F1 2017 has been a season of speed, regulation changes and brilliant battles. But what are the final qualifying head-to-head scores?
Monday 27 November 2017 13:35, UK
F1 2017 has been a season of brilliant battles, but for all the points collected, races won and titles secured, there is still only one reference point for any driver - their team-mate.
And after 20 enthralling qualifying sessions, what better way to compare two drivers than by looking at their head-to-heads? Come this way…
Lewis Hamilton has taken the all-time pole record this season and dominated Valtteri Bottas - a good qualifier in his own right at Williams - but it was close between the Mercedes drivers before the summer break.
Since then, however, the world champion has beaten his new-for-2017 team-mate in seven out of nine sessions, his only blemishes coming when he crashed out in Q1 in Brazil, and in Abu Dhabi. Even more concerning for Bottas is that most of those defeats came by a margin of more than half a second.
Head to head: Hamilton 13-7 Bottas
Average gap: Hamilton -0.331s Bottas
Sebastian Vettel has been in control at Ferrari.
Kimi Raikkonen out-qualified his team-mate by 11 to 10 in 2016, but title challenger Vettel was reignited by the rules refresh with his only qualifying losses coming in Monaco, Azerbaijan, Great Britain, Italy and Malaysia - when the German didn't even set a lap.
Head to head: Vettel 15-5 Raikkonen
Average gap: Vettel -0.275s Raikkonen
Daniel Ricciardo may have scored more points than Max Verstappen at Red Bull, but it's the Dutchman who has reversed his 2016 deficit into a comfortable qualifying advantage this season.
Verstappen even enjoyed a six-weekend streak of intra-team victories ahead of the Japanese GP, though the two are still very evenly matched. They have been separated by less than a tenth of a second six times.
Head to head: Verstappen 13-7 Ricciardo
Average gap: Verstpapen -0.128s Ricciardo
After many a tight battle with Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez welcomed a new team-mate at Force India in 2017.
Esteban Ocon struggled at first but has certainly impressed in his first full season in F1 - and is getting better and better on a Saturday. He beat Perez in four consecutive qualifying sessions prior to the penultimate race in Brazil - no mean feat.
Head to head: Perez 13-7 Ocon
Average gap: Perez -0.074s Ocon
Lance Stroll has struggled on Saturdays in his rookie F1 season next to an experienced campaigner in Felipe Massa at Williams. Massa was beaten 17-4 by Bottas last year but has been utterly dominant in 2017 - with an average advantage of 0.6 seconds.
However, it's fair to say Stroll's two qualifying victories have been memorable. Stroll beat Massa in Azerbaijan before a stunning podium finish, and also got the better of his team-mate when dazzling in the wet to start on the front row in Italy.
Head to head: Massa 17-2 Stroll
Average gap: Massa -0.621s Stroll
It's been a season of change at Toro Rosso.
First, the highly-rated Carlos Sainz continued his superiority over Daniil Kvyat, though it was closer than many expected before Kvyat was unceremoniously dumped.
Pierre Gasly then replaced the Russian, and the team have now settled on a Gasly-Brendon Hartley partnership for 2018.
Head to head: Sainz 8-6 Kvyat, Gasly 1-1 Hartley
Average gap: Sainz -0.114s Kvyat, Gasly -0.343s Hartley
The most comprehensive qualifying record, by far, went in Hulkenberg's favour at Renault, with Jolyon Palmer failing to match the German even once.
Palmer, while hamstrung by reliability, also suffered the widest average gap to a team-mate on the grid, and Carlos Sainz has immediately got closer to Hulkenberg in his few attempts.
Head to head: Hulkenberg 15-0 Palmer, Hulkenberg 3-1 Sainz
Average gap: Hulkenberg -0.738 Palmer, Hulkenberg -0.198s Sainz
It's been relatively closely matched at Haas, where Kevin Magnussen has given Romain Grosjean much more competition than Esteban Gutierrez in 2016.
Head to head: Grosjean 12-8 Magnussen
Average gap: Grosjean -0.190s Magnussen
Out-qualifying Fernando Alonso is no easy feat, just ask Jenson Button, but Stoffel Vandoorne will have been disappointed not to have got closer to the two-time world champion in the first half of the campaign.
However, he has secured two Saturday victories over his team-mate at McLaren since the summer break - giving him plenty of optimism for 2018.
Head to head: Alonso 16-3 Vandoorne
Average gap: Alonso -0.319s Vandoorne
The closest battle on the grid this season has been at Sauber, with Pascal Wehrlein, who missed the first two races, just ahead of Marcus Ericsson. The Swede has come out on top in five of the last eight shootouts, though.
Head to head: Wehrlein 11-7 Ericsson
Average gap: Wehrlein -0.049s Ericsson
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