do so until an engine cylinder failure robbed him of full power and dropped him to third.

A total of 10 points went begging for Leclerc that day. But Vettel should have been in position to capitalise and bring home victory for Ferrari. Instead, he struggled for pace and then spun needlessly while racing Hamilton.

What should have been a Ferrari one-two became a muted three-five.

China can be written off as a race compromised by car differences. Mercedes was on top and deserved the one-two.

Still, Leclerc dropped two more points needlessly. Swift team-order action would have prevented him falling behind Verstappen.

Small changes add up, though in our alternate reality we're not applying fastest-lap bonus points because changing the race narratives make that a trickier variable to second-guess. However, after the first three races in the real world, Hamilton led Bottas by six points and Ferrari's lead challenger Vettel was already 21 points behind.

In our different reality, Hamilton would only have been three points clear of Bottas and 10 clear of Vettel, who would edge Leclerc for third.

Revised table after Chinese GP

Leclerc misses further opportunities

It's difficult to be certain exactly what Ferrari threw away in the Azerbaijan GP. Leclerc was ablaze in the Land of Fire, quickest in practice and the first part of qualifying before stuffing it into the barriers in Q2. That left him to execute a recovery drive to fifth in the race, as Vettel lacked his team-mate's pace (again) and was too far adrift to get stuck into yet another all-Mercedes fight for victory.

At the very least, Leclerc cost himself a podium. But impressive pace over an ultra-long first stint compared with Bottas suggests he would have been a bigger threat than Vettel was. It's not unfair to suggest that, had he started from pole, which was eminently possible, Leclerc would have banked 25 points on Sunday.

Vettel would also have benefited from Leclerc not crashing, given he was left without a tow in the top-10 shootout in qualifying and the delay recovering Leclerc's car caused ambient and track temperatures to drop significantly, enough to swing the pendulum away from Ferrari and towards Mercedes given how their respective cars react to different conditions.

For the sake of keeping this alternative reality slightly more realistic, we will concede that Vettel simply did not have the pace of Leclerc in Baku: so Leclerc could have done more, whereas Vettel probably could not.

Spain was similar to China. Ferrari was not on Mercedes' pace, so no victory shot there, but yet again a Ferrari driver contrived to turn a third-place grid slot into a fourth-place finish (behind Verstappen). Vettel cost himself a further three points there, although Verstappen would have merited being ahead of Leclerc at the flag.

Monaco is the other big missed opportunity, at least for Leclerc. Again, Ferrari lacked the pace of its chief rival, but home hero Leclerc looked on it.

Leclerc set the pace in final practice and though that was almost certainly not going to translate into the same result in qualifying, Ferrari never even gave Leclerc the opportunity. A colossal misjudgement of the cutoff time knocked him out of Q1, and he crashed in the race while trying to recover.

Given he had the edge on Vettel all weekend, it's fair to expect Leclerc would have at least been ahead of his team-mate again. That means a fourth-place start, minimum, and an inherited second place after Verstappen's shenanigans with Bottas in the pitlane. Vettel would have likely been left back in fifth.

Second place would have put Leclerc past the 100-point mark in our new world, six behind Bottas and 23 adrift of Hamilton. Vettel would be losing touch in fourth, while Verstappen - with Red Bull's early chassis limitations and fewer scraps to feed off - would be a distant fifth.

Revised table after Monaco GP

Vettel's turn for near-misses

When Ferrari went into the summer break, its main grievance with the first part of the season would surely have been the Canadian GP.

Despite crossing the line first, Vettel was demoted to second by a time penalty that triggered a massive debate over F1's racing rules. But the uproar over the incident and Vettel's post-race tantrum drew attentions away from the simple fact that Vettel erred in combat yet again.

Under increasing pressure from Hamilton, Vettel ran wide entering the first chicane and rejoined after skating across the grass, squeezing Hamilton towards the wall as the Mercedes tried to sneak by. The five-second time penalty Vettel received as a result cost Vettel his first win of the year and gifted Hamilton another.

This is the simplest equation of our alternate reality: Vettel should have had seven more points, and Hamilton should have had seven fewer.

France falls into the same category as China/Spain, although Vettel really should have replicated Leclerc's ability to beat Verstappen. This is an alternate world in which Ferrari maximises its opportunities, so again Vettel - who was poor at Paul Ricard in real life - should have picked up an extra two points.

Credit where credit is due for Austria: the sudden emergence of Verstappen/Red Bull as a winning force was entirely on merit.

Ferrari's strategy with Leclerc raised eyebrows but it was convinced it was right to start the race on soft tyres, and up until the very last laps it looked entirely correct. Despite leading with two-and-a-half laps to go, there was no clear path that would have allowed Leclerc to hang on and beat Verstappen.

Vettel - yet again failing to match Leclerc - was not in the picture because a problem with the airline feeding the pneumatic valves ruined his Q3.

It makes a small difference to our alternate reality, as Vettel should have earned an extra three points and banked another podium. That would have at least help him keep in touch with the battle for second in the championship, as Hamilton stretches his legs out front - although a 40-point spread across the top four is considerably tighter than the 74 points that separated the leading four drivers after nine races in reality.

Revised table after Austrian GP

Leclerc hangs on, Vettel falls away

Red Bull's rise causes as many problems for Ferrari in our alternate reality as it has in the real world.

At Silverstone, Leclerc and Vettel were not on the same level as Verstappen. And, perversely, were Vettel not to throw away points by torpedoing Verstappen then Leclerc would have ended up worse off.

Verstappen should have been third in the British GP, with Leclerc off the podium in fourth. Vettel, on merit, might have even finished behind the second Red Bull of Pierre Gasly - although we can give him the benefit of the doubt and hand him fifth.

Germany is even tougher than Azerbaijan to try to hazard a guess at what Ferrari ultimately cost itself. The chaotic nature of the rain-hit race means even if it had locked out the front row, which was absolutely possible, the result could have been completely different 24 hours later.

But the simple fact is Ferrari had the fastest car at Hockenheim yet was struck again by reliability gremlins. Both drivers were afflicted in qualifying: an intercooler problem condemned Vettel to the back of the grid, while a fuel system control module problem put paid to Leclerc's pole hopes.

The German GP was crazy. But as Hamilton was proving before he slid off the track, if you start at the front then you still have control of even the maddest races.

If Ferrari started that race as it should have, in first and second, it should have won. Given Leclerc had the pace advantage that weekend (a theme of the season), we can award him victory - although completely different race circumstances make it very harsh to decree he would repeat his error.

In the interest of fairness, even if we say Vettel completed the top two, we also have to consider that Mercedes' race changes completely in this scenario as well. Therefore, Hamilton does not go off, and we will award a nominal third place. Bottas's comparative lack of pace in the conditions means he slip to fifth, behind Verstappen.

Hungary does not change, as Ferrari's deficit was completely on merit. Bottas's error exists outside of events governed by Ferrari's actions. The race result stands.

Revised points at summer break

What's the point of this?

We've played a dangerous game in embracing the concept of an alternate reality, although perhaps we are fortunate it doesn't lead us to declare something truly controversial, such as Vettel leading the championship.

As we've tried to make clear, this is a world in which Ferrari doesn't repeatedly shoot itself in the foot. Races such as Azerbaijan, Monaco and Germany are impossible to call had Leclerc been in a different position without team or driver error.

We have also not taken into consideration areas where Mercedes could have improved, save for the fate of Hamilton/Bottas in Germany, as Ferrari represents a massive variable change in that race.

But what this does is present a rough estimate, a snapshot, of a reality that was eminently possible. We've not had to dramatically reinvent the 2019 season to get a rather different situation: as you can see from the above table, the major changes revolve around Ferrari costing itself so many points (and giving Verstappen a healthier tally early on in the season), rather than Mercedes' situation changing too dramatically.

In our version of 2019, Hamilton still entered the summer break with a handsome margin, but it is at least reduced: 44 points compared with 62. And it is over Leclerc, not Bottas. If the season resumed next weekend with Hamilton holding a 44-point lead over Leclerc, who in turn is 18 points clear of Vettel, then who knows what we could be primed for over the rest of the season.

At the very least, the prospect of a two-team fight for the title would still remain, and it would be complemented by the internal politics of Ferrari probably having to back Leclerc's prospects and compromise Vettel. And what of Bottas's fate in a world where he is no further behind Hamilton in terms of points, but is at risk of slipping behind both Ferraris in the championship?

The purpose of this experiment, if we can call it that, is not to twist any knives. It simply serves to show what potential there was for the 2019 season. Not just for Ferrari, but for F1 as a whole.