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It is amazing what a holiday, growing a beard, and a chance to recharge the batteries can do.
When Valtteri Bottas left Yas Marina Circuit after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November, the final round of the 2018 season, he looked to be a spent force both physically and mentally.
He had finished a distant fifth as his Mercedes world champion teammate Lewis Hamilton triumphed and looked thoroughly dispirited in his post-race interviews.
He talked of still believing he could beat Hamilton, but it felt as if he was almost trying to convince himself this was still the case as much as the interviewer.
It summed up an ultimately miserable campaign for the Finn, who had become the first Mercedes driver in six years to go a whole year without winning at least once.
Yet fast forward to Sunday and Bottas has started 2019 in superb fashion, dominating the opening race in Australia to lead the drivers’ championship for the first time in his career.
It was not just the fact he won, but how he did it, that stood out here.
He emphatically out-paced Hamilton in a fair fight and beat the five-time world champion by 20 seconds.
The statistic that he was winless in 2018 while accurate does not completely tell the whole story. Misfortune cost Bottas victories in China and Azerbaijan, while team orders denied him in Russia.
Those were all good drives but nothing compared to the levels he achieved in Australia 2019.
The challenge now for Bottas is to achieve this kind of level of performance consistently and prove it is not a one-off.
One race win does not win a championship and he will need many displays of the equivalent of Melbourne if he is to be Finland’s fourth world champion after Keke Rosberg, Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen.
Beating Hamilton once is impressive but doing it week-in-and-week-out for the majority of the next 20 races is the goal he must seek to achieve.
The Briton, ultimately, is still the fastest racer on the grid and more often than not, will out-qualify his teammate. This time, Bottas got a better start and overtook Hamilton into the first corner, but had the latter reached Turn One ahead, he’d have streaked ahead into the distance.
Whether Mercedes were sandbagging in testing or have suddenly found the secret to unlock the car’s potential, we’ll never know. In my view, it’s a little bit of both, but it leaves those behind wondering if we’ve got another year of the norm to come.
Ferrari seem to have major problems. They didn’t just have ‘one of those weekends’ or committed a strategy error. They were, quite frankly, slow. Sebastian Vettel asked as much on the radio and wasn’t given an answer.
Admittedly, this track has never quite suited them, unlike Bahrain in two weeks’ time, so perhaps after that we’ll truly be able to assess the lay of the land.
The midfield, however, looks closer than ever with qualifying times on a knife-edge and a train of cars providing a medley of colour down the pit straight for most of the race. There are many battles to come, with each point being vital.
It was not a thrilling Australian Grand Prix in terms of track action, and rarely is due to its tight, narrow street circuit nature. But it sets up some fascinating narratives for the months ahead.
All eyes were on if it would be Ferrari v Mercedes but for now it is Bottas v Hamilton, with the question of how quickly the world champion can hit back.
