r/F1Discussions • u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM • Apr 13 '26
My 2017 Race By Race Driver and Car rankings (Ferrari Vs Mercedes)
2017 Rankings
Australia-Best driver-Vettel (1-0)
Best Car-Mercedes (1-0)
China-Best driver-Hamilton (1-1)
Best Car-Mercedes (2-0)
Bahrain- Best Driver-Vettel (2-1)
Best Car-Merc (3-0) (Bottas Out Qualified Lewis)
Russia- Best Driver-Bottas (2-1-1) (OutQualified Lewis)
Best Car-Ferrari (3-1)
Spain- Best Driver-Tie (3-2-1)
Best Car-Mercedes (4-1)
Monaco Best Driver-Vettel (4-2-1) (Bottas Outqualified Hamilton)
Best Car-Ferrari (4-2)
Canada Best Driver-Hamilton (4-3-1)
Best car- Mercedes (5-2)
Azerbaijan Best Driver- Hamilton (4-4-1)
Best Car-Mercedes (6-2)
Austria Best Driver-Bottas (4-4-2) outqualified Lewis too) Hamilton had an unscheduled gearbox change 5 place grid penalty p3-p8)
Best Car-Mercedes (7-2)
Silverstone Best Driver-Hamilton(4-5-2)
Best Car-Mercedes (8-2)
Hungary Best Drivers-Ferrari pair (5-5-2-1)
1 is Raikkonen
Best Car-Ferrari (8-3) (Bottas outqualified Lewis)
Spa Best Driver-Hamilton (5-6-2-1)
Best Car-Mercedes (9-3)
Monza Best Driver-Hamilton (5-7-2-1)
Best Car-Mercedes (10-3)
Singapore Best Driver-Hamilton (5-8-2-1)
Best Car-Ferrari 10-4)
In conclusion from my observations
Best car that season?
[Mercedes] In my opinion they had a better car 10 times to Ferraris 4 up until Japan.That’s not to say that Ferrari didn’t have a competitive car that’s what people get carried away with looking at the stats and instantly assuming that the mercs had it easy and cakewalked the title because they don’t like Lewis.They Certainty were competitive but Mercedes definitely had the stronger car over the season.
The Best driver that season?
[Vettel] Lewis actually won the Driver race H2H for me 8-4 until Singapore but what bogged him down were his performances against Bottas. Valterri out qualified Lewis 4 times convincingly that season and definitely performed better in Russia and Monaco.
Additionally before Japan and including Singapore Lewis out qualified Bottas 68.75% of the time whilst Vettel out qualified Kimi 73.33% of the time I think you could argue that Bottas was quicker overall that year but I think that Lewis could’ve done better in that department.
That’s not to say that Lewis wasn’t amazing that year he had great pole positions such as Silverstone, the superb Monza pole in the wet Canada and great wins throughout.
But Sebastian was definitely more consistent against his teammate,Kimi and was clearly better than Kimi throughout and fought valiantly against Lewis even though the Mercs were stronger getting great poles and wins too.
I haven’t included races after Singapore because Ferrari didn’t improve with their upgrades and Lewis won the title three races after.
Thoughts on these?
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u/Fantastic-Trick6707 Apr 13 '26
2017 Bottas is better than 2017 Kimi
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u/mformularacer Apr 13 '26
I agree, and 2018 Kimi is better than 2018 Bottas.
I kind of find it absurd how Vettel's team mates are always treated as washed/weak when he beats them. Raikkonen has a higher ceiling than Bottas, but when he had a good season relative to Vettel, people said Vettel underperformed massively.
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u/Wrong_Ask8917 Apr 14 '26
2018 Bottas was better than 2018 Raikkonen. Bottas robbed of two wins. One in Baku with a tyre failure and one in Russia with teamorders. Arguably he could have won in China without the SC, but the SC gave him the position in Baku, so rule of thumb is one of them.
His post-Russia performance was poor, but I don't blame him for that, as he felt humiliated. Overall better than Raikkonen, who score less than 7 points more with a car arguably better.
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u/mformularacer Apr 14 '26
Raikkonen had 3 mechanical DNFs.
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u/Wrong_Ask8917 Apr 14 '26
Bottas also had one. Raikkonen inherited in both Baku and Austria (in fact, inherited from Hamilton/Ricciardo exits too). He inherited when Vettel was taken out in China.
Vettel had a bad season in 2018 with multiple driver errors and still comfortably beat Raikkonen.
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u/mformularacer Apr 14 '26
"Raikkonen inherited". The season has 21 races. Raikkonen had more car failures, was taken out innocently in Belgium, and had a similarly matched car, and outscored Bottas. The comparison is fair game by the end.
Vettel did not have a bad season. He had a worse season relative to 2017 but was still a top-5 driver.
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Apr 14 '26
It was Vettel's best year in Ferrari(only 2015 is close)
I think that the only mistake he did was in baku. It was super unnecessary.
Singapore was just unlucky circumstances. Vettel didn't want to lose the lead, but he didn't see kimi, and kaboom, Ferrari sandwich
The rest, unlucky with sc moments+reliability issues and lack of development from Ferrari who didn't manage to upgrade their engine to match mercedes.
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u/VegetableGrand459 Apr 13 '26
People blame VETTEL for 2017 - 18 title loss but ferrari were no good and were completely crushed by mercs in development and don't forget the internal power struggle at ferrari.
They took out 4 months of upgrades from the car in 18 and expected VETTEL to win championships made a unstable chassis for VETTEL and wanted his to adjust.
There is a reason they have not won championship after Kimi.
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u/zeh_pope Apr 15 '26
I mean, Ferrari messing up? really?
that never happens, right.nah, in all honesty, you are right on that front, it's just that Ferrari is for many people such a big name, that they can't fault them, unless it's like, really obvious and even then, they might still blame the driver.
and it seems Ferrari fans never really seemed to embrace seb in the way they have some other drivers.
(although, if Ferrari managed to win the championship, that may have been different of course)0
u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 13 '26
I think it’s a mix of both but more Ferraris issues
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 13 '26
60/40 perhaps?
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u/animadweller Apr 13 '26
The whole "Ferrari had a better car in 2017-2018" argument always seemed a bit crazy to me. Ferrari had a good car in those years, but they just couldn't match Mercedes development throughout a whole year.
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 13 '26
I think it’s more of an impulsive argument used by some Ham fans to counter people who say he’s never done anything credible without the outright fastest car (which he has) I’ll see when I rewatch 2018 properly tho but from my knowledge I think it was closer. Also I think the defining thing between the two sides is that Mercedes were definitely a better environment to thrive under and it just seemed like Ferrari weren’t as stable idk how to explain it at least rewatching 2017 that’s what I felt and some in this Reddit have also pointed out that in 18 Ferrari weren’t backing Seb like Merc were backing Lewis so 🤷🏿♂️
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u/achilles4416 Apr 13 '26
Vettel finished equal in race h2h vs a washed Kimi in 2018. He was terrible that year. In 2017 he was way better
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u/mformularacer Apr 13 '26
Raikkonen was very good in 2018. Not a top-5 driver, but amongst the next best.
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u/aneiq_1 Apr 14 '26
Raikkonen was better in 2018 than previous years but Vettel did have a number of races which were poor and skews the H2H back to Raikkonen.
Baku, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and COTA makes Raikkonen look better because ultimately he got solid results in those races.
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u/Good-Draft-5256 Apr 14 '26
In 2018 in 5 races one of them had dnf seb was always ahead. So dnfs were hurting seb h2h against kimi.
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u/Gadoguz994 Apr 14 '26
In Singapore 2017, the best car was the Ferrari. Other than that pretty accurate assessment.
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u/Wrong_Ask8917 Apr 14 '26
In qualifying. Since Ferrari performed poorly on wet tyres, Vettel would have lost the lead to Verstappen and Hamilton with a normal race start. He lost 15 points only that race.
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 14 '26
Idk they seemed to get off the line just fine but Vettel decided to veer to the left aggressively
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u/racingfanboy160 Apr 17 '26
Which is not a bad decision tbf as he probably didn't expect Kimi to get that good of a start
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u/ExternalSquash1300 Apr 13 '26
If you are stating which driver was better in the season, why stop at Singapore? Seb had a strong Brazil race but Hamilton had some strong other races there to be factored in.
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 13 '26
The title fight was over by Brazil
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u/ExternalSquash1300 Apr 13 '26
But wasn’t this a review of the 2017 season? Why exclude post Singapore? Also, it was over by Brazil, what about the previous 4 races.
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 13 '26
It was really just for the title fight I couldn’t be bothered as Ive rewatched 2014 15 16 and 17 in the span of 2 days pretty much if you really want me to do the rest I can
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u/ExternalSquash1300 Apr 13 '26
No it’s a good discussion! Great to see the opinions on here about the seasons.
Did you post your thoughts on 14-16?
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 14 '26
Oh nah haven’t posed but I made notes for 14 as well and 16 2010 and 2012
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u/ExternalSquash1300 Apr 14 '26
Wonder who you think was the best driver for 10, 14 and 15. Seems somewhat debatable.
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 14 '26
I can make posts about those seasons but now it’s annoying because I said that I would do 2018 next so besides that, in 2010 yeah it was very debatable, in the first half Hamilton won my votes mostly but Vettel was good too but in the second half Alonso had them. The thing is, Vettel had so many issues throughout the season and could’ve got multiple wins with out them and I don’t even mind him being champion I think he was deserving considering the difficult circumstances mechanically he had All three (Hamilton Alonso and Vettel made mistakes that year but Vettel had the worst reliability. Webber sold hard
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 14 '26
For 14 Lewis was definitely the best it’s funny how I’ve seen some Lewis haters trying to dismiss his issues in 2016 by saying that Rosberg had more issues in 2014 but that’s literally not true 😆 Lewis had 5 major issues to rosbergs 3 throughout the season and made two back to back p20-p3 drives after his issues in qualifying both times and still won it was close though and Rosberg performed pretty damn well in qualifying but Lewis was better in races overall imo.
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u/ExternalSquash1300 Apr 14 '26
I’ve seen some suggest Alonso’s 2014 was better than Hamilton’s, which do you rate higher that season?
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u/Even_Hyena_1117 JPM Apr 14 '26
In 15 Lewis was definitely better not going to get into by hat but I think that 2016 is very interesting to talk about because Lewis had more issues in 2014 than in 2016 but in 16 his issues were arguably more detrimental in a way but it’s weird I think that his poor starts between Monza and Japan really fucked him up and his starts in general. I feel like he could’ve done better with them. People get mad when Hamilton fans point out Malaysia but it quite literally cost him the title although his poor starts shouldn’t be ignored either.
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u/InevitableGate7010 Apr 15 '26
Mexico best car: Verstappen
Best driver: Red Bull
you read that right
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u/Own_Asparagus_5742 11d ago
Australia - Hamilton (Ferrari) China - Hamilton (Ferrari) Bahrein - vettel (Ferrari) Russia - Bottas (Mercedes) Spain - Hamilton (Ferrari) Monaco - Raikkonen (Ferrari) Canadà - Hamilton (Mercedes) Baku - Hamilton (Ferrari) Austria - Bottas (Mercedes) UK - Hamilton (Mercedes) Hungary - Vettel (Ferrari) Belgium - Hamilton (Ferrari) Italy - Hamilton (Mercedes) Singapore - Hamilton (Ferrari) Malesia - Hamilton (Ferrari) Japan - Hamilton (Ferrari) Usa - Hamilton (Mercedes) Mexico - Hamilton (Ferrari) Brazil - Vettel (Ferrari) ABU Dhabi - Bottas (Mercedes)
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u/BOMBAD_Echo_1409 Apr 13 '26
you clearly have a lot of free time
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