2017 Formula One World Championship

The 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 71st season of Formula One motor racing . It featured the 68th Formula One World Championship, a motor racing championship for Formula One cars which is recognised by the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) , as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars . Teams and drivers competed in twenty Grands Prix —starting in Australia on 26 March and ending in Abu Dhabi on 26 November—for the Wor...

The reigning Drivers' Champion Nico Rosberg was originally due to drive for Mercedes in 2017. He announced his retirement from the sport in December 2016 after winning his first drivers' World Championship, so the 2017 season was the first since 1994 in which the reigning champion did not compete. [ 1 ] Mercedes started the season as the defending Constructors' Champion, having secured their third consecutive title at the 2016 Japanese Grand Prix . [ 2 ]

2017 was the first genuine inter-team title battle for five years. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes had to contend with a resurgent Ferrari team with lead driver Sebastian Vettel heading the championship for the first 12 rounds and challenging deep into the twenty race season. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] At the conclusion of the championship, Hamilton won his fourth World Drivers' Championship title. Hamilton finished 46 points ahead of Sebastian Vettel in second with 317 points and Valtteri Bottas in third wi...

Season report

The start of the season was tight between the title contenders, with various analysts describing the Ferrari SF70H as initially the more consistent car in race trim. [ 94 ] [ 95 ] [ 96 ] Sebastian Vettel led the championship for the first 12 rounds (more than half the season) but never by more than 25 points. Vettel's loss of self‑control when he chose to barge Hamilton in Baku was the most incendiary incident between the pair, in a season in which there was a friendly mutual respect. [ 97 ] How...

Scoring system

Points were awarded to the top ten classified finishers in every race, using the following structure: [ 101 ]

In order for full points to be awarded, the race winner must completed at least 75% of the scheduled race distance. Half points were awarded if the race winner completes less than 75% of the race distance provided that at least two laps are completed. [ N 6 ] In the event of a tie at the conclusion of the championship, a count-back system was used as a tie-breaker, with a driver's best result used to decide the standings. [ N 7 ]

Table 1

('Entrant', 'Entrant')	('Constructor', 'Constructor')	('Chassis', 'Chassis')	('Power unit', 'Power unit')	('Race drivers', 'No.')	('Race drivers', 'Driver name')
Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari	SF70H[9]	Ferrari 062[10]	5 7	Sebastian Vettel Kimi Räikkönen
Sahara Force India F1 Team	Force India-Mercedes	VJM10[11]	Mercedes M08 EQ Power+[12]	11 31	Sergio Pérez Esteban Ocon
Haas F1 Team	Haas-Ferrari	VF-17[13]	Ferrari 062[10]	8 20	Romain Grosjean Kevin Magnussen
McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team	McLaren-Honda	MCL32[14]	Honda RA617H[15]	2 14 22	Stoffel Vandoorne Fernando Alonso Jenson Button
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes	F1 W08 EQ Power+[12]	Mercedes M08 EQ Power+[12]	44 77	Lewis Hamilton Valtteri Bottas
Red Bull Racing	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer	RB13[16]	TAG Heuer F1-2017[17][N 1]	3 33	Daniel Ricciardo Max Verstappen
Renault Sport Formula One Team	Renault	R.S.17[19]	Renault R.E.17[19]	27 30 55	Nico Hülkenberg Jolyon Palmer Carlos Sainz Jr.
Sauber F1 Team	Sauber-Ferrari	C36[20]	Ferrari 061[21]	9 94 36	Marcus Ericsson Pascal Wehrlein Antonio Giovinazzi
Scuderia Toro Rosso	Toro Rosso	STR12[23]	Toro Rosso[17][N 3]	26 10 28 55	Daniil Kvyat Pierre Gasly Brendon Hartley[N 4] Carlos Sainz Jr.
Williams Martini Racing	Williams-Mercedes	FW40[25]	Mercedes M08 EQ Power+[12]	18 19 40	Lance Stroll Felipe Massa Paul di Resta

Table 2

('Constructor', 'Constructor')	('Practice drivers', 'No.')	('Practice drivers', 'Driver name')	('Practice drivers', 'Rounds')
Force India-Mercedes	34 35	Alfonso Celis Jr. George Russell	9, 11, 18 19–20
Haas-Ferrari	50	Antonio Giovinazzi	10–11, 14–15, 18–20
Renault	46	Sergey Sirotkin	4–5, 9, 15
Sauber-Ferrari	37	Charles Leclerc	15, 17–19
Toro Rosso-Renault	38	Sean Gelael	14–15, 17–18
Source:[29]	Source:[29]	Source:[29]	Source:[29]

Table 3

Round	Grand Prix	Circuit	Date
1	Australian Grand Prix	Albert Park Circuit, Melbourne	26 March
2	Chinese Grand Prix	Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai	9 April
3	Bahrain Grand Prix	Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir	16 April
4	Russian Grand Prix	Sochi Autodrom, Sochi	30 April
5	Spanish Grand Prix	Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló	14 May
6	Monaco Grand Prix	Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo	28 May
7	Canadian Grand Prix	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal	11 June
8	Azerbaijan Grand Prix	Baku City Circuit, Baku	25 June
9	Austrian Grand Prix	Red Bull Ring, Spielberg	9 July
10	British Grand Prix	Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone	16 July

F1ABY Commentary

Consider this: all the talk about Hamilton’s raw speed… does anyone truly believe a single driver can overcome a strategically engineered team like Mercedes? The whispers from Brackley suggest a calculated shift, a deliberate dialing back of aggression. Rosberg’s departure left a void, a vacuum filled not with a successor, but with a simmering resentment within the Silver Arrows. Don’t mistake ambition for naivety. The championship, as always, will be won not on the track, but in the boardrooms.

Don’t let the champagne bubbles fool you; Rosberg’s departure was a calculated move, a strategic extraction of the most dangerous element from Mercedes’ meticulously crafted dominance. The vultures circling now—Ferrari, Red Bull—they’re not simply vying for a title; they’re dismantling the very foundations of Brackley’s reign.

F1ABY Trivia

The air around the Petronas garage hangs thick with the scent of burnt rubber and suppressed ambition. Hamilton’s Mercedes, a 2. 0-liter turbocharged V8, consistently delivered 670 horsepower – a frankly brutal figure considering the McLaren Honda engines were still wrestling with 580. It’s not just about the numbers, of course. The McLaren team’s insistence on pushing the MP4-30’s Pirelli tire compounds to the absolute limit, even when telemetry screamed at them, was a calculated gamble, a desperate attempt to unsettle Hamilton’s predictable dominance.

Hamilton. Always Hamilton. Six poles, four victories – a brutal, almost unsettling dominance. Consider the attrition rate this year; ten races completed, and a staggering twenty retirements. It suggests a fragility within the machinery, a willingness to gamble that, frankly, isn’t paying off for most. The Mercedes team, for all their resources, seems to be wrestling with a devil they can’t quite exorcise.

F1ABY Tales

The rain hadn’t washed away the stench of desperation, had it? Hamilton’s face, a mask of barely contained fury, reflected back at the pit wall. Wolff was a study in controlled calm – a dangerous quality when your driver is this close to snatching everything. Heard whispers circulating that Mercedes had quietly adjusted the rear wing angle during the break, a subtle shift designed to maximize downforce in the tricky conditions. Don’t mistake it for a simple fix; this was calculated, a calculated gamble with the championship hanging in the balance. Rosberg, of course, remained stoic, a glacial presence observing the chaos. The question isn't *if* Hamilton will push, it’s *how much* he’ll sacrifice.

The rain in Baku hadn’t washed away the stench of ambition, had it? Hamilton’s face, slick with spray and something darker – frustration, perhaps – suggested otherwise. You could practically taste the simmering resentment between him and Wolff. The Silver Arrows boss’s clipped instructions during the pit stop, a barely perceptible shift in tone, weren’t directed at the weather. No, that was a carefully calibrated message: “Prove you’re worth the seat, Max. ” A quiet reminder that loyalty, in this corner of the garage, is a commodity to be earned, not given. The young Verstappen, meanwhile, seemed almost amused, a subtle tightening of his jaw the only outward sign of the battle raging within.