F1 2017, team-by-team: Who needs a big year?

Welcome to F1 2017, and while you might think it doesn’t truly start until the cars turn a wheel in Barcelona in February testing, the building blocks laid over the past few months have been essential to create a solid bid for a successful season.

Apart from knowing if Manor will be on the grid or not, and a couple of all-but-officially-announced deals, we know who is going to be driving what and where this year.

And where else do you start but world champions Mercedes, who clinched a third drivers’/constructors’ title on the trot – then had reigning champion Nico Rosberg retire, and team technical chief Paddy Lowe exit to Williams!

Here we investigate one key piece of the 2017 jigsaw from each team: Does it fit? Does it create a winning picture?

Valtteri Bottas, Williams, and Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1, battle for position

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Mercedes: Valtteri Bottas

It’s hard to come up with a set of circumstances quite like those that should lead Bottas, stout upper-midfielder of the F1 parish, to get his dream seat alongside three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.

Nico Rosberg’s race boots will be big ones to fill. On the plus side, Bottas is no rookie. He’s scored a ton of points in his four seasons with Williams, as well as three front rows and a couple of runner-up places. At 27, he’s likely entering the peak years of his career and he’s already led three grands prix – albeit briefly.

I have this nagging parallel in my mind about Mika Hakkinen joining McLaren alongside Ayrton Senna in 1993: It feels like Bottas has to really shake the tree early on, like Hakkinen did on his McLaren debut in qualifying at Estoril, to lay down an early marker against Lewis.

Of course, that spurred Senna into genius victories in Suzuka and Adelaide – and that’s the kind of thing you feel Mercedes wants out of this from the Hamilton side too. Someone who will keep Lewis on his toes, so his mind doesn’t wander with all his off-track distractions.

Even with its new-look machinery, if F1 2017 is anything like the past three seasons, we need Bottas to thrive for the sake of the championship.

Verdict: Bottas has to step up his game to match Hamilton, never mind beat him.

Adrian Newey, Chief Technical Officer of Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull: Adrian Newey

With Daniel Ricciardo cast as the darling of the post-season media top-10 driver polls, and Max Verstappen’s jaw-dropping feats at such a tender age, there’s little that Red Bull’s wheelmen need to prove.

Instead, the man who truly has to be on the money – as he’s been so many times previously in F1 – is its technical genius Newey.

With a TAG (Renault) engine that’s now vaguely in the ballpark, thanks to updates that actually proved effective, the ball is now back in this brainbox’s court to deliver a title contender that will shake Mercedes’ comfortable little world.

You know it still rankles with him that he ‘missed’ the double diffuser trick of the 2009 aero rules reset, (despite his determined rebound from that perceived injustice) and you just know he’s been chomping at the bit to get another shot at creating a new breed of chassis that will slay the competition once again at the first attempt.

At 58, has he still got it in him, amid all the distractions of designing boats and hypercars, and supporting his son Harrison’s racing career?

Verdict: Pension off Newey at your peril! Can’t wait to see this car.

Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari World Finals in Daytona

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Ferrari: Aero department

Sergio Marchionne had all the brooding menace of Tony Soprano when he delivered his verdict on “significant holes” in Ferrari’s F1 development, as he sat before the media at the Ferrari World Finals in Daytona. Having ordered a mid-season root-and-branch review of the way his F1 team goes about its business, the main area that he believes required attention was in-season aero development.

In fact, Ferrari’s late-season performances seemed much improved, but how much of that was down to the opposition switching focus to their 2017 cars?

Marchionne seems adamant that the Scuderia doesn’t need a “great hero” to turn around its fortunes (although it must strike a chord when Mercedes lauds ex-Ferrari man Aldo Costa for its recent run of success).

With James Allison following that route from Maranello to Brackley, you hope that those who remain are getting their sums right for 2017. Or there could be consequences…

Verdict: The pressure is on, and when has that ever helped at Ferrari?

Esteban Ocon, Sahara Force India F1 VJM08

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Force India: Esteban Ocon

To say the Silverstone-based team worked wonders in 2016 isn’t far wrong. It absolutely maxed its car’s potential, and beat Williams in a straight fight. Firmly established as a top-five team, it’s a fantastic environment for the highly-rated youngster Ocon to be parachuted into.

His nine races with Manor aren’t a great sample set to judge him by, but flashes of performance were shown, and he’s now got a decent databank to build on in this era of little pre-season testing time.

It will be fascinating to see how he handles the leap from tail-ender team to a top-five one, and seasoned campaigner Sergio Perez will no doubt be planning to knock him out of the park as he continues to attempt to prove he’s worthy of a drive with the top teams.

Verdict: If he aces it against Perez, Ocon has a huge future in store.

Podium: Paddy Lowe, Mercedes AMG F1 Executive Director celebrates on the podium with Nico Rosberg

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Williams: Paddy Lowe

If it wasn’t for Rosberg’s retirement, this would have been the hot topic of the winter at Mercedes. The man who guided the Silver Arrows – from a technical and engineering standpoint – won’t be running the show from the Mercedes pitwall this year, we understand, but will be a few doors down at Williams.

It will be somewhat of a homecoming for Paddy, who worked at Williams (most notably as the software genius behind its active suspension programme) before making his name over two decades with McLaren.

What Lowe’s exact role will be remains unclear, but his intimate knowledge of how the finely-honed Mercedes team has operated will certainly be of huge benefit to Williams.

Defining that exact role in which he can thrive will be interesting, though. It wasn’t so long ago we were worried that Williams was about to become the next Tyrrell or Brabham, such was its lack of results.

I think we’ll learn a lot about Lowe’s true effectiveness by how the team’s fortunes go from here.

Verdict: A coup for Williams, but Massa/Stroll is hardly Hamilton/Rosberg.

McLaren Honda

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McLaren: Honda

As this partnership enters its third year, the time for cutting Honda some slack is well and truly over. Coming to the hybrid-turbo era a year late didn’t help, but the worrying aspect has been how Honda has always seemed a year behind where it needed to be. That simply cannot become a habit.

Its ‘size zero’ idea is set to be dropped, which is aided by the scrapping of the engine token system.

We all know what this partnership is capable of; history has proven that. But one can’t live in the past. One can’t win without the other. It’s a cohesion that needs to bond, and we’re past the excuses stage.

We’ll be into the blame game if it doesn’t make a serious move up the grid this year.

Verdict: As McLaren enters a new era, so too should Honda.

Carlos Sainz Jr., Scuderia Toro Rosso STR11

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Toro Rosso: Carlos Sainz

Seems strange to suggest this, given that Sainz figured highly in many F1 top-10 Driver lists. The way in which he coped with being overlooked in favour of the Max Verstappen freight train was impressive, and he really kept his head held high.

The temptation to leave the Red Bull family must’ve been high, with Haas and Renault options open, but now his challenge remains to keep in the spotlight.

Toro Rosso reverts to Renault engines from using Ferrari units, which might be a backwards step in terms of power output. Sainz needs another season like his last one, and then we’ll see how his future might pan out.

Verdict: Tough ask to repeat those three top-six finishes.

Kevin Magnussen, Renault Sport F1 Team

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Haas: Kevin Magnussen

We need to talk about Kevin.

On one hand, just like his dad, you have this fantastic driving talent. He couples amazing ability with a Viking-like resilience, and not many people could have shrugged off that massive shunt at Spa so quickly.

On the other hand, just like his dad, you wonder if he’s his own worst enemy sometimes. On occasion he can come across as not seeming to care much, and paradoxically at other moments appears belligerent when he should just go with the flow.

His Haas move is logical, as there’s great potential here, and his relationship with the sometimes spiky Romain Grosjean will be fascinating to watch. Meantime, Gunther Steiner’s a chap who won’t stand for any nonsense.

This could go one of two ways…

Verdict: His third shot with a different F1 team is one he has to grab.

Nico Hulkenberg, Renault F1 Team

Photo by: Renault F1 

Renault: Nico Hulkenberg

A bit like with Sainz at Toro Rosso, you’d have feared for him going stale if he’d stayed at Force India – despite some impressive results (yet, freakishly, still no podium finish). And being outscored by teammate Sergio Perez for the past two seasons certainly wasn’t improving his stock…

He’s craved a shot at a ‘factory’ drive, and he’s had a near-miss with Enstone before. Renault, like McLaren-Honda, has the wherewithal to operate towards the very top of F1. But right now it’s a very long way away from those glory days of yore.

In Hulkenberg, it has a guy who knows the score. Is this the opportunity where he finally realises all that he’s promised for so many seasons? There are some great ingredients here, but can they cook up a storm together?

There’s been one speedbump already, with Frederic Vasseur, a huge fan of his talents, walking out on the team before the season has started. It’s not another story of what might’ve been, is it?

Verdict: Renault has chosen wisely, but Vasseur’s departure is a big worry for him.

Marcus Ericsson, Sauber C35 and Pascal Wehrlein, Manor Racing MRT05 battle for position

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Sauber: Pascal Wehrlein

You can only imagine the range of emotions that this young lad has been through since Rosberg announced his shock retirement. Yet from the excitement from being on the cusp of joining the reigning world champions, to the, er, dismay of being consigned to a year instead with Sauber. With all due respect, can you get a bigger gulf in class?

That’s a lot to suck up. And the pain of being overlooked by Force India in favour of the less-experienced (in F1 terms) Ocon must also hurt really bad too.

On the plus side, we’ve seen enough from him at Manor to know that he is clearly F1 standard, and has great potential. But even the best boxers have to take mighty blows to the solar plexus. It’s how they roll with those punches that counts.

Verdict: You can only fiddle with the violin you’ve got – chin up, son!

Pascal Wehrlein, Manor Racing MRT05, Esteban Ocon, Manor Racing MRT05

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Manor: New investors

What else is there to say? The news that Manor is again in administration is hugely disappointing, especially after showing decent progress last year. There’s a good bunch of people here, and it would be such a waste to lose them.

Verdict: White knight is required, and quickly!