If you are a fan of Mercedes motorsports, then it has been an 
incredible start to the Formula 1 season for your team. Seven races into the season and Mercedes have won all seven, finishing with a 1-2 in five of those races, with defending World Champion Lewis Hamilton picking up five wins for the team and Finnish team mate Valtteri Bottas landing two.
In addition, Bottas has also landed two extra points for earning the fastest lap in two of those seven races, while Hamilton has picked up one bonus point for the fastest lap. In a sport where it is incredibly difficult to be competitive in every race, Mercedes are setting new benchmarks when it comes to consistently high performance in Formula 1.
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However, this weekend their stellar start to the season will be put to the test as the teams head to the famous track of Paul Ricard in La Castellet, with Ferrari in particular believing that they now have the car to potentially end Mercedes run of dominance in races so far this season. Indeed but for a somewhat harsh penalty on Sebastian Vettel in the last race in Canada, Ferrari would have already broken the German team’s winning streak.
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Let’s now recap how the Formula 1 season has gone so far.
F1 The Season So Far
The tables below are compiled after the seven races including the race in Canada.
Driver’s Championship 2019
- Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – 162
- Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) – 133
- Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) – 100
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – 88
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 72
- Pierre Gasly (Red Bull) – 36
- Carlos Sainz (McLaren) – 18
- Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) – 16
- Kevin Magnussen (Haas) – 14
- Sebastien Perez (Racing Point), Kimi Raikonnen (Alfa Romeo) – 13
- Luke Norris (McLaren) – 12
- Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) – 12
- Danil Kviyat (Toro Rosso) – 10
- Alexander Albon (Toro Rosso) – 7
- Lance Stroll (Racing Point) – 6
- Sebastian Grosjean (Haas) – 2
- Antonio Giovanazzi (Alfa Romeo), George Russell (Williams), Robert Kubica (Williams) – 0
Constructor’s Championship 2019
- Mercedes – 295
- Ferrari – 172
- Red Bull Racing – 124
- McLaren – 30
- Renault – 28
- Racing Point – 19
- Toro Rosso – 17
- Haas – 16
- Alfa Romeo – 13
- Williams – 0
The action returns to Europe after Canada with the French Grand Prix the opening race in a series of events taking place across Europe over the next few months.
History of the French Grand Prix
Paul Ricard once again became home to the French Grand Prix in 
2018, after a ten year hiatus from the sport. As of 2018, a new layout of the famous track had been used and it now measures 5.842 kilometers in length, the longest iteration of the track in Paul Ricard’s long history.
The race has been held a total of 87 times with the very first race held back in 1906 and won by Renault driver Ferenc Szisz.
Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver in the race’s history winning eight times in total, twice more than local hero Alain Prost and three more than Louis Chiron. Nigel Mansell and Juan Manuel Fangio come next on the list of winners with four wins apiece while Jack Brabham and Jackie Stewart each have landed two wins.
Other notable winners of the race include Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, Ralf Schumacher, David Coulthard, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Damon Hill, Nelson Piquet and Niki Lauda.
Several drivers have achieved back-to-back French Grand Prix wins, but only Alain Prost has managed to win three French Grand Prix in successive years achieving the feat in 1988. 1989 and 1990, before winning once again, for the sixth and final time, in 1993.
The only drivers in the current field to have won a French Grand Prix are Kimi Raikkonen, who won back in 2007 and Lewis Hamilton, who won last year’s race.
Odds To Win the French Grand Prix
*The odds shown below are correct as of 12.00pm on Wednesday 19th June 2019 with bet365 Sport
- Lewis Hamilton – 8/11 favourite
- Valtteri Bottas – 11/4
- Sebastian Vettel – 9/2
- Charles Leclerc – 7/1
- Max Verstappen – 22/1
- Pierre Gasly – 350/1
- 1000/1 bar
Will Hamilton streak to victory once again?
The bookmakers seem to think that the current World Champion is likely to be the man to beat at Paul Ricard this weekend, but there is a cautionary tale here. Ferrari showed in Canada that they have the car to now match Mercedes and but for the time penalty added on to Vettel at the end of the race, Ferrari would have claimed the win in Montreal.
Clearly, the Italian team are now making inroads into the lead Mercedes have held over the teams in F1 so far this season and I think they will want further evidence of that here on a track where they have won more times than any other constructor.
However, as good as the Ferrari car is, it is not as reliable as the Mercedes and in a straight battle between the two, especially on track that is famed for the Mistral Straight, that extra power the Mercedes has may well prove to be telling.
I think this is going to be a three-way battle between Vettel, Hamilton and Bottas for the top honours here and although he has been a little below par in the last couple of races, I don’t think Bottas should be ruled out and I’d expect those three cars to pass the line within a few seconds of each other.
However, with the burning injustice of Montreal still in his mind, I expect Sebastian Vettel to cause an upset here and land the win and as such, at odds of 9/2, I’d back the German to pip Hamilton and Bottas to top spot.
