It’s been a week and a half since we saw Nico Rosberg take the 2016 World Championship at Abu Dhabi, and then a few days later, abruptly retire.
But there’s not time like right now to offer an evaluation of every team’s performance, starting with the teams that aren’t necessarily the quickest on the grid, the backmarkers: Manor, Sauber, and Renault. This could take awhile, and speaking of things that can take a while, let’s start with Manor.
Manor Racing
Manor had a very decent season this year. After being incredibly far off the pace in 2015 after encountering large financial difficulties, the team was rebranded and focused on one goal for the 2016 season. Points.
The car for the season was probably the worst car all round, but it was a huge step up from last season. The car focused largely on straight line speed, and didn’t quite have the downforce of its competitors, hence the better performances at tracks like Canada and Austria, but weaker performances at places like Monaco and Singapore.
As for the drivers, Pascal Wehrlein was a standout all season, constantly finishing in positions that were much better than where the car really should have been, and was a great driver all-round, especially for his first season at F1.
Rio Haryanto, who had his last race at Germany as he ran out of Indonesian sponsorship money, wasn’t as good as a driver, but was still strong and did reasonably well. Estaban Ocon was a great driver, almost just as strong as Wehrlein at some times, and fully deserves his seat at Force India next year.
Overall, Manor should look to be reasonably strong if they continue this momentum they have, but watch for a struggle in this offseason to get their seats filled in time for 2017.
Sauber F1 Racing
Sauber had a difficult season this year. Not only did their drivers fight with each other, largely as a result of on track incidents, but they only just managed to get in front of Manor at the second last race of the season in Brazil.
The car for the season was very similar to the car from 2015, largely due to the amount of financial issues that Sauber came across, and it wasn’t especially great compared to anyone else in any aspect.
As for the drivers, Felipe Nasr struggled from confidence issues all year and has faded into the background since 2015. He only managed to get points courtesy of a retirement and accident filled Brazilian Grand Prix, and was quite lucky. Ericsson wasn’t great either, but both drivers I will estimate will be back for 2017, despite Sauber’s ongoing talks with Mercedes for the services of Pascal Wehrlein.
Overall, Sauber had a write off of a season that both team members and fans alike would best forget and move on to the new era of Formula One for next season.
Renault Sport F1 Team
No one was expecting very much from Renault at the start of the season. The Lotus take over took far too long to finish, and unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to get the car ready for 2016.
The car was basically the Lotus from the last year with a few smaller adjustments, and is something I’m sure Renault wasn’t happy with. However, looking to next year we know what Renault can do, so expect a strong performance for next year.
The drivers were an interesting combination of Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer, and I have mixed opinions about the line-up. Magnussen was a strong enough driver who handled himself well on and off the track, and fully deserves the seat at Haas next year, even if I’m not entirely convinced that it was a great move for his career.
Palmer, however, wasn’t the best. His inexperience wasn’t helping him, he was rarely quicker than his team mate, and become increasingly frustrated in interviews off track. I’m surprised he retained the seat, especially when Renault must be full of ambition for a title next year.
Overall, a write off of a season for Renault, but it wasn’t ever going to be good anyway, they didn’t have enough time after the takeover to properly develop their car.
The battle between all the backmarkers showed that each team’s car’s strengths were all very different.
The Manor we’ve already looked at – fast in a straight line but not nearly good enough in high-downforce circuits.
Then you had the Sauber, which wasn’t really a great car all round, and didn’t really excel in any certain condition compared to rival teams. I really don’t feel that Sauber deserved to beat Manor, but that’s just me.
The Renault, which wasn’t great in a straight line or in corners, but had a better all-round package than the Sauber, and had enough downforce in high and low-speed corners to be quicker than the Manor.
So as a result, the on-track racing has been a bit all over the place due to the specific strengths of each car, but we have seen some tight battles over the season. Most in the paddock and the fans enjoyed drivers like Wehrlein punch well above their weight.
Hats off to the backmarkers, they’ve given us some good racing, even if they do get the odd Ferrari driver mad at them for blue flags every now and then.
Can any progress into the mid-field battle next year, or beyond? We’ll take a look at the mid-field battle from 2016 next.
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