Some people are fans of Mercedes. But many, many more people are NOT fans of Mercedes. This 2019 Oppositelock team preview is for those in the latter group. This is also a poor knockoff of Drew Magary’s infamous and inflammatory yearly NFL previews. Read all the previews here.
Your Team: Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport
Your 2018 results: 655 points which was, gee, what a fucking surprise, Mercedes won the Gotdamn championship for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th year in a row! Yet, it was still their worst season of the V6 turbo era, winning just 11 races, netting only 73% of the possible points, and their drivers finishing 1st and 5th in the points. DISAPPOINTED!
How dare they not win every race, do they not care about UTTER DOMINANCE? Some kind of Germans they are.
Your Car: F1 W10 EQ Power+
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Your Team Principal: Toto Wolff runs all of Mercedes-Benz racing. He also owns 30% of the F1 team. When Toto isn’t blessing the rains down in Africa, he’s also busy making money and racing around the Nürburgring. Singing backup is James Alison, the Chief Technical Director. James has been involved in winning 11 WCC’s from Benetton, Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes. After getting sacked by Ferrari in 2016, he came to Mercedes and won the last two championships. Crazy how karma works in F1.
Your Drivers: Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas
Lewis Hamilton #blessed, is now a #blessed 5 time F1 champion which ties him with El Maestro Juan Manuel Fangio, and 2 behind Michael Schumacher. Hamilton, in addition to being incredibly #blessed with outright speed is also #blessed with consistency and minimal errors on track. He also lives the jetset lifestyle by dating popstars and models #blessed, rapping, and a fashion line with Tommy Hilfiger #BRAND. Lewis is probably the most HATED driver in on the grid because of EVERYTHING I just mentioned. For every LH fan, there are five who can’t stand him and two or three Italians who vehemently despise him. You can also buy his hats here.
Valtteri Bottas on the other hand, is a quiet Finn who is a welder in his spare time. He was brought on to the Mercedes in a trade with Williams for Paddy Lowe after Nico Rosberg retired out of the blue. After a promising 2017, Bottas had a shit luck 2018 and was quickly relegated to playing tail gunner for Hamilton #cursed.
What’s new that sucks: In addition to an entirely new chassis, Mercedes also went and developed an entirely new power unit after the the team from Maranello gave them trouble last year.
What’s always sucked: This team began as Tyrrell in 1968, winning their only constructors’ championship in 1971. They were major contenders throughout the 70’s before falling off into the mid to lower also rans through 1998. The team was then sold to British American Tobacco and renamed British American Racing. But, the cars and equipment were sold to the bloke who bought Minardi (see Toro Rosso), and new facilities were built. After not winning anything, BAR then became Honda Racing F1 Team in 2006. Honda won 1 race in 2006, and that’s it. They developed a car for the 2009 season but pulled out selling the team to managers Ross Brawn and Nick Fry. Brawn F1 was partially financially supported by Honda, but they used a Mercedes V8 and then promptly won the fucking championship. In 2010 Brawn was bought out by Mercedes and Toto Wolff. They closed out the V8 era by finishing 4th, 4th, 5th and 2nd in the points behind Red Bull. This bizarro timeline has resulted in just 2 teams winning the championship for the past 9 fucking seasons. This is why people hate F1, it’s the NFL of motorsports.
What might not suck: We might get a good fight between multiple teams this year, but in reality we will most likely see a repeat of last year with Mercedes fighting Ferrari. The most consistent team will win, and that team is Mercedes, because of course it is.
Fuck.