Autosport's F1 experts review 2016

From the hope Mercedes would be challenged, to its eventual intra-team title fight, a disastrous and temporary qualifying format, a buyout, and the ongoing rise of future stars, Formula 1 was not short of talking points in 2016.

And that was before Nico Rosberg announced his retirement just five days after winning the world championship...

We asked our team in the paddock to review the year's highlights, low points and much more.

The panel: Ben Anderson (Grand Prix Editor), Gary Anderson (Special Contributor), Lawrence Barretto (F1 Reporter), Stuart Codling (Executive Editor), Dieter Rencken (Special Contributor), Edd Straw (Editor-in-Chief)

WHO WAS YOUR DRIVER OF THE SEASON?

BEN ANDERSON (@BenAndersonAuto): I agree with Fernando Alonso - Daniel Ricciardo was the best driver in F1 this year. Max Verstappen made more headlines, but Ricciardo was overall the better Red Bull driver, particularly in qualifying. After a slightly rocky 2015 (which was still excellent by most standards) Ricciardo got back to his best this year, and is ready for a title shot if Red Bull-Renault can provide a worthy car.

EDD STRAW (@EddStrawF1): Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian was a class act - stunningly fast, as ever, he raised his game against the challenge of Max Verstappen and deserved to win more than one race. He's a driver who is eminently capable of winning the world championship, and it would be a mistake for people to overlook how good he is amid the (very justifiable) excitement surrounding his team-mate. Ricciardo is exactly what F1 needs - a remarkable driver capable of supreme speed and sensational overtaking on track, and a personable, entertaining, engaging character off it.

STUART CODLING (@CoddersF1): Apart from a couple of races where he was palpably out of sorts, Lewis Hamilton was at his brilliant best. Viewed from trackside, he and his car are in a different league. Nico Rosberg made the most of the opportunities that came his way and was a deserving world champion, though. Hat tip to Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen and the hugely underrated Carlos Sainz Jr.

GARY ANDERSON: Max Verstappen. He has brought to Formula 1 exactly what it should be all about. He's fast, excellent at overtaking, excellent at defending and, for all his critics, he very seldom makes a mistake. He has caught the establishment asleep and that's really what's made them unhappy with him. That's what drivers of his ability do - they come in and have a way of getting to the big-name drivers. Just look at his performance in the Brazilian Grand Prix, where he found the grip, pulled off some great overtaking moves and made the race worth watching.

LAWRENCE BARRETTO (@LawroBarretto): I'm in agreement with F1's team principals that Lewis Hamilton was the best driver in 2016. He was the stronger of the two Mercedes drivers in terms of pure performance. Yes, he made mistakes, particularly with poor starts, but unreliability played a big part in derailing his campaign. He won 10 races and took 12 pole positions - more than any other driver - and the form he delivered in the final four races was mighty.

DIETER RENCKEN (@RacingLines): Nico Rosberg, who sorted his mind out in order to focus entirely on the bigger picture: beating the fastest driver of his generation driving an identical car over 21 races. True, it was fortuitous that Lewis Hamilton suffered various mechanical maladies, but the more Nico focused it seemed the luckier he got. That the world title was all Rosberg ever wanted from F1, to escape that 'son of...' label, is borne out by his extraordinary decision to retire immediately - it was a case of mission accomplished. Achievement is seldom expressed more bravely than that; dedication and focus seldom rewarded more deservedly.

WHICH TEAM WAS YOUR STAR OF THE YEAR?

LB: Force India. Fourth in the constructors' world championship for a team of its size is a remarkable achievement. It boasts a budget less than half that of the top teams, but spent it sensibly and efficiently to deliver a very strong and reliable package. It maximised its opportunities when they came and got everything out of an impressive upgrade it brought to Spain. There's little more it could have done.

ES: It can only be Force India. Several times this team has seemingly hit its glass ceiling and every time it somehow finds a way to haul itself up another place. Fourth in the world championship is a stunning achievement and while it does depend on bigger teams underachieving, its part of the bargain is to get the absolute maximum out of what it's got. Visit Force India's Silverstone base and compare it to that of one of the bigger teams, and you're left in no doubt about the difference in scale. What Force India has achieved is remarkable and is credit to everybody who works there.

DR: Force India finished a single place behind Ferrari in the overall classification despite a budget a quarter the size of Maranello's, yet, based on budget and facilities, it should by rights have trailed Toro Rosso. Expressed differently, a team that outsourced its major composite work and rented a windtunnel across the Channel managed to beat Williams despite running an identical power unit. More impressively, the management team kept the Strategy Group honest when the overwhelming instinct was surely to concentrate solely on performance.

BA: Has to be Haas. Sure it had a lot of help from Ferrari, but for a brand new operation to come in and outscore three established teams, and make Q3 several times on merit, was a truly outstanding effort.

GA: Force India. As I've said many times before, this team has punched above its weight; but more importantly everyone there has kept their mouths shut while doing it. When you have a team with limited budget, it's all about choosing the right development path and making good, sensible decisions that allow you to get the most out of what you have. By finishing fourth in the constructors' championship, Force India has done exactly that. There are good people at the team - some of them from the old days of Jordan - and in technical director Andrew Green they have someone who ensures they have a good understanding of what they are doing and why.

SC: For making a modest budget go a long way, and for not being afraid to think outside the box on race strategy, Force India deserves a lot of credit. A super-competitive but friendly team that fully deserves its fourth place in the constructors' championship.

WHAT WAS THE BEST OVERTAKE OF THE CAMPAIGN?

GA: Did anyone other than Verstappen do any overtaking? It has to be one of those. I would go for his pass on Rosberg for second around the outside of Turn 3 on the 32nd lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix. Yes, the grip was there, but you need the confidence to commit to going around the outside of a fast left-hander in wet conditions. Verstappen has that confidence in abundance, and he made the move work at a time when plenty of other drivers didn't seem to be interested in using that grip. This is why he's a breath of fresh air.

SC: It's a toss-up between Daniel Ricciardo's move on Valtteri Bottas at Monza, and Max Verstappen around the outside of Rosberg in the wet at Interlagos. Both gutsy but underpinned with great finesse.

ES: Nico Rosberg on Max Verstappen during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The details of the pass - a regulation dive up the inside completed with ease - aren't what elevate it to this lofty position. Instead, it's what was at stake. People underestimate the mental demands on elite sportspeople, and Rosberg had been told his championship depended on executing the pass on a driver who had ruffled plenty of feathers during the season. It wasn't so much the risk element, it's the fact that Rosberg - never the best in wheel-to-wheel combat in F1 - executed a perfect pass under pressure in a move he really had to commit to. The ultimate 'pressure shot'.

DR: Carlos Sainz Jr on Sergio Perez in Australia - made the move stick through sheer momentum and late braking, despite a short run-in and underpowered car. While it was a single move during the opening race, it boded well for Sainz's season, with the overtake characterising the relentlessness he displayed regularly from then onwards.

LB: Nico Rosberg's pass on Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi. Rosberg spoke of the stress that a message from his race engineer Tony Ross put on him when he said it was critical for the championship that he passed Verstappen. Rosberg had a car capable of doing it. But to do so with the championship on the line piles on the pressure. Rosberg knew this would likely be his best shot at ever winning the title. He could have cracked. But he didn't.

BA: Even though officials penalised it, I was very impressed with the way Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel rubbed wheels through Turn 4 in Mexico City - but that can't count given Ricciardo didn't actually overtake the Ferrari. Ricciardo's lunge on Valtteri Bottas at Monza was good too, but it has to be F1's top overtaker Max Verstappen again this year - for driving around the outside of Nico Rosberg's Mercedes through Turn 3 in the wet at Interlagos.

WHAT WAS YOUR HIGHLIGHT OF THE SEASON?

ES: Max Verstappen's victory in the Spanish Grand Prix will live long in the memory. Shortly before the race, as a joke I made the prediction to website editor Glenn Freeman that the two Mercedes drivers would wipe each other out and Verstappen would win - the reason being not that I seriously expected it to happen, but that this would be the perfect story in terms of public interest for F1. And it happened! But what was particularly impressive was the way Verstappen, once in the lead, kept Kimi Raikkonen under control and closed out victory like a grizzled pro rather than an 18-year-old in his 24th F1 race.

GA: Seeing a driver truly spent after finishing a grand prix. I'm talking about Nico Rosberg and, in reality, it was after a whole season, but you could see how drained he was after clinching what was a well-deserved drivers' championship. We're used to seeing drivers jumping out of cars as if they've not been trying, so it was good to see that F1 has the ability to take it out of them, even if it was only a season-long title battle that did it.

BA: Watching the Brazilian Grand Prix. Despite the rain delays, we were treated to the thrill of seeing F1 drivers trying to navigate the trickiest of conditions, some better than others!

LB: Felipe Nasr scoring Sauber's first points of the season in Brazil. The early part of the year had been miserable for the Swiss team's staff as their future remained uncertain. Not knowing whether they would be paid or if they'd still have jobs is a nasty thing to deal with. Worse still, the results on track were woeful. But those at the factory and at the track kept working hard and never gave up - and that was rewarded when Nasr seized the opportunity at a rain-hit Interlagos. You could see how much it meant to the team as they celebrated it like a victory after the race.

DR: The arrival of Haas: the US team proved that, given lead time and sufficient budget, it is possible for a newcomer - based outside F1's heartland, at that - to break into F1 and put up credible performances during its first year. True, Haas benefited from Ferrari technical support, but all was above board and the wonder is that other teams - such as the two Red Bull operations, or Mercedes/Manor - failed to avail themselves of the provisions of F1's Listed Parts regulations.

SC: The on-track action has largely been very good, but I think the most memorable moment has to be the sight of Bernie Ecclestone being pushed out of the way by a cameraman so that he could get an unobstructed shot of Chase Carey as they walked down the Singapore paddock together. It was a hugely symbolic scene.

WHAT WAS SOMETHING TO FORGET FROM THE 2016 SEASON?

DR: The number of safety car starts - these did the image of the drivers no favours, in the process turning F1 into the laughing stock of global motorsport on the basis that the so-called 'best drivers in the world' can't race in wet conditions. Sebastian Vettel suggested Pirelli's wet specification was "good only for following safety cars", and he seemed to be on the money with that comment.

SC: The absurd tug-of-war over drivers being 'coached' via team radio, which reached its nadir with Nico Rosberg's penalty at Silverstone. As with elimination qualifying, it was a very public shambles. Team radio has a vital role to play in drawing fans and casual viewers into the spectacle on television.

LB: The qualifying format debacle. How F1 found itself in a position of not knowing what the procedure would be just days before the season-opening Australian GP is ridiculous. That it then spent the next five weeks trying a new format, discussing alternatives and then decided to go back to what it had before is farcical. What other sport would allow itself to get into such a mess?

BA: The 'knockout' qualifying format that debuted in Australia and was dropped after round two in Bahrain - an example of weak strategic thinking, and hasty backsliding. It didn't really add anything to Formula 1's spectacle, except confusion.

ES: The rudderless idiocy with which F1's strategy is enacted. The second the stupid qualifying regulations were mooted, anybody who knew anything about current F1 cars - in particular the tyres - knew it was a no-go that would front-load the sessions. That it took a couple of races to be dropped was even more foolish. That's just one example, for F1 continues to be obsessed with quick-fix, easy answers and seems completely incapable of setting itself objectives, let alone hitting on a credible strategy. And, no, the 2017 regulations aren't going to solve the problems.

GA: The inability of the FIA and the stewards to come up with any kind of framework for consistently penalising drivers for infringements. How many times did we see a penalty for a driver one weekend, and nothing for another in the next race despite a very similar problem? That, combined with drivers' abuse of track limits without penalty (although sometimes with penalty in certain cases - another example of the inconsistency) makes the results of many of the races deeply questionable. This is something that needs to changed and, like so many things, it's the lack of interest in fixing it that's the problem.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST SURPRISE OF 2016?

LB: It's an obvious answer, but I can't look beyond Nico Rosberg's shock retirement. No-one saw it coming. Keeping secrets in F1, especially in this digital age, is tricky. But Rosberg did a tremendous job. Even people close to him didn't know until a few hours before it was made public. It was a bold and classy move and one that will long be remembered.

GA: Kimi Raikkonen getting the upper hand on Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari. Don't get me wrong, Kimi is a very competitive driver, but Vettel was signed by Ferrari to be the wonderboy and the team leader. He was just that in 2015, but in '16 he wasn't up to the standard. Going into '17, I can't see that changing. Fernando Alonso would take any car, no matter what its limitations were, and wring its neck, whereas Vettel seems to need to have a car built for him that suits his style. You need the best drivers to be adaptable, and that's what Ferrari needs from Vettel.

BA: World champion Nico Rosberg announcing his retirement from Formula 1 at the FIA's prizegiving ceremony in Vienna. I think he caught everyone out with that one!

ES: Not Nico Rosberg's retirement, although that came close, but the fact that he was able to win the world championship in the way he did. Once Hamilton had fought back from his troubled start, it seemed inevitable Rosberg would be defeated. But while fortune played a part, the way Rosberg withstood incredible pressure to rack up four second places in the final races was astonishing. It was a very positive surprise as well, for Rosberg is a likeable, intelligent individual who dug incredibly deep to win the world championship. Was he the best driver of the year? No. But a worthy champion? Yes.

SC: That the elimination qualifying system was introduced, even though it was obvious that it was never going to deliver the added excitement its exponents dreamed of. People on the Strategy Group knew this, but voted it through anyway so that it would fail in public, enabling them to score points against Bernie. The sport was the loser here. Pathetic.

DR: Red Bull's turnaround. As team boss Christian Horner said, Red Bull was seriously concerned it might not finish in the top five in 2016, yet the team won two grands prix and placed second in the championship. True, outright performance was some way off Mercedes, and both victories came courtesy of dropped balls by the champion squad, but teams need to be 'in it to win it', and Red Bull was waiting in the wings on both occasions.

WHO OR WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR?

SC: Sparsely populated grandstands at Hockenheim and a general sense of ennui at an event that used to be one of the most vibrant in F1.

LB: Sebastian Vettel. The German enjoyed an impressive first year with Ferrari in 2015, raising expectations for this campaign. But he failed to add to the three wins he collected last year. He almost took second from Nico Rosberg in the drivers' standings last term, but finished a distant fourth in '16. And he struggled to comfortably outperform team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in the way he did so successfully last tear. Even the man himself has said his '16 performances have not been strong enough.

GA: McLaren and Honda. Sixth in the championship seems to be considered a good result, but between them they should be getting their act together by now and be fighting at the front. At the very least, McLaren-Honda should be able to mix it with Ferrari and Red Bull, but this year it has been a midfield team. For both sides of the partnership, 2017 is going to be a very important season. A big step needs to be taken with the engine and the car, because while Honda is a weakness, not everything can be blamed on it.

DR: Ferrari's implosion. Where the team had taken the fight to Mercedes in 2015, this season it went backwards from management through the ranks to the drivers - with public criticism from the very top hardly helping morale.

ES: The lack of a credible challenger to Mercedes. For three years, F1 has been all about whether or not Mercedes would drop the ball and throw away wins, which it did only rarely. This is not the fault of anyone at Brackley or Brixworth, who should be very proud of their achievements. Instead the blame lies with those outfits, specifically Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari (and their respective engine suppliers/divisions), who should have done better. F1 is in desperate need of a genuine two-team (or more, if we can dare dream) title fight.

BA: Ferrari. F1 really needed the prancing horse to reach full gallop this year, after winning a smattering of races in 2015, but the scarlet stallion went unexpectedly lame in '16, and got outpaced by a Red Bull...

IF THERE WAS ONE THING YOU COULD CHANGE FROM 2016, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

LB: That Lewis Hamilton's engine didn't expire when he was leading the Malaysian Grand Prix, because it put Nico Rosberg in control of his own destiny and therefore took the spark out of the title battle.

DR: Inconsistent stewarding and penalties such that drivers eventually played it safe rather than going for it - is it any wonder live and TV audiences dwindled further in 2016? F1 needs to issue penalty tariffs per transgression type in much the same way as court benches are guided by sentence parameters. Stewards would be called upon to justify any deviations.

ES: The tiresome conspiracy theories surrounding pretty much everything. The obvious example is the risible idea that Mercedes was deliberately holding back Hamilton's title push. Yes, he had far more problems than Rosberg. Yes, he was desperately unlucky. But no, it wasn't all some evil plan. He's not the first driver to lose the title to reliability problems and there's no problem with him being upset about it, but it's deeply tedious that the team constantly has to address such claims thanks to public clamour. It would be wonderful if people spent more time considering the detail and the facts rather than jumping on a bandwagon that fits their world view.

BA: That F1 hadn't started each of its wet races (Monaco, Silverstone, Interlagos) behind the safety car. I can understand the need to ensure the track is safe, but it's frustrating to watch the early racing laps tick by without a proper standing start. Thankfully F1 will do away with this practice in 2017, and not before time.

GA: There are lots of things, mainly related to the sporting regulations and how it would be possible to carry out some very easy changes to make it more understandable for the viewer. For any layman, and even for the enthusiasts, things are just too complicated and inconsistent. You can't understand what's going on unless you have every app under the sun up and running in unison, and even then they are not linked to what's happening on screen. This just adds to the confusion of the whole thing. F1 needs to do much better.

SC: I wouldn't have let Group Editor Anthony Rowlinson throw our bicycles in the back of a car and drive them to Hockenheim. The traffic situation didn't warrant it, mine now has a massive gouge in its paintwork, and getting changed in a one-cubicle portable loo shared by every male inhabitant of the media centre is more gross than you can imagine.