Why F1 2017 is exposing drivers

One of the objectives of the 2017 Formula 1 regulations was to make the cars more challenging for the drivers. But how can you know whether or not this has been successful?

Right from the start of pre-season running, with several drivers including Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas, getting caught out during the first test, it seemed there were more errors. And when Daniel Ricciardo binned his Red Bull during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, that seemed to confirm it.

But a few incidents and accidents here and there do not constitute evidence. Instead, a look at qualifying times can give a pointer of the difficulty; or, at least, the difficulty of extracting the maximum from the car over a single lap.

In 2016, the average gap between team-mates was just 0.215 seconds. That's the smallest average gap in the past 30 years. This year, that gap has increased to 0.471s.

It should be noted that these numbers are the raw ones, based upon the gaps at the latest stage of qualifying in which both drivers participated. So in the case of the Russian GP, it's the gap between Hulkenberg and Palmer in Q1, even though the German made it to the top 10 shootout.

This also does not eliminate qualifying sessions in which a driver set a time but that was not representative because of, for example, yellow flags or a car problem. That said, excessively large gaps are discounted.

But as these numbers are being compared to every year back to 1986, given the difficulty of fairly eliminating all counts of an uneven comparison, the view is taken that these should even up over a season - even though a set of four races for this year is on the small side.

The reason the analysis only goes back to 1986 is simple. Even then, cars and engines were far more often fielded with significant specification differences, making comparisons harder.

If you go back beyond that, say into the 1970s when there were occasions teams only had a single set to qualifying tyres to give to their quicker driver, the comparisons become even less valid.

How F1 team-mate performance has changed

Average qualifying gaps between team-mates from 1986 to 2017

The first thing that strikes you here is the broad trend towards gaps getting smaller over time. In 1986 and '87, the average gaps are over a second. That supports the idea that the mighty, fire-breathing turbos of that period were very difficult to tame when unleashed in qualifying.

There's clearly some truth in that, as tales of drivers wheelspinning up the hill to Casino Square at Monaco in high gears attest. But the specification and preparation standards, particularly down the field, do have to be kept in mind.

As does the fact that, in these more professional days, even without much opportunity to test drivers come into F1 with greater levels of technical and physical preparation than they did three decades ago.

Interestingly, there is a signpost suggesting that difficulty of driving isn't the fundamental question. It's more about adapting to differing challenges.

As well as this year's increase in gap between team-mates, it's a similar story in 2014, 2009 and 1994 - all three of those are seasons with major rule changes.

In 1994 there is a strong effect that appears to carry over into the following season, with gaps pushing a second before returning to approximately the same level in '96 as they were in '93 (in the 0.6s bracket).

This is consistent with the fact that the '94 changes, which eliminated active suspension, traction control and anti-lock brake systems (one or more of which all '93 teams except for Scuderia Italia were utilising), were intended to make life tougher for drivers.

However, 1994 was also a year with a large number of driver changes, so there were inexperienced and underprepared ones turning up on a regular basis. The fact the trend continued in '95 seems to indicate this wasn't an overwhelmingly significant factor, however.

This seems to suggest the frame of reference for this is less about cars being difficult to drive and more difficult to adapt to. You might argue that the fact the two rookies on the 2017 grid, Stoffel Vandoorne and Lance Stroll, are struggling undermines this, but they are both having to adapt to very different types of F1 cars to those they first learned in.

It might even be the case that the mileage Stroll has completed in a 2014 Williams has worked against him!

If we accept that this effect of growing team-mate gaps is real - and the evidence is very much provisional given the limited 2017 data set compared to the previous years - what might the reasons be for it?

Many immediately go for the increased physical challenge, but this seems to be a red herring. All drivers in F1 these days are very fit, if anything they were overtrained for the previous generation of cars.

There's little sign of those team-mates who are struggling suffering particularly from the increased lateral g-forces or those under braking, so let's set that to one side. The fact is, we're never going to see 1980s-style exhaustion because the drivers are far, far fitter than they were three decades ago.

So we need to look elsewhere. What is clear, certainly in terms of adapting to the changes rules, is that the 2017 tyres can bite you when at the limit. Understanding how to get the best out of them has proved a challenge.

"The tyres are a bit more complex than last year," says Ricciardo. "Yeah, they've got more grip, but it's kind of harder to find that grip.

"And when you don't have that grip, as we saw in Australia...[you go off]. They seem a bit more peaky, probably, and I think we're getting on top of that."

It's tempting to conclude that everything is related to the tyres for that reason. It tallies with the fact that even top drivers such as Ricciardo are getting caught out, and the fact that adapting and understanding is critical.

But ask the driver with the best qualifying record compared to his team-mate in 2017, Nico Hulkenberg, whether it's just down to the tyres and he suggests "that's too simple". And he is right.

His average advantage over Jolyon Palmer of 1.776s is distorted by the car problems Palmer has endured (in Australia he had a rollbar problem and had to carry a heavier fuel load, and he hit yellow flags in China), but Hulkenberg is capable of mighty qualifying performances and it's perhaps no great surprise that he's hauled the Renault into Q3 on three out of four occasions. So what is Hulkenberg doing that Palmer isn't?

Arguably, this is where the driver skill element comes in. This is something Hulkenberg has struggled to show quite so powerfully, certainly not on a consistent basis, during the Pirelli era prior to this year.

As Fernando Alonso said during the Australian Grand Prix weekend, compared to last year's cars these "are in a different category and more in the direction of F1". That was in the same interview that he quipped you no longer have time to have a coffee before correcting a moment.

While this effect might well remain, it will be interesting to revisit the 2017 qualifying gaps at the end of the season. In the case of Palmer, he has shown a formidable ability to learn and improve himself so it's very likely his performances will improve as he gets on top of the characteristics of the car and the tyres.

This is where the whole 'difficult to drive' line of argument becomes a little less emphatic. These are, give or take, the best drivers in the world. They are well prepared, supported by vast amounts of data, intelligent (well, for the most part) and hugely capable. Certainly more so, no matter all the romanticism, than some of the drivers who turned up 30 years ago. They weren't all Nigel Mansell, after all.

These cars are very difficult to drive, and the performance envelope at the limit is smaller and more critical. But that doesn't necessarily mean that last year's cars were extremely easy to master - simply that, in the third year of the regulations, drivers and teams were on top of the demands and the differences got ever-smaller.

It'll be fascinating to see if that pattern is the same come 2019, with drivers once again qualifying two-by-two and complaints about the need to make the cars harder.

Professional sport in the 21st century is all about marginal gains and tiny differences. Two-tenths of a second is a much bigger gap than it was 30 years ago, after all.