After three years of dominance, the big question was whether Mercedes could stay on top in 2017 through the major aerodynamic rule changes. As for Ferrari, was this a chance to recover from a poor previous season and get back into the game?
The answer to both questions was yes, with both teams fighting for the championship until Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel lost momentum, thanks to the start crash in Singapore and then failures in Malaysia and Japan.
In pre-season testing, we could see differences in approaches between the cars. Both teams tried to maximise the distance from the front wheels to the leading edge of the sidepods to allow the maximum time to control the airflow, but in very different ways.