Gary Anderson: How F1 teams really performed in 2017

The world championship points table doesn't lie, but while points make prizes things can happen on race day that don't give a true picture of how the teams did this year.

Motor racing is all about performance, so to understand that better it's possible to track the ultimate pace of the 10 chassis over the course of the season.

To do this, I take the fastest single lap per team from each of the 20 cars each weekend and turn that into a percentage of the outright fastest. Averaging these over the 20 races this season gives a 'supertime' to rank the pace of the cars.

How the 2017 F1 field stacked up

Comparing the outright pace of the 10 teams this season

The teams are listed in pace order, rather than championship order. This gives us a performance number for each outfit, but we also need to dig deep into where and why certain cars have performed well and badly.

The lead battle

Comparing the pace of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull

1 Mercedes: 100.085%

Another drivers' and constructors' championship double for Mercedes, but a less dominant season than the previous three as it struggled, particularly in the first half of the year, with a car that had a narrower operating window and was difficult to get the best out of.

The Mercedes was a complex car with plenty of components to optimise. Extending its wheelbase increased the gap from front axle to the bargeboards and sidepods to give more chance to control the airflow. This was a different approach to the one Ferrari took, and unlike the other leading teams Mercedes didn't run with pronounced rake.

Ride height is very critical, and there seemed to be times where it struggled to get the best out of the car in the slow and medium speed corners. A small change of ride height can make all the difference, and with the cars bouncing around over the kerbs in these type of corners Mercedes had less stability than it would have ideally liked and found it harder to keep the car in that working window.

But as the season progressed it did a good job to make the car more benign and improved the tyre management. On average, it was usually the fastest car, but we saw less of a difference between qualifying and race day performance as the season went on.

Most importantly, and most worryingly, the fact Mercedes got on top of its problems will have made it an even better team this year. The competition will have its work cut out to beat it next year.

2 Ferrari: 100.263%

Ferrari had a more consistent car than Mercedes, and certainly in the first part of the season looked after its tyres better and was often strong on race day. But as the season progressed, that pattern became less clear.

Overall, you have to say that Ferrari had a car that was capable of winning the world championship. The reliability problems and Sebastian Vettel's costly errors took away that opportunity, and that's something that needs to improve for next year.

Mercedes had problems and got on top of them, but Ferrari didn't. Over the second half of the season it seemed to lose its race tyre management advantage without really gaining any extra pace in qualifying.

At the start of the season, I questioned whether it could develop its complex bargeboard/sidepod concept. While Mercedes extended its wheelbase to give the maximum time to control the airflow off the front tyres, Ferrari cut back the sidepods and had an intricate aero design. With small detail changes this area seemed to improve as the season went on and I think there's more to come next year.

But I would question whether Ferrari was getting the most out of its diffuser, and we saw some tests late on in the season suggesting it's looking at another direction for next year.

Considering where Ferrari was last year, this was a good step forward. But it's a team that should be fighting for and winning championships every season and this must be built on next year.

3 Red Bull: 100.958%

When the Red Bull first appeared at the start of the season, and I said this at the time, the car clearly lacked that 'wow factor'. When you look at all the pieces on the Mercedes and Ferrari and how they worked together, Red Bull was clearly behind by comparison, which was a surprising.

As the season progressed, the Red Bull improved a lot but the slow start to the year meant it was on the back foot throughout. It needs to be sure that it starts strongly next year, because if the Renault engine takes the required step the chassis will also need to be at its best.

Red Bull certainly improved and it won three races, but right at the end of the year it seemed to fall off a bit. I do wonder if there's some reason for that - perhaps something on the car had to be altered because it wasn't felt to be quite right? A lot of getting the best out of cars is about ride height management and the tools you have to control that have been gradually eliminated, with the FIA keeping a close eye on things. But it might just be that Red Bull had problems with Renault reliability and that held it back in the final couple of races.

The Renault is clearly the weak link. It doesn't have that extra boost in qualifying, and if you take the rule of thumb that 10bhp is worth about a tenth of a second, it doesn't take much of a knob turn from the other cars to gain an advantage. Red Bull only got both cars to the finish seven times out of 20 attempts, and Renault problems were the main cause of that.

We need to see a step from Renault, and a Red Bull design that performs at the top level from the start of the season. If that happens Red Bull will be a serious title threat in 2018.

The fight to be best-of-the-rest

How the remaining teams compared over the season

4 Renault: 102.186%

Renault only just nicked sixth place in the constructors' championship in the final race of the season, but was best of the rest on average.

Overall, I don't think it was a good season for Renault, but the positive thing is that it did end the season much better off than it started it. Enstone was run down under the previous ownership, a lot of people left and it takes time to rebuild - that's what we are now seeing from this team.

To end the season both qualifying and finishing as best of the rest with Nico Hulkenberg in Abu Dhabi (the only other races Renault achieved this were the British and Belgian Grands Prix), is a boost going into the winter. It proves Renault is going in the right direction chassis-wise, and if it can maintain that direction with the engine package also improving then 2018 could be much better for it.

Looking at the team in the pitlane at Silverstone, it was noticeable how tatty it looked. But that did improve as the season progressed and we also saw car improvements with the bargeboard detailing, for example, becoming more sophisticated.

Having Carlos Sainz Jr alongside Hulkenberg at the end of the season and into next year can only be a boost. Not only is Sainz a good driver, but with the best will in the world even a top driver such as Hulkenberg can be at risk of not getting the best out of the car when not being pushed if things aren't going so well.

Renault has a big step to take next year, but the battle with its engine customer teams Red Bull and McLaren will be an interesting one.

5 Force India: 102.199%

It's hard to fault Force India. In F1 terms, it's still a small team even though it is growing gradually. But if I was there, going into the winter I'd be a little bit worried.

Fourth in the constructors' championship is fantastic and good financially, but maintaining that position will be tough next year. But it was tough to do it in 2016 and '17 and it achieved that - which was an exceptional performance.

Talk of going for third this year was always optimistic given how big the gap is in terms of both performance and resources to the top three, but being a stronger fourth was realistic. Force India only scored 14 more points more than last year, but more concerningly the team was 0.480% worse off on performance compared to 2016.

It was still a very solid job from a team that has been consistently good in recent years. I said at the start of the year that what I most wanted to see from Force India was more consistent double-points finishes - and it managed that 16 times in 20 races, which shows how sharp a race team it is.

So, all in all, good, but given how the end of the season went there's going to be a lot of pressure to hold onto fourth with teams such as McLaren and Renault rising in 2018.

6 McLaren: 102.510%

McLaren was a dismal ninth in the constructors' championship with only eight points finishes. The Honda engine was the limiting factor, and one of the most interesting stories of 2018 is going to be how the McLaren performs with a Renault engine.

McLaren keeps shouting about how good its chassis is, but one of the things I've criticised about it this year is how it's run as a package with its engine. It's down on power, and you have to try and get the best out of it, but the downforce levels McLaren runs were questionable. Look at Spa, where it ran the car in a way to be quick in the twistier middle sector rather than focusing on a balance for the whole track. There was no desire to work as a unit with Honda.

This might seem excessively critical of McLaren, but I suspect there would have been the chance for a few better results had the team taken this approach. Drivers shouldn't be getting out of the car and saying it's great, that suggests too much downforce - which induces too much drag at certain tracks.

But next year, with the Renault engine, there will be a clear measure. The chassis certainly was good, but we'll see just how good McLaren can be.

This year seemed to be all about getting out of the Honda deal for McLaren rather than working with it to achieve the potential. Let's hope things go better with Renault.

7 Williams: 102.624%

It's very difficult to assess Williams, other than to say that it seemed to continue this slow slide from the high-point of 2014 when it more often than not had the second-fastest car.

It had a new driver in Lance Stroll, who showed at times he's pretty talented and could hang in there in the races once he had track position, but too often didn't qualify well. Felipe Massa was fine, but there are some question marks about the consistency of the driver line-up. The slow process of deciding who will partner Stroll next year is also concerning.

What I didn't see this year was much sign of a new direction under Paddy Lowe, who joined Williams for 2017. I didn't see so much coming during the season, which is strange, with next year's regulations so similar there's no reason not to be bringing development parts. There was also again a bit too much trial and error on developments - I've never seen a team back to back so many parts so often.

There were some good moments - Massa might have won in Baku had he not suffered the damper failure - and there were some strong weekends, but the car also seemed very erratic. Williams also had the biggest slide in its overall pace from 2016 to '17, which is a concern.

Next year, I want to see a clear and obvious philosophy in the Williams car, and perhaps that's when we will start to see Lowe's influence. There seems to be a fair bit of confidence in the team about the car, and with Renault and McLaren on the up it's going to need to be good even for Williams to hang onto fifth place.

8 Toro Rosso: 102.730%

At the start of the season, Toro Rosso was picking up some good results with Sainz in particular turning in some good performances even if Daniil Kvyat wasn't getting the results. But the team tripped over itself as the season progressed, scoring just one point in the last six races and losing sixth in the constructors' championship.

You have to judge a team by the decisions it makes and the change of both drivers at the end of 2017 hurt and will hurt even more for '18 as far as the finances are concerned. Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley are decent drivers, but you can't just throw two drivers into the car and expect points scoring results at the end of the season. Doubly so when you are battling reliability problems and working on adapting to a Honda switch. Whatever the reasons, the car didn't get the results it should have done late in the year.

I've worked with technical director James Key and he's a clever guy who will be able to give the team the direction it needs. But there were some problems this year and I'm not sure if it's down to the budget or the approach the team took.

But I'm confident that if Honda fulfils its potential, Key will be able to do so on the chassis side as well. If that happens, then things could be very positive for Toro Rosso in the long-term but it may just have to use 2018 to build the relationship with its new engine partner.

9 Haas: 102.858%

You could argue Haas is where you'd expect, finishing eighth in the constructors' championship, but the relationship with Ferrari means it should be doing better.

As it can use a lot of off-the-shelf components, Haas should be in a position to concentrate its resources on the performance areas. But the inconsistency is startling. The team has struggled to get on top of the braking system, particularly with Romain Grosjean - and as we've seen when things go wrong for him he has a habit of multiplying those problems.

He is the last of the late brakers and locks up constantly. I remember Eddie Irvine once telling me in Montreal that he could brake later than the car! But you can't, and to get the best out of it you have to dial it back, work with the car and try to make it better from there.

Grosjean was erratic, with some good and bad days, and while Kevin Magnussen seems to be quite competent and drove superbly in Mexico, he makes a lot of mistakes and isn't reliable week in, week out.

Gene Haas will have expected better, and if I was him I wouldn't be happy. Haas needs to be holding its own consistently in the midfield and needs to be less erratic.

10 Sauber: 104.129%

It's difficult to say too much about Sauber, as this season was all about preparing for the future. As we saw from Barcelona testing, the car had no major vices, it just didn't have the grip thanks to lack of development. That, plus using the year-old Ferrari power unit package, meant it was always going to be a tough year and Pascal Wehrlein did well to pick up a couple of top 10 finishes.

There has been a change of management and personnel and the relationship with Ferrari is being built upon with the Alfa Romeo deal. If I was Sauber I'd go as far as possible down the line of becoming a Ferrari B-team, and having Charles Leclerc there next year as part of that is a positive thing.

Down the line, maybe Sauber can aim to stand more on its own two feet, but right now its best chance is aligning with Ferrari.

The development war

Comparing each teams' performance across five phases of the season

By dividing the season into five blocks of four races and taking the average of each team's supertime within those blocks, you get a good feel for the development rate of the various cars. It takes a few races to get the best out of new parts, so this evens things out.

It's notable that Mercedes actually dropped off as the season progressed, even though its results got better, suggesting it did sacrifice peak performance for consistency. Ferrari was more even through the year, ending it much where it started.

Red Bull made a big improvement after a dismal start, and we also saw the overall spread of the 10 teams close up slightly from the start to finish of the season.

Performance swing

Who made progress and who fell back under the new rules

With major aerodynamic rule changes, it was always likely that the field would get spread out. Only Renault and Ferrari, who both had below-par 2016 seasons, took steps forward with the rest, on average, worse off.

Mercedes stayed roughly where it was, with its slight slip back reflected in the fact that Ferrari was more competitive this year and that it wasn't so consistently the outright fastest car on a given race weekend.

But ultimately, Mercedes was the strongest over the balance of the season again.