F1 2017 Season Review Part 2
As Hamilton and Vettel battled for glory, everyone else was either chasing them or involved in their own battles. Sometimes it got personal, sometimes a bit rough, sometimes it was for victory.
Valtteri Bottas took a maiden pole position in Bahrain and a maiden win in Russia. It was a strong start for the Finnish driver and everyone was impressed with how he handled the pressure of filling in the retired Nico Rosberg’s world championship seat. A lightning start in Austria gave him a 2nd career win but it all unravelled in the second half of the season.
Having to be let through by Hamilton in Hungary to take a podium and a poor race restart in Belgium was the first of the troubles for Bottas. He lacked pace for most of the flyaway races and wasn’t able to get within touching distance of Hamilton. His amazing start to the season was starting to be overlooked with poor performances in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and USA were lows for Bottas. He saved it with a much-needed win in Abu Dhabi and overall I think Bottas should be satisfied with his year. It could have been worse but he needs to go up a level in 2018 to stay with the Mercedes team. Can he do it? Yes. Will he is the big question.
His Finnish compatriot Kimi Raikkonen had one of his worst seasons in his F1 career. Don’t get me wrong Raikkonen is a driver that I want to see do well and I would love it if he could challenge for race wins regularly. His best days are gone and I don’t think he should have been kept for 2018. Retirement may have been a better choice because the fire and the drive isn’t there for Raikkonen. A pole position at Monaco was the season’s highlight for him and if he was given a better strategy, he could have won the race. I still believe that Vettel was given a better strategy to win that race but Raikkonen still missed a huge opportunity because he just needed to have some more pace after he made his first stop. It wasn’t to be as Vettel executed and Raikkonen defeated.
He had another chance in Hungary as Vettel had problems with his car in the race. No move, or even attempted move was made as he settled for 2nd place. Raikkonen was caught up in the championship changing collision in Singapore and he would have been in the lead had he made it passed the first corner. More bad luck followed as he didn’t even start the Malaysia race. However, all of this doesn’t mean that it’s all been rotten luck for Raikkonen. His qualifying hasn’t been good, his race pace and racecraft has been terrible and he simply isn’t one of the best drivers on the grid anymore. When he’s had chances to attack or defend at pivotal points of a race, he’s never came out on top. Ferrari has arguably had the best car this year and Raikkonen has only managed 1 pole position, 3 front row starts and zero victories.
Red Bull will be disappointed. Everyone was expecting them to challenge Mercedes straight away with the new aerodynamic overhaul in the regulations. But, they just started off on the wrong foot and left themselves too much to do. As mentioned in part 1, they suspension row hurt Red Bull and I think they had to change their design of their car quite dramatically. The RB13 may have had 13 podiums but it also had led to 13 retirements. Strange coincidence. Considering the awful start that Red Bull had and that they were over a minute behind in Spain, it wasn’t a bad season and they were the best team at developing their car (again).
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As for their drivers, the reliability woes led to lots of frustration. 5 DNFs in 7 races for Max Verstappen caused rumours of him signing for Mercedes or Ferrari. These rumours were crushed when an unexpected announcement in October meant that the 20-year-old will be staying at Red Bull until 2020 (with break out clauses I’m sure). Canada hurt Max, and Baku was brutal. Things were galling apart for the Dutchman but he stayed very calm and composed for a young Formula 1 driver. A long-awaited win in Malaysia was followed a few races later with a dominant win in Mexico.
Both of those victories were utterly dominant, Verstappen himself said that he was “bored” because he was that far ahead. Verstappen became the first driver to out qualify Daniel Ricciardo over a Formula 1 season which shows that he is special because Ricciardo was/is regarded as one of the best drivers over one lap. There was only one proper wet race (Singapore) and unlike last season, we didn’t get to see Verstappen race in the wet. The only other time was the first dozen laps of the Chinese Grand Prix when Verstappen got a brilliant start and overtook nine cars in two minutes. He got onto the podium after starting in 16th place. We also didn’t see as much aggression or attacking driving from Verstappen. His “illegal” move on Raikkonen in America could have been a stand out overtake but he was penalised and I can’t remember any other magical moments from Max. That said, he showed a lot of maturity and this year was a year of learning for him.
Daniel Ricciardo had a nightmare start to his season. Crashing in qualifying in Melbourne in front of his home crowd, unable to start the race on the grid and then a DNF whilst trundling around at the back would have hurt him. He got on the podium in Spain and then remarkably went onto a streak of 5 podiums, including that marvellous victory in Baku.
An almighty overtake into turn 1 on one of the safety car restarts overtaking not one, not two but three cars all on the brakes whilst being off the racing line is remarkable. His late baking powers came to the fore again as he lit up a dull Italian Grand Prix with another mega move, this time on Kimi Raikkonen. More reliability woes plagued the RB13 as Ricciardo has 3 DNFs (USA, Mexico, Abu Dhabi) in the last 4 races.
I will discuss Red Bull in more detail when I preview the upcoming 2018 season.
Finishing in 4th place in the constructors’ championship was Force India. I mean, what can you say about them. They must have at least a tenth of the budget that Mercedes or Ferrari have yet they get consistent points and beat works teams such as Renault and McLaren more often than not. They are the best team on the grid if you were to look at everyone’s budget and compare it to their performance. They have to get it right first time when developing because they have a small budget. If they get it wrong, then they can’t simply fix it and find another upgrade because this will cost them lots of money and time. It’s incredible to see them get their upgrades working and working well. They still need a big figure on the pit wall because it’s not very clear who makes the big decisions and the only downside this year for Force India is that they didn’t get an annual podium. Had someone taken the lead role or called the shots, things could have been different, perhaps a win was taken out of their own hands.
It looks like I’m going to need at least 4 parts to review this F1 season. I just can’t stop myself from writing so much and the worst thing is, I could say even more than I have about the drivers I’ve discussed so far. Oh well, the more the merrier they say!
Stay tuned for part 3.