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2017 F1 season ratings: Mercedes

Writer's picture: Andrew ZarbAndrew Zarb


With the 2017 Formula One season officially over, it is now time to reflect on the performances of each team as well as its drivers.

Mercedes

Arguably the team who won did not design the best car. However, what won the constructors' championship for Mercedes was the impressive reliability with only one retirement all season - that of Valtteri Bottas in Spain who suffered a PU (Power Unit) failure when he had to revert back to an older spec engine. However, the car was not consistent and struggled massively on the low-grip tracks, such as Monaco where they were nowhere to be seen, and even in Hungary they struggled and finished behind both Ferraris (same in Monaco). They struggled as well in Singapore, in fact qualifying fifth and sixth, and won through Sebastian Vettel's carelessness by taking out Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen as well as taking himself (Sebastian Vettel) out, as the probability of a Ferrari victory was extremely high. However Mercedes had some outstanding performances of their own, such as in Monza where they achieved a 1-2, and this feat was replicated in Great Britain, Canada and Abu Dhabi. It is also worth noting that Mercedes had the most race wins of any team (12), and if they get their car to be more consistent next year, then do not discard a dominant season from the team who survived a major rules change and still won the championship.

Lewis Hamilton

A brilliant season by the British driver to ultimately become World Champion for the fourth time. His pole laps were at times dynamite this year and his ability to pull one out of the bag was notable, particularly in Spa (Belgium) and Malaysia. Also, some of the margins by which he claimed pole position were impressive - a margin of 0.547s in his home Grand Prix (Great Britain) and a simply outstanding lap in the wet at Monza where he qualified ahead of Max Verstappen by 1.148s for me highlighted how he is the best driver over a single lap and for that fact he now boasts the record of most pole positions of all-time, a simply brilliant achievement.

Also, his race wins were at times dominant and it is worth pointing out that he achieved 3 grand slams (starting on pole, winning the race, setting the fastest lap of the race and leading every single lap). One of his evident weaknesses last season was his poor starts however he clearly addressed that.

For all the positives of Hamilton's season, it was by no means perfect. On low-grip tracks, he struggled and this was noticeable in Russia where his team-mate Valtteri Bottas extracted more out of his machinery on these types of circuits - for example in Monaco this was very clear, and even in Hungary although to a lesser extent. Also, his crash in Brazil during qualifying was a very clumsy one, which is arguably his only blot in his copybook. Also, you could argue that Hamilton dipped after winning the championship and was not 100% focused.

However, you cannot deny that Hamilton had a superb season and he is a clear deserved winner of the World Championship as he was the best driver during the 2017 season and he gets my pick for Driver of the Year, having claimed most pole positions (11), wins (9) and fastest laps (7) (the figures refer to this season).

Valtteri Bottas

He was hired by Mercedes to replace Nico Rosberg who announced his shock retirement just 5 days after winning the 2016 World Championship. If you expected a struggle for the Finn, particularly at the start of the season, then you would not have been far-fetched especially given that it takes time to adapt to a new team.At the start of the season he was actually very impressive and performed much better than many expected - he took just 3 races (of the 2017 season) to grab his first pole position and although he did not convert that into a win, he did win the following race in Russia. He also claimed one other victory during the first half of the season in Austria where he made a perfect start, albeit it is still highly debatable whether that was by luck (which is what I believe was the case) or judgement, in which case he was brilliant. By the first half of the season Bottas had claimed two victories and 8 podium finishes which considering he stepped into that team in mid-January, it was highly impressive and it could be argued that he was still in with a shout for the 2017 World Championship.

However his form dipped massively during the second half of the season and was well off Hamilton's pace (although you should take into account - at least in my view - that Hamilton stepped up his level of performance after the summer break) and some of his results were disappointing, notably his fifth place in USA and him throwing away third place at Spa following a sloppy restart. He did improve towards the end and gained pole position in Brazil, although he was not aggressive enough defending his position going into the first corner. It should be noted on the other hand that his performance in Abu Dhabi was very good and he won that race on merit and claimed pole on pure pace.

On the whole, it was a decent season for the Finn, and I believe that he deserves his contract extension for next year with Mercedes, but he will have to step it up next season and prove that he deserves to remain with the team for 2019 (and possibly beyond), particularly when you take into account the fact that Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo's contract expires next season.


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