The all-important stats from 2017 at the mid-season break
Friday 18 August 2017 21:05, UK
Vettel v Hamilton going down to the wire?
Only 14 points split Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton at the top of the Drivers' Championship and the stats show F1 2017 is set-up to be the closest inter-team battle in years.
The Ferrari and Mercedes drivers have four wins apiece and they have both led seven races so far this season, although Hamilton has led more laps (262-221).
But Vettel has finished ahead of his closest title challenger on seven occasions and has also claimed more podium finishes (8-6).
Perhaps surprisingly, Vettel and Hamilton have not shared the podium since May's Spanish GP, having both been in the top three in four of the opening five races.
And while Hamilton leads Vettel 6-2 in terms of pole positions, the German has claimed one more front-row start than his rival (8-7).
Overall, Mercedes retain a slight edge on race days having won six times while Ferrari have four victories.
But there are yet to be back-to-back winners in 2017 after 11 races - the last time that happened was in 2013 when Vettel won the 11th race, as he did this year, and went on to win all of the remaining grands prix on his way to his fourth championship.
Mercedes still qualifying kings…but is their dominance on the wane?
Before this season, Mercedes had only been beaten to pole on three occasions since the introduction of hybrid engines in 2014.
But the Silver Arrows' 'diva' W08 has seen them already lose out to Ferrari on three occasions on a Saturday this season - in Russia, Monaco and Hungary.
On each occasion, neither Hamilton nor Valtteri Bottas has been on the front row - the only previous time this had happened in the hybrid era was Singapore 2015.
But Mercedes' ability to turn the wick up in Q3 means more often than not they have topped a Qualifying session.
Hamilton has claimed six poles, four more than any other driver, and he is now just one short of matching Michael Schumacher's all-time record of 68 career poles.
The Briton also has the best pole-win conversion rate in 2017 at 66.6 per cent while Bottas and Vettel both have a 50 per cent conversion rate. Kimi Raikkonen is the only other driver to have taken pole in 2017, claiming his first since the 2008 French GP in Monaco, but finished second in the race behind Vettel.
Mercedes' competitiveness means they have the joint-closest qualifying head-to-head between team-mates, with Hamilton leading Bottas 6-5. That is matched by the Toro Rosso duo with Carlos Sainz edging Daniil Kvyat.
Jolyon Palmer is the only regular driver yet to out-qualify a team-mate before grid penalties are taken into account, while Stoffel Vandoorne has the next-worst record, having only out-qualified his team-mate on one occasion.
Force India F1's Mr Consistants…
"We have the most consistent car," Esteban Ocon declared at the British GP and F1 2017's stats certainly do that justice for Force India. The Silverstone-based team lead the way in terms of laps raced, having racked up 1,334 laps since the season opener in Australia.
That puts them four laps ahead of world champions Mercedes while Ferrari sit third in the table with 1,297.
Ocon and team-mate Sergio Perez have both finished in the points in nine of the 11 races, which matches the achievements of Ferrari duo Vettel and Raikkonen and is only bettered by Mercedes' Hamilton and Bottas.
Ocon is also the only driver other than Hamilton and Vettel to have completed every race this season. The 20-year-old has now recorded 20 consecutive finishes since his debut for Manor at last year's Belgian GP and he is closing in on Max Chilton's record for most consecutive finishes at the start of an F1 career (25)
...while Red Bull in unwanted territory
After eight did not finishes, two did not starts and the general lack of reliability in the Honda power unit, it would be expected that McLaren would be trailing the field when it comes to number of laps raced.
But it is, in fact, Red Bull who are propping up the field in that respect, despite sitting third in the Constructors' Championship.
Predicted to be Mercedes' closest challengers in pre-season, the former world champions have completed the relatively paltry 928 laps, some 80 fewer than McLaren who are second bottom.
Incredibly, there have only been three occasions when both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen have finished a race in 2017 - in China, Monaco and Great Britain.
Verstappen has retired from five grands prix - the joint-most of any driver with Fernando Alonso - and has completed the fewest laps at 398.
But Ricciardo takes his chance
One race led, one race victory. Given Red Bull's issues, their drivers have had to take any chance presented to them to maximise their result and Ricciardo did just that to win in Azerbaijan.
The Australian started 10th on the grid and it represented the lowest starting spot a driver had won from since Fernando Alonso came from 11th at the 2012 European GP.
And Baku remains the only race where Red Bull have legitimately led this season once pit stops have been completed.
Ricciardo's victory was part of a five-race streak in which he finished on the podium - a run in 2017 only bettered by Vettel's six consecutive races from the start of the season, while Bottas is currently on a five-race streak of his own.
Records tumble as F1 regains its speed
2017's more aggressive cars may have only hit the initial target of a four-six second per lap improvement at two races so far this season, but there is no doubt that F1 has got its speed back.
Record qualifying lap times have tumbled at every circuit and there has also been new race lap records set in Russia, Monaco, Azerbaijan and Great Britain.
With F1 2017's tyres not showing the same levels of degradation as previous years, drivers have been able to push throughout races and the average race lap gain on 2016 has been 2.749 seconds, with the greatest improvement of 4.927 seconds by Hamilton's Mercedes at Silverstone.
Williams remain the pit stop kings
Williams won last year's DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award, and despite F1 2017's wider, chunkier tyres, there appears little sign of them giving up their crown.
The Grove-based team have recorded the fastest stop in seven of the first 11 races, with a best time of 2.02 seconds when servicing Felipe Massa in the British GP. No other team has managed to go below 2.23 seconds, something Williams have done on four occasions.
Williams' benchmark was 1.92 seconds in 2016, will they manage to once again break the two-second barrier after the summer break? Their pre-season training certainly appears to be paying off.
Pressure rises on point-less duo
Eleven races down and just two of the 20 regular drivers remain without a point - Renault's Palmer and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson.
Palmer's second season in F1 has been the stuff of nightmares. While he has had his fair share of bad luck and unreliability, there is no hiding from the lack of pace and errors he has made on race weekends.
Five times he has ended a session with his RS17 in pieces in the barriers and he has been comfortably out-performed by team-mate Nico Hulkenberg. Palmer has yet to out-qualify the German on track and only once, in Austria, has he finished ahead in the race.
With Robert Kubica stepping up his F1 comeback, Alonso and Sainz linked with moves to Renault and Formula 2 and Renault development driver Oliver Rowland eyeing the step up, Palmer needs a rapid upturn after the summer break if he is to keep his seat.
Apparent links to the team's owners should mean Ericsson is more secure at Sauber but the Swede trails Pascal Wehrlein 7-2 in qualifying, while the German has twice finished in the top 10.
Ericsson has not finished in the points since the 2015 Italian GP, 40 races ago.
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