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• Valtteri Bottas is second in the 2020 F1 championship.
• Bottas has topped most of the opening practice sessions in races this year.
• Lewis Hamilton will win his seventh F1 championship in 2020, unchallenged.
• For more motoring stories, go to www.Wheels24.co.za
With only five races remaining in the 2020 Formula 1 season, it's only a matter of 'when' Lewis Hamilton will win his record-equaling seventh championship. The Britain has been in a class of his own throughout the season and amassed a lead of 77 points over Mercedes-AMG team mate, Valtteri Bottas.
And given the groove Hamilton is in, it's highly unlikely that Bottas will be able to prevent him from signing another world championship to his name.
However, if we were to live in a different world where points were handed out in other circumstances, the 2020 championship standings would have looked a whole lot different than what we're dealing with right now.
READ: Bottas needs a 'miracle' to win the 2020 F1 title
Do you think Bottas ever had a chance of winning the F1 championship in 2020? Email us with your thoughts.
Bottas could have won
The 2020 F1 season has been turned on its head, yet the bigwigs managed to string a season together. Sadly, Hamilton's domination is putting a damper on any excitement one could have enjoyed at the front of the field. Still, we should probably not blame him and Mercedes for making the most of the regulations.
At a race weekend, things kick off with the first two practice sessions on the Friday, third practice and qualifying on a Saturday, and the race on Sunday. It is in the race where points are allocated.
If in a different world points were handed out at the end of the first practice session, Bottas would be leading this year's championship race on 252 points to Hamilton's 207. Bottas is the driver to have topped most of the timesheets during the first practice sessions and has even been dubbed 'The Friday Champion' by F1 commentators.
READ: Within an outside chance - Here's how Valtteri Bottas could win the 2020 F1 championship
Bottas, it seems, can extract performance from his car very quickly, while Hamilton will continuously tap into his car's potential and extract more performance as the race weekend goes on. This is quite telling because while Bottas is quick from the off, he can't maintain it throughout a weekend - something Hamilton can do with relative ease.
Sadly for Bottas, points are only handed out on a Sunday. And if he wants to ever beat Hamilton to the title, he'd have to find a way to convert his Friday performances into race wins on Sundays.
