The 2017 F1 season was a classic one to remember, except for the last seven races that completely deflated the epic Hamilton vs Vettel and Mercedes vs Ferrari battle.
Five years! One has to go back five years, the 2012 F1 season, to find a gap of under 200 points between the top two teams in the constructors’ championship. That year just 60 points separated Red Bull Racing from Ferrari as Sebastian Vettel beat Fernando Alonso to the title by a mere three points. From 2013 until 2016, 236 points was the lowest gap between the top two constructors in a period where one team clearly held sway. The closest battles one saw was between teammates, and it seemed like inter-team rivalries had become a thing of the past courtesy of Red Bull and then Mercedes-Benz AMG F1 with the gap between Mercedes and whoever finished second hovering around 300 points.
But something magical happened in 2017 that had F1 fans jumping for joy in unison from the Australian Grand Prix in March till the Italian Grand Prix in September. There was an actual, proper rivalry in F1 again! And even if it ended on a decidedly anticlimactic note, the numbers do speak for what had transpired over most of the season. The top two in the constructors’ championship were separated by 146 points. Not bad in the era of huge points tallies that started from 2010 with the revised scoring system.
Driving the battle between Mercedes and Ferrari were the two most successful drivers of the post-Schumacher era of F1 – Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. Both drivers are top dogs at two of F1, motorsport and the automotive world’s biggest brands. Both with very clear ties to the countries in which they are based, even if their leading grand prix aces are from a different nationality.
Hamilton had started to enjoy the kind of success with Mercedes that Schumacher and Vettel had before him (with Ferrari and Red Bull, respectively), but with the added credential of not having a teammate who was forced to be his sub-ordinate.
Nico Rosberg, as per Mercedes team bosses, had used every trick in the book along with his natural speed to finally get the better of Hamilton in 2016, before suddenly retiring. Valtteri Bottas did his best to challenge Hamilton as well as Vettel, but such a sudden shift to a new team possibly played against a proper title challenge for the latest Flying Finn.
Hall of Famers
Two of the 33 inductees to the FIA’s F1 Hall of Fame put on a show that definitely would have justified their place in it even if either of them had never won a title before last season. And a lot of it was down to how different circuits on the calendar favoured either the Mercedes W08 or Ferrari SF70H. With its relatively shorter wheelbase, the Ferrari was the car that handled better on circuits with more medium speed and slow corners than the Mercedes. The silver arrow was a weapon of speed on fast circuits like Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps and Monza where the prodigious power from its power unit gave it grunt, while its longer wheelbase gave it high-speed stability.
Hamilton and Vettel maximized the edge that their cars gave them, and at times it led to some truly absorbing duels. Who can forget the Spanish Grand Prix when the two really went at it or even the Belgian Grand Prix where Hamilton’s quick thinking in robbing Vettel of a tow through Eau Rouge allowed him to stay in the lead of the race and win?
With the new technical regulations allowing greater aerodynamic downforce, there were obviously races in which there was reduced on-track action. The phenomenon of ‘dirty air’ became more pronounced as lower and wider rear wings and more wing elements on the bodywork made it harder for one car to follow another through a corner. It was the price that F1 paid for the jump in speed.
Speeding Bullets
Qualifying lap records were shattered, average speeds went through the roof and even with increased weight and a ban on refuelling some race lap records were broken or closely matched. On average, pole position in 2017 was 2.450 seconds faster than in 2016, and the fastest race laps were 2.698 seconds faster. The huge increase in cornering speeds had a clear effect on this.
The long right-hand turn three at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona saw an increase of 36km/h from 2016 in the highest recorded cornering speed during a Grand Prix weekend. An insane 248km/h was the figure. The fast right hander at turn nine saw a jump of 30km/h from 2016 with a highest recorded speed of 245km/h.
But the cornering speed increase that best illustrated how much faster the 2017 cars had become was at Spa-Francorchamp’s double-apex right-hand turn of Pouhon. An increase of 46km/h for an insane maximum cornering speed of 289km/h.
Try and wrap your head around how all that translates into extra G-force that the drivers had to deal with, and how it would reduce the reaction time. Drivers throughout the grid had to raise their game in 2017 and outside of Hamilton and Vettel, there were others who clearly did so.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen dealt with separate periods of unreliability to take one and two wins, respectively, and marked themselves as the ones to watch this year if Renault makes the gains with its power unit that it has promised to. Force India-Mercedes, however, has already been turning heads as the team has punched above its weight, thanks to a talent in finding sponsors and two very capable drivers.
Yes, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon did throw away some points due to clashing on-track, but their combined points tally was still enough to give Force India a comfortable fourth place in the standings.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the team will go one better this year. Things can go awfully wrong in a hurry in F1. Just look at McLaren-Honda. From a tally of 76 points in 2016 (they scored just 27 in 2015), they fell to 30 this year to be second from last in the standings. Patience has run out at the McLaren headquarters in Woking, UK, and they decided to have Renault power this year.
Change is the only constant in F1 as the cars will look different too. The addition of the FIA Halo cockpit protection device will see to that.
Write your Comment