By now you know the drill. Every year I chronicle the Formula 1 season, covering the races. I’ll also offer occasional thoughts on the way the season unfolds. Like with 2015 and 2016, I’ll also offer up a few words previewing the 2017 season, which sees a few changes – in fact, it sees several changes, in more ways than one.
The main difference this year is the width of the cars. They are 150mm wider (1800mm compared to 1650mm) and 800mm in height, compared to 950mm in 2016. The idea of lower, wider cars is to create more downforce, leading to faster racing, that tests a driver’s ability more. In particular, corners will be faster, and these changes to the cars have also led to changes in tyres, with more durable compounds letting drivers pusher harder, for longer.
Overall, the result is to make cars more challenging to drive. There have been concerns that overtaking will be more difficult, but DRS remains, and at the time of posting this, we are three races in (yes, I’ve been lazy this year), with overtaking still happening in China and Bahrain (Australia, no so much). It’s more challenging, but that’s the point – the new rules will make it clear who can race hard, and who can’t.
The Teams
