F1 2017 Season Review Part 3

Lets pick up part 3 were we left part 2. The Force India drivers were mightily impressive and if I were to make a top 10 list of drivers they would both be right up there.

They have a very good driver line-up. Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez. The former is going to be a champion in the future. At just 21-years-old, Ocon had an excellent season and holds the record for the most consecutive finishes as a rookie (27 races). It was his first retirement in any racing series since 2014. Ocon was in the points for 18 out of the 20 races and crucially didn’t lose his head too much when things got frosty between himself and Perez. The young Frenchman didn’t make any silly errors and definitely showed that he may well be in a works Mercedes sooner than later.

Perez had another solid year. He was in the points for 17 out of the 20 races. The consistency is staggering especially when the midfield were expected to be so close coming into the season. Perez actually out qualified Ocon but did cause a couple of collisions with his teammate over the season. First, it was Baku, the 2 Force India’s collided in what was for me, a racing incident. It was very similar to Raikkonen’s and Bottas’ collision earlier in the race at the same point. A race win was lost. Then, in Canada, you could argue that Perez should have let his teammate through so that Ocon could have hot his maiden podium.

Minor contact in Hungary at the start was a racing incident but tempers went sky high when Perez was at fault when he didn’t leave Ocon enough room as they battled towards Eau Rouge. A puncture for Perez, some damage for Ocon and a very angry pit wall meant that team orders were put in place until the 4th place finish in the constructors’ championship was assured.

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Williams will be disappointed with their season. Minimal is the word I would use to describe their 2017. Felipe Massa was meant to be in retirement but instead, he was picking up crucial points and outshining Lance Stroll for the majority of the season. It is time to go and he’s given us a lot of unforgettable moments in Formula 1 but he leaves Williams with a very difficult choice as to who will fill his seat. More on that in another article. Lance Stroll had moments of pure brilliance but also lacked a lot of pace at a lot of the race weekends.

Baku saw Stroll have his best weekend by far. He hardly made any mistakes when others fumbled. The young Canadian took full advantage as he was in 2nd place up until the last meters of the race when Valtteri Bottas flew passed him. He still took a podium and became the youngest rookie to be on the podium at 18 years and 239 days. A stunning and astonishing drive. In torrential wet conditions on a dismal Saturday afternoon, Lance Stroll shone and shone brightly. He qualified 4th but started on the front row (after the Red Bulls incurred penalties) which meant he became the youngest ever front row starter ever.

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Those were the major positives but there was a number of negatives. A slow start to the season wasn’t great but it was expected. In head to head qualifying, Massa beat Stroll 17-2 and Stroll was on average 0.621 slower over the season. To be so much slower than someone who wasn’t meant to even be driving in F1 isn’t good. He needs to show more raw speed next year because qualifying is so important in modern F1. His race pace hasn’t always been too good either. The last 2 races in Brazil and Abu Dhabi saw Stroll towards the back when Massa was in the points. Considering the pressure that Stroll had from a lot of F1 fans and critics before the season, it hasn’t been to bad and he has shown potential. Consistency will be the key for the upcoming season.

2017 Team mate Qualifying Battles

Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton 13 – 7 Valtteri Bottas

Ferrari: Sebastian Vettel 15 – 5 Kimi Raikkonen

Red Bull: Daniel Ricciardo 7 – 13 Max Verstappen

Force India: Sergio Perez 13 – 7 Esteban Ocon

Williams: Felipe Massa 17 – 2 Lance Stroll

Lance Stroll 1 – 0 Paul di Resta

Renault: Nico Hulkenberg 3 – 1 Carlos Sainz

Nico Hülkenberg 16 – 0 Jolyon Palmer

Toro Rosso: Pierre Gasly 1 – 2 Brendon Hartley

Carlos Sainz 8 – 6 Daniil Kvyat

Carlos Sainz 2 – 0 Pierre Gasly

Daniil Kvyat 1 – 0 Brendon Hartley

Haas: Romain Grosjean 12 – 8 Kevin Magnussen

McLaren: Fernando Alonso 16 – 3 Stoffel Vandoorne

Jenson Button 1 – 0 Stoffel Vandoorne

Sauber: Marcus Ericsson 7 – 11 Pascal Wehrlein

Marcus Ericsson 2 – 0 Antonio Giovinazzi

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Renault secured a 6th place in the constructors’ championship at the last race in Abu Dhabi with a controversial move by Nico Hulkenberg on Sergio Perez. Nevertheless, it was a steady season for Renault and the 6th place means that they’re still on track to get back to the front in the next few seasons. Their car was a good qualifying car but lacked race pace and wore out its tyres more than the other cars. It was good at the high-speed circuits such as Silverstone and Spa but was lacklustre at medium to low-speed tracks like Hungary and Austria.

Reliability from the Renault engine plagued Renault themselves as well as Red Bull and Toro Rosso. Off the track matters were the biggest stories for the Enstone based team with ex-FIA man, Marcin Budkowski , joining the team in April which all the teams were not happy about, mostly because they didn’t snap him up themselves. In October, Jolyon Palmer was dropped and in came Carlos Sainz and during the Brazil weekend, a public spat between Renault and Toro Rosso ramped up the tension even more as Franz Tost basically said that Renault were intentionally sabotaging the Toro Rosso engines so that Renault could stop Toro Rosso from finishing ahead of them in the constructors’ championship. It was quite fun to watch as a fan but Cyril Abiteboul must have been fuming to say the least.

Nico Hulkenberg now holds the record for the most starts without a podium. Not a fact that you want under your name. He regularly impressed in qualifying by being ahead or on par with the Force India drivers but he always seemed to go backwards in the races. A driver error in Baku proved costly and the possibility of that maiden podium went away in seconds as Hulkenberg clipped the inside wall at turn 7. Renault was the only team to not score points at that race. Good performances in Spain, Belgium and Abu Dhabi shows that given the car, Hulkenberg will perform. I think it’s a matter of, when will that first podium come?

Jolyon Palmer scored points in just one of the 16 races he took part in. Yes he had some bad luck, including that DNS at his home GP in Britain but he wasn’t quick enough and even though he was the 2014 GP2 champion, the brilliance he showed there didn’t occur in his F1 career. He’s had his chances (too many) and hasn’t taken them. You have to impress immediately in Formula 1 and Palmer hasn’t even looked like he will do that anytime soon. It’s a shame and it only leaves one British driver on the grid, but Palmer had to go.

That’s part 3, coming up next is part 4.