I do feel that again the draw helped him out a bit this year. I don't mean that in the sense of "lol no top 25 player, vulture" or "baghdatis lol, vulture", but I feel he has shown better personal levels in his previous title runs (and to make it fair, yes Fed was also helped at AO 2018 and Djokovic at USO 2018). That said, he was beating that competition mostly in three sets until Meddy came back.
But finished on HC? Never. Usually after a loss against a fellow big 3 player, people then extend that to the future where apparently no tournaments can transpire without facing another big 3 member. Against the field, Nadal won't constantly beat everyone on hardcourt, but he will definitely still be the favourite most of the time. If Nadal is a little luckier with his opponent in AO finals, he can win that too.
He's great on HC, it just doesn't accentuate his strengths as well as clay does. But the guy, outside of that bad 2015-2016 period, has done something significant on hardcourts every year of his career except 2004 and 2006 (this includes winning/reaching a HC slam final or winning a M1000). And post 2016, he made the final at both the AO and the USO in 2017 AND 2019, and definitely would have reached one in 2018 if he didn't have to retire in both of them. That's four out of six, he has never had a HC slam stretch like that before.