If we needed another reminder we are never in the clear during this pandemic, we received it Tuesday morning when Mercedes-AMG announced Lewis Hamilton had tested positive for COVID-19 and will be forced to miss the Sakhir Grand Prix, the penultimate round of the 2020 season.
Looking at the big picture, Hamilton's absence does not matter that much. Hamilton has already clinched the World Drivers' Championship. Mercedes has already clinched the World Constructors' Championship. While this is far from desired and we all hope Hamilton can recover, it does not affect the final outcome of the 2020 Formula One season.
You would have thought we were good with two races remaining, especially with the penultimate round taking place at the same track as the prior race in Bahrain. Formula One has done an exceptional job when it comes to its protocol to protect drivers, teams, broadcasters and everyone else necessary to be on the ground for a grand prix. Perfection was asking a lot, and there was likely going to be a few people to contract the virus. A few notable people have been forced to miss races, from those in the back of the garage to those behind the wheel.
Hamilton is the third driver to miss a round due to illness. Racing Point drivers Sergio Pérez and Lance Stroll both missed races. Plenty of series have encounter the virus and seen altered entry lists. The entire fleet of Porsche factory drivers were quarantined after the 24 Hours of Le Mans, forcing the German manufacture to withdraw from the IMSA race at Mid-Ohio the following weekend and it completely reshuffled Porsche's lineup for the 24 Hours Nürburgring. Valentino Rossi and Jimmie Johnson each got it. Felipe Nasr was forced to miss a race.
Were some championships altered because of the pandemic? Sure.
Was it significant? Only time will tell, but we have gotten through this year mostly unharmed and no season has been scarred due to excessive number of competitors forced into isolation. More importantly, no one has taken seriously ill or perished due to contracting the virus at an event.
Hamilton stepped into a brighter spotlight this season. He was already the best driver on the Formula One grid, but he took on a greater role in 2020 speaking out for equality around the globe and diversity within the Formula One paddock. On top of his on-track success, Hamilton's off-track exploits have garnered him more respect from people around the globe, especially from those who had no prior interest in motorsports.
His legacy is solidly intact, and Hamilton will receive knighthood at the end of the year, but with Hamilton's 2020 season possibly ending prematurely, there are a host of historic things we will not get to see.
For starters, Hamilton's record of most consecutive starts will end at 265 starts, dating back to his debut in the 2007 Australian Grand Prix. He could have won the two remaining pole positions in 2020 and ended the season with 100 career pole positions. He had won the last five races and could have ended the season with seven consecutive victories, putting Hamilton in prime position at the start of the 2021 season of breaking Sebastian Vettel's record of nine consecutive victories.
If Hamilton had won the final two races of 2020, he would have tied the record for most victories in a season with 13, which Michael Schumacher originally set in 2004 and Vettel matched in 2013. If Hamilton had won 13 of 17 races, he would have broken Alberto Ascari's record for highest winning percentage in a season, which has stood since 1952, the third season of Formula One.
Hamilton's streak of 48 consecutive points finishes will come to an end. He is only 13 laps away from becoming the all-time leader in laps led, surpassing Schumacher's record of 5,111. If he had won the final two races from pole position, he would have broken another record having won ten races from pole position in a season.
Though so much had been accomplished this year, more was available for Hamilton, much of it will still be possible in 2021. He will waste no time hitting the century mark in pole positions and victories. The laps led record will be his in a blink. He has already broken his consecutive points streak once. He very well could do it again.
There will a few opportunities lost. What are the odds of him coming this close to winning 13 races in a season again or winning over 75% of the races? He had only won five consecutive races, but ten felt like a real possibility with how this season was ending and how we expect next year to play out.
We are all hopeful Hamilton does to suffer a great setback due to contracting the virus. I am sure he will be just fine and recover. In a strange way, Hamilton's absence gives many what they had always hoped for.
The Sakhir Grand Prix will be a chance to see how much the cars comes into play in Formula One versus the driver. Many drivers have had their success diminished due to the automobile they sit behind. Hamilton is no different from Michael Schumacher in that vain. This is a chance for the ultimate test. One driver thrown into the Mercedes, the best car on the grid, and we get to see if any old respectable driver can just hop in and win or at least be respectfully competitive.
Truth be told, there is more than the car at play. Hamilton after all does have a 131-point advantage over his teammate Valtteri Bottas, who has the same car. Hamilton also pulled out an impressive victory at Turkey that was strictly down to pace in changing conditions where a fluky safety car did not flip the running order. While Hamilton was incredible in Istanbul, Bottas spun a half-dozen times and scored zero points.
The Mercedes might be the best car, but Hamilton is the best driver, and doesn't it make sense for the builders of the best car to put the best driver behind the wheel? Doesn't it make sense for the best driver to pilot the best car?
Whether Stoffel Vandoorne or Nico Hülkenberg or George Russell is put in the Mercedes for the Sakhir Grand Prix, we are going to have a baseline, even if it is a flawed one. None of those three drivers have been in the Mercedes. Hülkenberg and Russell have at least driven a Formula One car this year. They will be competing against Bottas, who has exclusively been in the Mercedes all year and Max Verstappen, who has exclusively been in the Red Bull all year and who is only 12 points behind Bottas in the championship. There will also be 18 other drivers on the grid who have spent the last five months mastering the machinery underneath them.
In all likelihood, it will not be as easy as someone stepping into the Mercedes, immediately shooting to the top spot and leaving with the biggest piece of silverware on Sunday night. We will get an idea of what a certain driver can do in his first outing in that car, a car that has been the class of the field all season. Draw conclusions at your own risk.
For the clumsy and quirky nature of 2020, the World Drivers' Champion missing a race and possibly being unable to contest the final two rounds due to contracting the virus is the laziest storyline a group of scriptwriters could have come up with. But in a year that has been so different, from doubleheader weekends to new tracks to returning tracks, this final plot twist, removing of the best driver from the grid, might be the most fitting way to end the season.
