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I got bored so here's some of the 'facts' if the season was missing the Mercedes works team (all a bit of fun and not to be taken too seriously!)

Ricciardo would be champion from Bottas 315 points to 273. They would have went into Abu Double Doo with a shot at the title and Ricciardo being thrown out of Qualifying with his team mate would have made things dramatic indeed! You can imagine Massa would have moved over for Bottas as well at some stage allowing him to take all 50 points and win number 5.

Over the season Ricciardo amassed 6 wins, Bottas 4, Vettel and Massa 3 each and Alonso, Perez and Magnussen, who would have taken a sensational debut victory for McLaren, all got 1 win each.

There would have been 5 podiums for Jenson Button, 3 for Nico Hulkenberg, another one for rookie Magnussen, and even one for Kimi in Spa! Jules Bianchi would have finished a sensational 6th on the road, 7th after penalty for Marussia in Monaco and would have scored 6 points for doing so meaning Marussia would still have outscored Sauber over the season 6 points to 5 despite Sauber getting three points finishes. Caterham would have scored their first points in Monaco as well with a 9th for Ericsson.

Red Bull would have won the WCC from Williams with Ferrari close behind in 3rd. Every team would have scored points in the season for the first time since 2005.

That seems like a much better season!

haha, thanks ... that was awesome.

Sounds like a great season.

Imagine the drama of the first race - Ricciardo sticks it on pole and wins his home race only to be disqualified.

Vettel retires from the lead of Monaco. Kimi looks like he will win and then he gets a puncture.

Great battle between Red Bulls and Alonso in Singapore for the lead.

Once you got by positions 1 & 2 it was a relatively competitive year for 3rd.

Nice post. It sounds like a good season!

Awesome thread but I wonder how things would really have shaken out if there were no Mercedes team and if Lewis and Nico did not participate at all. I can't help but think that Massa would have won the championship. I don't know what makes me think that. Just a hunch. I think the Williams car was the best of the rest most of the time and I think Massa is a dramatically different driver when he can start on pole on a regular basis.

To me, without Mercedes stats make the Vettel-Ricciardo battle less one sided. Not sure why really (3 wins to 0 isn't really that much better than 6-1).

I think if we took out Mercedes and re-did the whole year (rather than removing them from results - which I admit is the more practicable idea) we would have seen Williams winning a lot in the middle. RBR would take an early lead. And in the close, I think RBR would have simply out-spent the Williams team and taken it. So my imaginary scenario somewhat matches up with the real thing, which I suppose isn't surprising since my imaginary re-running is based off the actual results anyway.

Perez would've won the Bahrain grand prix as well. A win that's so much required by Force India.

Every team scored points in 2009, but otherwise excellent post

How can you tell it's the off-season in F1?

Forum posters start arguing about what might've happened instead of what is going to happen.