2019 F1 Silly Season to be a dud

Valtteri Bottas will keep his seat, as will Raikkonen and Ricciardo

Despite all the rumors to the contrary, we here at AR1.com expect the 2019 F1 Silly Season to be a non-event.

We predict Mercedes will keep Bottas because he is no threat to Hamilton but still can get regular points and is getting better.

We expect Raikkonen to stay at Ferrari because he is doing well and Vettel is very comfortable with him, so it is a safe proposition. We can't imagine Vettel will want Riccardo in that seat but he's not gonna say that obviously.

So why would Riccardo stay with Red Bull? Well, they want him, the Honda is getting better, and Max is not terribly dependable yet, if ever. So we think everyone stays where they are for 2019 for the top 3 teams.

So what then of Fernando Alonso?

He doesn't have much choice really.

He can stay with McLaren and probably never win another F1 race.

Since the top-3 teams will be locked out, ditto for any other F1 team he tries.

He could choose to run WEC or IndyCar fulltime.

But we think he will stay with McLaren and Cherry Pick the Indy 500 and 24 Hours of LeMans each year.