The 2019 F1 Season – A Handy Guide

This season features the same 10 teams as last year, with the team formerly known as Force India starting their 1st full season under their new Racing Point name, along with Sauber’s rebranding to Alfa Romeo Racing and 3 drivers are set to make their F1 racing debuts in 2019 (Lando Norris, George Russell & Alexander Albon) with 3 other drivers returning to the grid after various amounts of time away (Robert Kubica, Antonio Giovinazzi & Daniil Kvyat) and with Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen, Lance Stroll & Pierre Gasly moving teams that means that only Mercedes & Haas will retain the same lineups as 2018.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport – Car W10 EQ Power+ – Engine: Mercedes – Launch date: February 13th

• 44 Lewis Hamilton
• 77 Vatteri Bottas

Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow – Car SF90 – Engine: Ferrari – Launch date:  February 15th

• 5 Sebasitan Vettel
• 16 Charles Leclerc

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team – Car VF-19 – Engine: Ferrari – Launch date: February 7th

• 8 Romain Grosjean
• 20 Kevin Magnussen

McLaren F1 Team – Car: MCL34 – Engine: Renault – Launch date: February 14th

• 2 Lando Norris (R)
• 55 Carlos Sainz

Sport Pesa Racing Point- Car: RP19 – Engine: Mercedes – Launch date: February 13th

• 11 Sergio Perez
• 18 Lance Stroll

Aston Martin RedBull Racing – Car: RB15 – Engine: Honda – Launch date: February 13th

• 10 Pierre Gasly (Australia to Hungary)
• 23 Alex Albon (R) (Belgium to Abu Dhabi)
• 33 Max Verstappen

Renault F1 Team – Car: RS19- Engine: Renault – Launch date: February 12th

• 3 Daniel Ricciardo
• 27 Nico Hulkenberg

Alfa Romeo Racing (formerly Sauber) – Car: TBA – Engine: Ferrari – Launch date: February 18th

• 7 Kimi Raikkonen
• 99 Antonio Giovinazzi

RedBull Toro Rosso Honda – Car: STR14 – Engine: Honda – Launch date: February 11th

• 23 Alexander Albon (R) (Australia to Hungary)
• 10 Pierre Gasly (Belgium to Abu Dhabi)
• 26 Daniil Kvyat

Williams Racing – Car: FW42 – Engine: Mercedes – Launch date: February 11th

• 63 George Russell (R)
• 88 Robert Kubica

Testing is once again limited during the season with the 2 days of testing after the Bahrain Grand Prix and 2 days at the Hungaroring before the Summer break in August. Pirelli will be running private tyre tests during the season and we expect the usual young drivers test to take place in early December after the last race in Abu Dhabi

Pre Season:

• Barcelona Feb 18-21 (Afternoon sessions from 1PM GMT live on Sky Sports F1)
• Barcelona Feb 26 – March 1

In Season

• Bahrain March 2-3

Tyre Tests:

• TBC

Young Drivers Test

• Abu Dhabi Dec 3-4 (TBC)

For the 2nd year in a row we’ve got 21 races to look forward to this season. But unlike 2018 there isn’t another triple-header as FOM have now said that the 3 week back to back to back run was a “one-off” so as not to clash with the Football World Cup. There are 5 sets of back to back races this year France/Austria, Germany/Hungary, Belgium/Italy, Singapore/Russia & Mexico/USA and the summer break will be for most of August between Hungary and Belgium. The 1000th Grand Prix is scheduled for this season at the 3rd race of the year in China.

There are a few rule changes for 2019, the most visible ones will be the new aerodynamic regulations around the simplified front wings with and the DRS slot on the rear wing being widened to make DRS more powerful. Also the maximum fuel limit is raised from 105kg to 110kg in an attempt to reduce the fuel saving tactics that have come into play since mid-race refuelling was stopped in 2010

Another noticeable change will be the tyres; instead of the 5 dry compound colours, we will just see 3 all season. While Pirelli have created a variety of compounds with differing hardness and durability, we’ll only see white for the hardest tyre of the weekend, yellow for the medium and red for the softest available.

From this season, the driver’s weight will not be taken into account when weighing the car and instead drivers will have to weigh a minimum of 80kg (176.4lbs) otherwise ballast will be added to the seat area of the car to make up the weight.